Day 9 - Las Cruces to El Paso

Wow, our last day in the Southwest is here. Because we need to return our rental car by 2PM we've planned only one stop for today. White Sands is the world's largest gypsum dune field.


When we get to White Sands, our first and only stop of the day, the visitor center hasn't even opened yet. The park itself is already open so we start with the Dunes Drive, an eight mile scenic loop from the visitor center into the heart of the dunes.

Our first stop is the Dune Life Nature Trail, a self-guided walk along the edge of the dune field. It has panels with information about the animals and plants that live in the dunes with a separate section for kids narrated by Katy the kit fox. Really nice for kids of all ages ;-)

There's a lot more vegetation here than in the heart of dunes.

Especially the interdunes have a lot of plant life.

It's fascinating learning about the different ways the plants have adapted to the ever shifting dunes. We find out that some of the 'bushes' growing from the sand are actually trees of which only the top is showing and how the yucca will grow taller to keep up with the moving dunes, but collapse when the dunes move away again.

The pavement ends, but the sand is densely packed and handles nicely.

Recent rains have left a large puddle. I like seeing the reflection of the dunes in the water.

There are many pull-offs along the way and we decide to climb up the dune to see what it looks like now that we're getting closer to the heart of the dunes. It's a nice view, but nothing to knock your socks off. It's a very steep climb though and I get this surreal looking picture looking down from the top.

It looks almost like the moon!

Sandy coming down. Can you tell how steep it is?

Tracks in the sand. Kit fox maybe?


We get to the heart of dunes and start out on the Alkali Flat trail. Walking the entire trail would take too long, but we decide to just walk part of it. It's a strenuous hike, constantly up and over the steep dunes and we find out later it's marked for experienced hikers. Oops!

The scenery here is beautiful.

There are four different kinds of shapes the dunes take. I forgot what they are called, but I love this one

We've walked for about a mile when I spot these bushes in the distance.

We were about to start heading back, but now I'm determined to see them up close. It doesn't look very far, but I know that distances are not what they seem like here, plus it's completely off the marked trail.

Of course that doesn't stop me (Sandy has more sense and stays behind) and after more than half a mile of up the slope, down the slope and repeat, I reach the bushes. They're really nothing special, but still they look cool. They're evidence of the dunes constant shifting; the roots hold the sand together where the dune used to be. The dune moves on, but the bush stays behind.

This part of the dune is lower than where I left Sandy and I'm greeted with a view of nothing but white. You can tell it's really easy to get lost in this area and you really need a GPS when going off trail.

With my GPS it's easy to find my way back and I'm running part of the way to get back quickly, when I suddenly spot a tea light candle a few feet from me in the sand. Oh wait! That's not a candle!

The military sometimes uses the air space above the western side of the park for missile testing and sometimes debris lands in the park. There are signs warning hikers not to pick up, touch, or approach anything suspicious because it might explode and here I am standing right next to one. Yikes!

Hey, there's Sandy! (you might need to click it for the bigger picture. She's the dot in the middle)

Our shoes are completely sand logged and I take mine off for the walk back to the car. The wind is cold, but the cool sand feels really nice under my feet. Apparently it doesn't get very hot in the summer ... good to know.

I took this picture on our way out of the park. I like the snowcapped mountains in the distance.

The visitor center is open on our way back and we watch a nice movie about the park. We learn that the visitor center itself is pueblo-adobe architecture.

We say goodbye to White Sands and soon enough we're in Texas.

One of the coolest water towers I've ever seen.

We make it to the airport in plenty of time, only to find our plane is running 30 minutes late. We have only one hour between flights, but luckily our connecting flight is running late also and we get there just as boarding starts. It's after midnight when the shuttle drops us off at our car. There's more than two foot of snow surrounding the car! It takes a snowplow and lots of manual labor to dig out the car, but finally we're on our way home.

Unfortunately, things are no better at home and there's nowhere to park on the street. And so it is that after travelling all day we find ourselves shoveling the driveway at 2 o'clock at night. Back to reality! Haha.


Total mileage for today: 171 miles

Day 8 - Willcox to Las Cruces

On paper, Willcox to Las Cruces is the worst leg of our trip. We're really in the boonies here and there aren't a lot of attractions to stop at along the way. We have only one stop planned on our five hour drive.

The signs to the park are pretty easy to follow, but as soon as we leave Willcox behind the road turns to dirt. It's been raining steadily for the past few days and we briefly consider turning around. There are muddy puddles on the road, we no longer have 4 wheel drive and we'd be stuck in the middle of nowhere. Houses here are few and far between.

