Putting the Road in Road Trip

For the last week we've headed ever eastward, though northern Arizona and New Mexico. Now, the time for Spring Break has run out, and it's time to get serious about putting the road in road trip.

Alamogordo to Bisbee Arizona

We got an early start leaving Alamogordo. Except for eating and gas, we planned no stops. After about an hour and a half, we picked up Interstate 10 at Las Cruces, New Mexico. Before we got on the freeway, we drove into town and found a place for breakfast.

I, personally, was burned out with green chile (I'm going to spell it like it appears on all the menus I've seen, even though Google Chrome spell check seems to hate it.) A Bite of Belgium offered a break from that. Kathy had quiche and I had a french-style ham and cheese omelet, with two Liege waffles.

The last time we went to Europe, I was able to purchase a special senior citizen train ticket which allowed us to travel through Liege, Belgium. We didn't stay there, but did stop for lunch, just to eat the famous meatballs, which I'd seen on an episode of Travels with Darley. We never got a chance to try Liege waffles, so I was surprised to find them in New Mexico. They were very dense. I think I prefer what we think of as Belgian waffles.

From Las Cruces to Bisbee, Arizona is about 250 miles, partly on the freeway, and partly on State Route 80, bouncing off of the Mexican Border at Douglas, Arizona. This is not (in my opinion) a very scenic drive. We weren't tempted to pull off every few miles for some new roadside attraction.

In the (ghost) town of Apache, we stopped and looked at the Geronimo Surrender Monument, the only point of historic interest we encountered on the trip. This monument memorialized the surrender of Geronimo and the end of the Indian Wars.

Apache is also the site of Apache Elementary School, a one-room schoolhouse with an enrollment (in 2017) of eight students 

We stopped for gas in Douglas (no pictures) and made the last push into Bisbee by 4 pm, where we checked into the San Ramon Hotel which is located just as you enter the old section of town.

We got the second floor corner room, which gave us a wonderful view of downtown. Of course, since we were on the corner of Main and Brewery Avenue, it also meant that groups of people were walking and talking right under our windows until the bars closed at 2 am.

Before eating dinner and walking around town, we walked under highway 80 to the Copper Queen Mine, which had a bewildering variety of minerals and rocks for sale. 

While we were there, the last three mine tours were assembling, putting on their vests, helmets and lights to descend for an hour and a half into the shafts. Kathy and I thought about going, but our limited time (and the 47 degree temperature down in the mine) convinced us that our time was better spent elsewhere. 

We spent the next two hours, first walking through the main section of town, and then climbing up and down the sides of the mountains on which the houses of Bisbee perch. 

It was a pretty exhausting hike (which seems to be a recurring theme for our vacation).

Around 6 pm we went looking for somewhere to eat. Surprisingly, for a tourist-oriented town, the pickings were very slim. The only open restaurant we could find was The Table, right in the center of town. The food was OK, but not exceptional. Now, if we just wanted to drink, there were a half dozen bars and breweries open within the four block area around our hotel.

When we got back to the hotel at 7 pm, I collapsed into bed even before I could write in my blog.

The 4.4 to Yuma

On April 4, Easter Sunday, I woke up at 5:30 am, completely refreshed (what with ten and a half hours of sleep). When we were at the Copper Queen's Lavender Pit yesterday, I had seen a sign for an Easter Sunrise Service in the parking lot. So, I threw on some clothes and headed down the road.

I miscalculated how fast I could walk and arrived a few minutes late, so all of the folding chairs were already filled. That was all right. It was a cool, but not cold morning, and standing was invigorating. The service was a multi-denominational, with churches throughout the town each supplying a reading or a song. I was surprised that I remembered all of the words to songs that I haven't heard for years, such as "Up From the Grave He Arose."

Sunrise was at 6:04 am, so as the service continued, the sun climbed down the walls of the Lavender Pit behind the speakers. Despite the ravages of the mining, it was strangely inspiring.

By the time I walked back to town, Kathy had got us packed for our long second day drive to Yuma.

We turned off the road at Tombstone and drove through town. There were a couple of gunfighters lounging around (really!) waiting, we assumed, for the daily reenactment of the Gunfight at the OK Corral. In was only about 8 am, and we weren't interested in waiting around. I did take a picture of Boot Hill, over the top of the fence. (It wasn't open yet either.)

