New Mexico

We had originally planned to spend three days in the Guadalupe National park, but a snow storm came and the thought of driving the RV in ice and 40 mph winds on the top of a mountain just didn’t sound that fun. We drove early to our next site before the storm hit and hunkered down for a few days and hoped we had winterized the RV enough for the below freezing weather. We did lose hot water for a few days (you can see Ken heating the hoses with the hair dryer) and ran out of propane one night, dropping us to 45 degrees inside, but we got through all of it, learned quite a few things and now are ready for freezes.

We visited the Carlsbad Caverns and though the main entrance to the cave was closed due to excess ice, we were able to access the caverns by taking an elevator 754 feet down. There were only a few other people in the caverns so it was a very peaceful, quiet, and magical place. Sadly, we were too early in the season to see the hundreds of thousands of bats that come up from Mexico to live there in the summer.

We postponed our move to Tularosa for a day to make sure that the mountain pass was fully cleared of the 8 inches of snow they had received – the pass had 7% grades and we didn’t want to risk the RV. During our drives through Mexico we passed many ghost towns with numerous abandoned buildings. In Tularosa we stayed at a campground with a beautiful view of the desert and surrounding mountains.

Our first day visit was to White Sands National Park. One third of the area is national park and the other two thirds is owned by the government for missile testing. This is where the first atomic bomb was tested in the Manhattan Project. The sand was not as blindingly white as it is in the summer because it was still somewhat wet from the snow. The snow on the hills gave a look of icing on cake which was cool. The landscape was surreal, yet still beautiful. We walked along the border of the Chihuahuan desert and the white sands, then drove all the way in and had fun sledding down the sand dunes and making sand roadrunners. We felt like little kids in a huge sandbox. The day ended with a ranger talk and one of the most beautiful sunsets we have ever seen.

The next day we visited the Three Rivers Petroglyph site 30 min away that contained hundreds of petroglyphs made about 1000 years ago. The site, on BLM land, was right next to one of the dozens of Indian reservations in the state - called Pueblos.

Our good friends from our church in Massachusetts joined us for a week in Santa Fe. The temperature was in the mid 40’s to low 50’s but sunny which allowed us to still eat outdoors at restaurants. Spending time with Beth and Izzy was fabulous. We also really enjoyed the city of Santa Fe. We went to an excellent museum on the history of New Mexico. It was very focused on the native americans who lived there and how the idea of Manifest Destiny affected them. We also enjoyed the interactive sci fi experience of Meow Wolf.

We enjoyed local food, walked around the city, bought turquoise jewelry, took hikes in the surrounding areas and hung out in the RV making puzzles.

We did a couple day trips from Santa Fe. The first was a drive down the Turquoise Trail. This was part of the old route 66 and passed through lovely scenery and many small towns that had been much larger when they were mining towns for turquoise, lead, iron etc. In one town we visited an old mine and in another we walked around for nearly two hours enjoying all the small shops of various artists. We ate gourmet chocolate (pineapple slices with dark chocolate and cayenne is one example) and spent lots of money buying beautiful art.

Our last day trip was to Los Alamos, home of the Manhattan project. Jerusha was particularly looking forward to this trip and was disappointed that the museum about the project was closed the day we went. Still we learned some info at the town museum. The photo below is Jerusha looking at Oppeneimer, the leader of the project. Afterwards, we drove to Bandelier National monument and had a wonderful couple hours exploring the cliff dwellings of the ancient native americans.