We decide to keep going and luckily the little dirt road connects to a paved road after a few slow & bouncy miles. It is actually a straight road.

Woohoo! No more hairpin turns for a while

It's supposed to be only partly cloudy today, but menacing clouds have filled the sky. Notice too how the scenery has changed again. The cacti and bushes are gone, there is nothing but whitish grass as far as the eye can see.

Cute bull

We make it to the park without incident, only to find the park is engulfed by clouds and fog! You can't even see the mountains in the distance.

It's drizzling when we get to the visitors center and we sit down to watch a brief movie about the park's history. The ranger at the station tells us that the road going into the rest of the park is closed (we assume because of the fog), but that we can hike any of the trails.

We start out of the lower Rhyolite Canyon trail. Supposedly after 2.5 miles or so you get to the rock formations the park is famous for.

As you can tell there's still some snow on the ground.

The higher we climb, the more snow we find and there's a big change in the plants surrounding us.

Here you can really see the difference in the vegetation between the different altitudes.

Finally we get a glimpse of the eroded rock pillars:

The really nice views are still a ways up ahead, but the altitude is making it hard to keep going. There's also snow everywhere at this point and the trail is pretty slick in some spots so we decide to turn around.

I'm feeling the water in the stream. I thought that with all the melting snow running into it it'd be freezing, but it's just a little cold.

A close up of my new hat. It feels like the perfect southwest souvenir to me :)

The lower elevation of the park has quite a few strange bushes with orange/reddish bark and we decide to stop by the visitors center to ask what it's called. If it can withstand snow and 100+ degrees temperatures it can probably grow in Maryland too!

When we start to ask the ranger about the strange bush, she interrupts us as says "so I guess you heard the road is open now?" Uh, no ... turns out they opened it just 5 minutes earlier after they cleared all the ice. We get so excited about the road having opened up that we have no idea what she said the bush is called haha.

Our first view from Massai Point. The mountains are obviously still shrouded in fog & clouds.

Great view from the outlook tower. I wonder how many people will get to see it the way we saw it today?

A look into the valley below.

A small balancing rock. Most of the formations in the park actually have names. This one probably has a name too.

The trees are all frozen

The first part of the trail hasn't been used in a while. The snow is completely untouched and it's hard to see where the trail leads. Somehow I manage to make it back to the parking lot in one piece.

On our way back the weather is starting to clear up.

We pass through Willcox again on our way back, but decide to drive someplace else for lunch. The restaurants there were just really run down and our stomachs are still upset from last night.

We pass the New Mexico border. Our 5th state in 8 days!

It's only 5pm when we reach Las Cruces. I read somehwere that it's apparently New Mexico second largest city. I don't know if that's true ... everybody always talks about Albuquerque and Santa Fe, but it looks pretty substantial from the highway. Like Willcox it's a little shady; lots of run down motels and yards littered with trash.

Our hotel for tonight is really nice though! It's being remodeled and so it's not as fancy as some of the other hotels we've stayed at, but the owners go out of their way to make sure we have everything we could possibly need.

There's still a little bit of sunlight left so we head for nearby Mesilla, a settlement from the 1800s with a rich history.

One of the restaurants.

We take the hotel owner's advice and dine at a Mexican place called La Posta. Quirky decorating and several tropical birds make for a great atmosphere and the food is delicious. Another great day!

Back to the snow tomorrow. Hopefully we can stop at a dollar store somewhere and pick up a couple of kids shovels to dig out the car. Wish us luck!

Mileage for today: 282 miles

Day 7 - Phoenix to Willcox

Warning: Large amount of pictures may cause page to load slowly

Our first stop of today is at Casa Grande National Monument. On the picture you see the large central adobe known as Casa Grande, but there are many smaller adobes surrounding the large one, although they did not withstand time nearly as well. As you can see in the picture a canopy now protects the monument from the elements.

Casa Grande is one of the best preserved examples of Hohokam architecture today. Archeologists frequently excavate parts of the area to learn more about Hohokam culture. It is thought that Casa Grande may have been built as a primitive "calendar". This model shows what the inside once looked like

I did not take any pictures of the inside because many people had scratched their names in the walls. It wasn't until later that I realized that was done by people who lived more than a hundred years ago ... wow, and I thought that was just a recent development!

This beautiful owl was taking a nap up in the rafters.

Next up is Rooster Cogburn's ostrich ranch. It's one of those things that you add to your program and you're kind of scratching your head going "is this really a good idea for a stop?"

YES! It's a great idea! We had so much fun playing with the animals. There are a ton of ostriches spread out over the property. Here's me feeding the ostriches

Can we have some more please?