Mule Mountain Highway 80 joins Interstate 10 in Benson, Arizona. We stopped at the Farmhouse Restaurant for a break and some much-needed calories before the freeway. The food was so good, that I forgot to take any pictures.

As we drove past Tuscon on the freeway, we decided to get off and take a look at the Saguaro National Forest. The eastern (Rincon Mountains) section features an easy eight mile (driving) loop.

Here's a picture of me with my "youth group". Saguaro cacti don't get any arms until they are about 70.

The cactus doesn't mature until it is about 150 years old. I don't know how long they live.

They are extremely susceptible to cold. At one of the turnouts, they had a photograph from 1935, when the forest was thick with cacti. Two years later they had a freeze, and a picture of the same area in 1945 seemed to have about half the number.

We saw only a few flowering plants. The brochure listed a wide variety of creatures which feast off the Saguaro, the other cacti, and their blossoms and fruit. Fortunately, since becoming a National Park, cattle and sheep are no longer permitted to graze in the park.

We left the park around 2 pm, and spent the rest of the afternoon on the long drive to Yuma, listening to Jim Chee still trying to solve the mystery of the People of Darkness. Home tomorrow.

Sangre de Cristo and Good Friday

 Taos Before Dawn

Despite all we did yesterday, I woke up on Good Friday before 6 am, and couldn't go back to sleep. While Kathy got ready for the day's travels, I took off for one last walk around Taos.

Walking down the main street, Paseo del Pueblo Sur, I thought that the shops looked a lot nicer than they do during the day.

I loved the neon Cactus. I can see it in our living room. 

On the corner, in front of Cabot Plaza Mall, I noticed George Chacón's mural, The Santero. I'd walked past the corner several times, but I never saw it. To be fair, yesterday there was a crazy person standing on the corner, yelling at passers-by, and it was hard to notice anything but him.

Crossing the street at Kit Carson Boulevard, even the traffic lights caught my eye. Kathy told me to drop this one. "It's a traffic light!" she said.

 

On Taos Plaza, the Hotel La Fonda looked magical, with its neon sign, the setting moon, and the old oak towering over it.

In the historic district, I loved the matching colors on the door, the house number, the window trim and the sky. 

I even loved the plants, tree, light fixture, and window of our bungalow at the Taos Inn.

When I got back, Kathy was ready to go. Facing a long drive, we wanted to avoid the mistake we made yesterday, and eat breakfast while we had the chance. We drove up the road to Micheal's Kitchen. Those are blue corn pancakes with pinion nuts. They are so good.

On to Alamogordo

To get to Alamogordo, Google Maps wanted to route us back through Santa Fe, then down the US 25 freeway. We'd already seen that part of the country, so we fiddled with the Maps settings until it let us go through the Sangre de Cristo mountains, via Angel Fire, and down through Las Vegas, NM.

This is a beautiful drive. It was 37 degrees and there was still snow on the hillsides, under the firs and the aspens. The road was almost deserted and so we didn't have to drive too fast.

Leaving Las Vegas, we abandoned the mountains and entered the high-desert, flat ranch land that runs down to Alamogordo. There was nothing much to see, so we continued listening to Skeleton Man. Chee and Bernie, with Cowboy Dashee are at the bottom of the Grand Canyon, on the trail of a cache of diamonds attached to the left arm of a victim of the 1956 TWA crash over the Canyon. 

By 3 pm we reached the White Sands Motel, another classic, even if it isn't on Route 66. We checked into our room and went looking for something to eat. There was a Chili's nearby, and we waited for 30 minutes for a seat. The motel owner told us that his motel was only allowed to open in the last few weeks, and that restaurants were now allowed indoor dining, but at 25% capacity, which meant about 100 people at Chili's.

One of the reasons we came to Alamogordo is that twice a year, the first Saturday of April and of October, they give a tour of Trinity Site on the White Sands proving ground. This is where Oppenheimer and his crew detonated the first atomic bomb in 1945. These are the only two days in which the public is allowed to visit. There are no reservations, and usually about 300 people show up. As you can see, this year it was cancelled. Oh well, another reason for a road trip in the future.

