Texas to Arizona

We left Terlingua and headed north to Alpine where we took on supplies and gas (petrol). Then north again to the Davis Mountains State Park campground at Fort Davis. An excellent site with covered picnic tables and fire pits overlooking the state park, we made use of the fire pit the first night barbequing the steaks we had just purchased.

The next day we took the motorcycle around the scenic loop of hwy 118 and 166, we saw some pronghorns, not an antelope or a deer but the only member of a family native to North America.

Once back in the park we took the Skyline Drive to the top of the peak for a beautiful view of the surrounding countryside.

We cooked on the fire pit again and a visitor joined us, a white tailed deer, she tried to steal our burger buns but in accordance with park regulations we stopped her. Then during the night Javelinas (wild pigs) came looking for leftovers, just as well we had put everything away.

The next day we took the motorbike on another scenic drive this time to Balmorhea through the Barrilla Mountains, excellent biking roads but not suitable for the RV. We came back to the park and went up to the Indian Lodge, it was built in the 1930’s by the Civilian Conservation Corps and modelled after south-western Indian pueblos with adobe walls more than 18 inches thick. It is now a hotel and conference centre run by the state park.

Later that evening we went to the McDonald Observatory for their Star Party, it began at dusk with the Twilight Program, an hour long workshop covering all aspects of the solar system. Then outside to the amphitheatre for a guided tour of the night sky, the very knowledgeable speaker pointed out the constellations, planets and stars, the signs of the zodiac and some passing satellites illuminated by the moon. Later we viewed distant celestial objects through telescopes, including Saturn with its rings and moons, the Belt of Orion and finally we viewed the almost full moon through their filtered telescope which showed a huge crater with splatter lines clearly visible.

We left the Davis Mountains the next morning and took hwy 17 south, we were not going to take the RV north to the I-10 w had found out the day before the roads were not suitable. We went back through Marfa and turned west on hwy 90, the telegraph poles followed the very straight road and from the right angle it looked like there was only one pole. Through Van Horn north on hwy 54 and into the Guadalupe Mountains, they contain Guadalupe Peak at 8749ft the highest point in Texas, and in its shadow our campsite at 5870ft.

In the morning we took the motorbike to Carlsbad Caverns, first discovered by Europeans in the 1800’s it had been known to the Native Indians for some time before that, it was declared a national monument in 1923 and in 1930 US congress created Carlsbad Caverns National Park, 73 sq miles and almost 100 caves. We entered via the large natural entrance and walked down the steep winding path, through the ‘Main Corridor’ it descends over 750 feet in 1 mile, past the illuminated formations of the ‘Witches Finger’ and ‘Iceberg Rock’ a 200,000 ton boulder that fell from the cave ceiling thousands of years ago and is now wedged precariously. Then into the ‘Big Room’ which is 8.2 acres, almost 800 feet underground and a constant 56°F. The 1 mile hike around the cavern passes numerous stalactites, stalagmites and columns, also other formations called draperies, flowstones, popcorn, helictites and soda straws. They have created strange shapes which have been named Temple of the Sun, Totem Pole, Mirror Lake, Rock of Ages and Painted Grotto. There is another 30 miles of explored passages not open to the general public, more are known about but not documented and the deepest is 1037 feet below the surface. We took the elevator back to the surface where it took us a few minutes to acclimatise to the light and the temperature. We headed back to the RV but if we had stayed until dusk we could have seen thousands of Mexican free-tailed bats fly from the cave for their nightly feast of insects.

The weather forecast was not good for the next few days, a cold front is coming in, and so we left the next day and headed off up hwy 54 through Carlsbad and Artesia. Conspiracy theorists and X-file fanatics descend onto the next town Roswell, which has built up a tourist industry around the alleged crash of a UFO in July 1947. The area was closed by the military for several decades, later they claimed it was a weather balloon. Roswellian’s however have fun with the concept and even the downtown traffic lights are adorned with alien eyes. Here we turned west on hwy 70 and into the Sacramento Mountains, the open grassland gave way to green pastures with neat fences as we followed the Rio Hondo into the Lincoln National Forest. The guide book says Ruidoso Downs has the number one quarter horse racetrack in the country and certainly the surrounding country side has more than its far share of stables and horse ranches. Ruidoso is a ski resort in the winter and we found out the hard way that that means mountains, we climbed up a winding road to our stop for the night and the GPS showed 7479ft altitude! It was cold and the low cloud covered the peaks around us, the nice lady in reception warned us to disconnect our water hose later because there was a freeze warning!

We awoke the next morning to snow on the ground! The max/min thermometer said it dropped to 3 below zero (centigrade) last night and the forecast is for more snow today. Enough said we packed up and left for lower altitudes and hopefully warmer weather. We had received an email from Don & Sue who said they were in Tucson, Arizona, for a week, which sounded much warmer, so we decided we would make that our destination. The roads were clear and dry so no problems descending the twisting mountain roads to Ruidoso and south west on Hwy 70, otherwise known as the Billy the Kid scenic highway and through the Mescalero Apache Indian Reservation.

We passed through the White Sands National Monument, windswept dunes of white sand that stretch for miles until they disappear into the San Andres Mountains. At Las Cruces we joined the I-10 west heading for Arizona. The road followed the South Pacific Railroad where multiple Union Pacific engines, sometime as many as 6, pulled endless containers double stacked or tankers and boxcars. We were back in the open flat land and the temperature increased as we left the clouds behind us and we crossed the boarder into Arizona. We got a phone signal in San Simon so we called Don & Susan and arranged to meet them at the Prince of Tucson RV Park.