They have really hard beaks and they do bite, so Sandy preferred to feed the gentler animals like the donkeys

There was also a goat feeding station. They were too cute for words!

And deer

Mad cow, or mad deer? They look pretty goofy up close haha

After feeding all the animals outside we went in the Lorikeet enclosure. They waste no time getting in line to feed. Here one just landed on my head.

Their tongues are blue and stubby!

On the way out we spotted this little fellow in the parking lot. It's a road runner. Beep, beep!

Where before it had kind of drizzled, the wind really picked up now and we had to drive through some pretty intense dust storms. Here's one right off the road

The plan was to visit Saguaro NP East later today, but as we're driving to our next stop we suddenly find ourselves in Saguaro NP West. I'd planned the park as our last visit today so we could watch the sunset between the cacti, but the sun is nowhere to be found. The western side of the park is supposed to be nicer anyway, so we change our plans and stop by the Red Hills visitor center

.

I don't think I wrote about this before, but many of the national and state parks have visitors’ centers with exhibits and short movies/slides shows about their park. They are excellent stops to learn more about the park and ask about suggested trails, etc. Highly recommended!

We watch a very moving slide show about the connection between the desert and the Native Americans that lived in the area, then pick up a wide brimmed hat in the gift shop. I've been looking at it in a couple of the park gift shops now and so I figured I might as well buy it. Hopefully the weather will be better tomorrow so I can pose for a picture of my new southwestern look!

Look at all those cacti! I wish I'd taken more pictures, but the camera was getting soaked.

The Arizona Sonoran Desert Museum is more of zoo/botanical garden, than a museum. Mostly outdoors, it displays plants and animals found in the Sonoran desert. They try to make it look as natural as possible, for the visitors, but above all for the animals. I decided to share more pictures today so you can see some of the other animals that live in the desert.

First a cactus in bloom

The Mexican wolf is taking a nap

Mountain lion. Much bigger and fiercer than we had expected. Now this is one I won’t be sad to miss while hiking

One of the bobcats is sound asleep. It’s obviously dreaming about chasing something  ...

My favorite exhibit; the javelinas! They can’t see very well, but they have an astute sense of smell.

As you can tell they are very social animals that like hanging out in groups.

Another cactus about to bloom

I like this view of the valley below. You can see towards the right that a lot of the land is used for farming. Although water is an issue, land is cheap and we’ve come across many farms during our trip.

The prairie dogs have ventured out of their holes after the rain lets up

The whole mountain has become engulfed in fog/cloud. Not a good sign of what’s to come.

A coati. I’ve never seen, or even heard anything about this animal before. While it looks like a type of anteater, it’s actually more closely related to raccoons.

Couple of bighorn sheep. We’ve seen many signs posted along the mountain roads to watch out for them, but this is the first time we’ve actually laid eyes on them.

We end our visit to the museum with a walk inside the hummingbird enclosure. It's been dry for most of our time at the museum, but now the rain starts back up. The temperature has also plummeted from a toasty 75 degrees yesterday, to less than 40 degrees today. Time to talk a quick look around and move on to our hotel for tonight. They hummingbirds fly around freely; at times flying so closely over your head that they sound like little fighter jets.

Here’s one guarding her nest.

Beautiful purple coloring. Oddly enough if you looked from a different angle it all just looked black.

We're starting to see more curves in the road on our way out and to make matter worse it now starts sleeting! Yep, sleet in the desert in Arizona ... so typical for us to have weird stuff happen on our vacation. If we'd been high up in the mountains I could understand it snowing, but we weren't that high up at all.

After a while the sleet turns into rain again and the road straightens out. It's still raining when we get to our final stop of the day; San Xavier del Bac. This old mission is supposedly one of the best preserved missions of the west.

Very intricate design inside.

On the way out I take a few quick pictures of the flooding we encounter. The roads in this area of the country are not built to handle any significant rain and it shows! On the right hand side of the picture you can see the water splashing up.

I liked this rock formation near the rest stop

Look at the size of those boulders! The little red car is our new rental.

The rest of the drive is all major highways and we reach Willcox shortly after dark. The front desk suggests a restaurant that's housed inside a converted train. It's a bit run down and looks a little shady to me, but this food is OK and there's little choice. Willcox is pretty run down, not a lot of nice restaurants or hotels here (although our hotel is pretty nice).

Chain saw blade artwork (who knew there was such a thing?!) on the restaurant wall

Mileage for today: 248

PS. Very little planned for tomorrow. We'll have to see what the weather's like too. If worst come to worst, we'll just drive straight down to the next hotel so there might not be an update until we're back home on 2/13/10.