Instead, we went out to White Sands National Monument at sunset. There, we took this selfie, in the White Sands style. We're carrying our shoes because it is so fun to walk across the cool gypsum sand in your bare feet. 

We also took this more conventional selfie at the top of one of the dunes. As clouds went over the sun, it was very easy to get disoriented in the dunes. Although we didn't go very far, we had some difficulty finding our car when it was time to leave.

The wind made amazing patterns on the sand. It was not very crowded, but there were perhaps one hundred families, climbing the dunes, or sliding down them. All of us looking for a dune that no one had yet climbed.

As the sun set on this Good Friday, Kathy and I sat looking out over the dunes and read the Good Friday story of the Crucifixion. Thinking back over the day, driving over the mountains named after the blood of Christ, we ended the day taking Communion together, just like we did on the day we were married. It was the perfect ending to a wonderful day.

A Day in Taos

This morning we left Santa Fe before 8 am and headed out for Taos. There are two ways you can go: the low road and the high road. We had read that the high road was more interesting, so we took that. Also, I wanted to see the Sanctuario de Chimayo where the largest pilgrimage in the United States takes place during Holy Week, with up to 150,000 pilgrims walking from Santa Fe to the church.

We put our destination into Google Maps and started following the recorded voice which directed us south-west away from Santa Fe, sometimes on dirt roads. Finally we ended up in front of an out-of-the-way empty parking lot, promising petroglyphs on the cliffs. We walked around for a bit, but didn't see any petroglyphs. When we got back into the car and opened Google Maps, it became obvious that we had made a mistake entering our destination, since we were going in the opposite direction.

Turned around, we headed back to Chimayo. This route took us through several different Indian reservations, and all of them were closed. Only takeout food and gas was available. We had planned on stopping and eating breakfast en-route, so that was a surprise. Finally, we found a supermarket that was open and got a bear claw (the pastry).

When we got to the church, there were no long lines of pilgrims. The church was completely closed for all of Holy Week and there was no parking. Later I found out that the entire pilgrimage was cancelled again this year because of Covid. We drove by the church but couldn't even stop and walk around.

We spent the rest of the morning driving through the beautiful landscape of Northern New Mexico on small winding mountain roads, narrowing in places to a single lane. By 2 pm we arrived in Taos at the Historic Taos Inn (that's apparently its name, not an adjective).

Our room wasn't ready, so we headed down the street to El Cueva and had lunch. I learned my lesson yesterday; anything with green chili was off limits. I had a couple of good tacos and Kathy had sweet corn soup and a salad. After the long drive, it was very welcome.

After lunch we walked across the street to the Taos Plaza. We browsed through the shops and bought a few souvenirs for the folks back home. Notice the mask in public.

Next, we tried to follow the downtown walking tour from our guidebook. Along the way, I got distracted and tripped, falling into the road on my back. I didn't really hurt anything, but several motorists and a policeman stopped to make sure I was OK. I'm fine.

Continuing on we stopped at the Kit Carson Memorial State Park, where we visited Kit Carson's grave.

I had thought that my parents told me we were related to Kit Carson when I was a child. I asked my brother, and he told me no, my great-great-great grandfather worked with him. 

I wanted to learn a little more about him, but like all of the other museums we've seen, the Kit Carson House was closed. I managed to put my camera through the fence and shoot this picture of the courtyard.

My brother sent me a quote he had copied from some of my Dad's papers:

I do not know a great deal about my grandfather’s early life even though I knew him when I was about twelve years old. We were renting a large house in Oakland, CA. and there was a small duplex on the back of the property where my grandfather, David Marion, lived. I talked to him a lot. From time to time, he would tell me some stories that I found interesting.

One time he told me about sitting on Kit Carson's lap as a child and listening to his stories. He said that his father, David H. Gilbert, had worked for Carson bringing wagon trains through the mountains.

 

After we came back, got checked into our room, unpacked and relaxed a little, we got back into the car and drove ten minutes down the road to Rancho de Taos.

Our goal was to take a look at the San Francisco de Asis church that gained fame through the photographs of Ansel Adams and the paintings of Georgia O'Keeffe.

It's really impressive. I find it very beautiful for something that is so simple and unadorned.

After taking some pictures, we headed across the street for dinner at Old Martina's Hall. Now we're getting ready for bed, so we can get up early for the long drive to Alamogordo.