Jan 27--Through Western Texas

As you all know, Texas is a big state!  We traveled from Odessa to Abilene, TX today, a much shorter jaunt than yesterday.  The most interesting things that we saw were pretty much all concerned with the oil patch.  By the time we got to Pecos, we started seeing oil wells and pumpers, and they were thick almost all the way to Abilene.  My thought was that it was a good use of the land, since it didn't seem to be worth anything for farming.  We saw almost no cattle, which was surprising, as in some places the grass under the scrubby bushes looked pretty good.

Oil Well Drilling Rigs

Look at all the pumpers!  There were miles of similar views.

A large oil refinery along the road.

 One thing of interest was the "mining" of sand for fracking.  There were many places like this one where they were digging up the sand and trucking it to a terminal where it was loaded onto rail cars.

These look like grain cars, but they are actually hauling fracking sand.

There were also many, many semi trucks hauling big square boxes, apparently of sand.  One company's trucks hauled the boxes and they said "Sand Box" on the side of the box.  I didn't know sand could be such a big business!

When we were getting nearer to Abilene, the landscape changed to more farmland, some under irrigation.  We had seen cotton fields before, but it was interesting to see cotton in big round bales instead of the huge rectangular bales we had seen earlier.

Ted says the newer cotton pickers have a round baler attached, so it can all be done more efficiently.

And last but not least, we stopped at a state of the art rest stop.  It was a huge building, made of brick, and there was a full-time attendant.  We asked her about the tornado shelters (this rest stop had three), and she showed us a square room that would probably hold 10 adults standing up.  It didn't look too impressive, but I imagine if a tornado was coming, it would look pretty good.

I asked the attendant if they had many tornadoes, and she said "none".  She said they often started in the clouds in the area, but none had ever touched down.  She wasn't sure why they needed shelters at the rest stop either!

Jan 25 & 26, Thursday & Friday--On the Road Again

We left Tucson this morning, somewhat sad to say goodby to Jason and his family, but excited about what we may discover in this part of our journey.  We met some very nice people in our RV park and our church, and had wonderful times with Jason & Starr & kids.

We journeyed as far as Las Cruces, NM today.  We drove through a lot of desert, and I really didn't feel inspired to take photos.  The scenery was much like that of our earlier time in NM.



On Friday, we left Las Cruces for a long drive to Odessa, TX.  The scenery gradually changed, but still wasn't anything like Flathead Valley, MT!

 We crossed into Texas and were greeted by this big "Lone Star" beside the overpass.

We passed by El Paso on I-10, and while we couldn't see the Rio Grande River, we could see the mountains on the other side of the river, which are in Mexico. This was as close as we came to "seeing Mexico".

We spent the night in the Walmart parking lot, which worked out fine since we got in late and were tired. 

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Nov 8--Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument

We ventured off the beaten trail today and drove 2 hours (with the van) over a windy, narrow (paved, thankfully) road to get to the Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument.

Shortly after leaving Silver City, we passed a mountain of tailings from a mine of some kind.  When we finally saw a sign, it talked about the Chino Mine.  When I looked it up, I found it is an open pit copper mine that has been in business since 1909.  You can create a lot of tailings in over 100 years!  The observation point was fenced off for some reason, but I took a couple of pictures through the fence.  If you look it up on the satellite view of Google maps, you get a much better idea of the scope of the mine.

The object of our trip today was to see the cliff dwellings by the Gila River.  They apparently were used by several different people groups over several thousand years.  The people group that the information focuses on is the Mogollon people who were there from about 1275 to 1300 AD. They grew corn, beans & squash, as well as hunting and fishing in the area.  The Gila (pronounced "Heela") River runs through the valley below the cliffs, and is fed from a cold spring.  We took LOTS of pictures....

This is the view from the trail below, which was higher than the river.

Two exterior pictures of the same cave dwelling.  Note the T-shaped doorway.  They would have ladders up to the doorways, which they could pull in after them, insuring that hostile people could not get to them.

 The builders of these dwellings used the natural caves and then used flat rocks & mortar to divide off rooms and make the whole thing functional.  Most of the windows & doors have wooden lintels and there are some remaining wooden poles that supported roofs of branches & bark.  The scientists who have studied samples from the wood say that the wood dates from around 1275.

 Some views looking out on the valley from the caves.  The plant life there is much more a conifer & deciduous forest than you would expect.  There were pine trees, juniper trees, oak trees, and misc. bushes.  The park volunteer warned us of poison ivy, but I didn't see any of that.

 Some interior views of the rooms in
one of the cave dwellings.

 

 There were 2 drawings in red pigment that the park volunteer said were 700 years old.  The one looks human, and I'm not sure what the others represent.

 As we were ready to leave the caves, we were presented with two options:  climb down the ladder or go back the way we came.  We chose the ladder option.  It was amazing how hot to the touch the wood was after being in the sun for half the day.

Last but not least, as we were driving back, we came across this herd of deer hanging out in someone's yard, right by the road.  They didn't seem to be worried by the traffic at all.

Nov 7--Travel Day & White Goose

Today we traveled from Alamogordo to Silver City, NM.  The thing that caught my attention the most was this duck or goose or whatever it is.  We had stopped at a roadside pullout, and it was grazing in the grass beside the road. 

We don't know what kind of waterfowl it is, but it seemed strange to see it out in the desert, with no water to be seen.  Ted tried to look it up, and we decided it might be a Ross's goose.  It certainly wasn't afraid of people or traffic.

The other interesting thing that I saw was a field of pepper plants just loaded with red peppers.  I was so busy looking that I forgot to take a picture!

Nov 6--White Sands Monument

We went for a drive today in the White Sands Monument near Alamogordo.  This sand is made is gypsum, and is truly white like snow.  When you are out in the middle of it, it feels like you are back in Montana after a deep snowfall.

 They plow the sand from the roads just like we would plow snow.

 In some places, the sand has hardened into a solid rock-like mass.

 The snow underfoot feels like you are walking on "mushy snow"--the texture that the snow becomes when it is kind of warm and it has been sanded--two steps forward and one step back.

Notice that Ted is in short sleeves.  The temperature was in the 70's.

We didn't see any children sledding, but the shop at the visitor's center sold plastic snow saucers so children could go sledding on the sand hills.








When we returned to the visitor's center, I had the chance to identify some of the desert plants that we had been seeing.  Here are a few.

 Colorado Four O'Clock

 Torrey's Yucca

 

 

   Desert Spoon

                  

New Mexico Agave

  Honey Mesquite

Torrey's Jointfir

                    

Nov 5--Church & Petroglyphs

Today was Sunday, so we attended the early service at Christ Community Church in Alamogordo.  It was a very good service, and it was good to worship with other believers.

After church, we drove about 30 miles north of town to the Three Rivers Petroglyph Monument.  Here we found a hill covered with rocks, and  a lot of the rocks had symbols, figures, geometric patterns,  etc. carved into them by those living here hundreds of years ago (the literature talked in terms of thousands of years).  We were told that there are over 21,000 in the area--we only saw a small portion.  The rocks appear to be a dark charcoal gray, but the surfaces that show when a rock has been broken show that the interior is a light gray with flecks of black throughout.  The figures were carved through the dark exterior layer so that the lighter interior of the rock creates the contrast.  Some are large & arresting, some are faint & easily overlooked, and you have to use your imagination as to what is portrayed in each.

This almost looks like a thunderbird.

 

I have no idea what this was meant to be, but it looks like a penguin.

At the other end of the area, there were several semi-restored dwellings of the people who lived in the area through the ages and created the petroglyphs. 

The oldest site that they found was just a pit in the ground.