So, after a lovely interlude in the Davis Mountains, back to another 40 miles of I-10 to the un-lovely town of Van Horn (Nevadans think Battle Mountain level of unattractive-ness), where I needed to find diesel and hoped to find some food before heading off into the wilds of New Mexico. I did fill up, but the food was a FAIL. The only store in town was a slightly larger version of the ghetto-mart where I get my Sunday paper in Reno. Grimy and depressing, no deli, the freshest item was a few potatoes, not even that rack of sketchy looking roasted chickens that every store seems to have. I’ll be dipping into the emergency food tonight … but then that’s what emergency food is for!
The plan is to take the time I saved by not detouring to Big Bend and invest it in a shorter and more strategic detour to Guadaloupe Mountains National Park. I had seen pictures of it in some RV magazine at the library and wanted to check it out. So, bye bye to heading west on I-10, and instead head due north for about 70 miles to the park. North-south of course does nothing for getting me home, but I did enjoy having the afternoon sun beating on the left side of my head instead of straight into my face for a change.
I believe I asserted about six posts ago that there’s always something extra-special about a National Park. Well, whatever is that special something about this park is not apparent to the casual visitor. I think you have to hike a few hard desert miles to get to wherever those magazine pictures were taken.
The good news is that camping is very cheap, the bad news is that it’s a parking lot. There is a dusty gravel road to a dusty little tent camping area, but sleeping in the van is not allowed there, so I am banished to the RV area.
There are no electrical hookups, which as a good solar panel-wielding citizen of the new millenium matters not to me. However the hidden cost is that my fellow denizens of the RV area are still in the electric generator age and have to crank up their stupid motors so they can watch their dish tvs. I found the best spot I could in the parking lot and headed off for my beloved sunset hike, which was really quite nice, high above the surrounding plains as we are.
Coming back from the hike I could hear the hum getting louder as I approached, and sure enough two behemoth RVs had their external generators running about 10 feet from my van. I think I could have toughed it out on the noise, but I decided I’d rather not inhale the fumes so I battened down the hatches enough to drive to the other side of the lot to a much less pleasant spot with security lights streaming in. Yuck. I’ve slept in nicer walmarts, and that’s no joke!
Slept badly, still chugging the Nyquil. Was it just this morning that I was snorkeling at the Springs? Why yes, it was! Glad I did it, but it probably locked in the cough for another night or so.
Monday
This morning was another of those choice points where a fork in the road determines which part of the country I’ll see for the next week or so. Taking a right out of Guadaloupe takes me back to the I-10 corridor to California, and god knows I’ve seen enough of I-10 lately. Going left takes me a little east and north up through Carlsbad NM and sets me up to wander the middle of New Mexico and Arizona between the I-10 and I-40 corridors. I chose the latter. My major concern is bad winter weather, and the forecast on my Wunderground iPad app is for more or less clear skies to the end of the 6-day forecast so I should be ok on this more northerly and more mountainous route. Furthermore, I really don’t like that southern desert very much, so there you have it.
For such primitive accommodations as last night’s, the Interior Department charges only $8/night, or $4 for a card-carrying Senior such as myself. The check-in station was quite explicit about cash only, and my smallest bill was a $20, so I waited till morning to go to the Visitors Center and get change. The chatty ranger lady gave me some travel tips for today and a breakfast recommendation for a place in Carlsbad, about 60 miles away. The travel tips were pretty helpful, but boy did her restaurant tip FAIL – “Calloway’s, right across from the Sonic” she said – I missed Calloway’s because it’s over a mile before the Sonic, then when I backtracked to it it turned out to be closed on Monday, so double FAIL on that. But the kid washing trucks next store staring at my big blue van pointed me to the Pecos Country Cafe, which worked just fine. It was not a culinary treat, but they had what I needed at a higher standard than Junction TX two days ago, and it had a nice bustling competent feel to it.
West Texas has left me wifi-deprived, so I spent a very recuperative 1.5 hours in the Carlsbad Library. After that it was time to get somewhere. I headed due north for 60 miles then hooked a left into the Sacramento Mountains. I ended up in the little burg of Cloudcroft (elev 8460′!), the cutest little funky mountain community you ever saw. Sorta like Idlewild CA without that California self-consciously cool attitude. All the campgrounds are closed for the season, but it was early enough in the day that the ranger station was open (unusual for me) and he hooked me up with this great sno-park parking lot with a toilet and everything! I wouldn’t have dared park overnight in that perfect little spot if the ranger hadn’t told me it’s ok. I had it all to myself, no electric generators!
I drove back into Cloudcroft, to the teahouse with wifi. The teahouse reminded me of a miniature Java Jungle, the local teenagers were slouching around on the sofas being alienated, yet very polite if you actually had to interact with them. oh teenagers!
There was a sadness here today. Early in the pre-dawn of this very day a fire had leveled a couple of the oldest buildings in their little downtown and destroyed some businesses and screwed up a few lives, and everybody was very bummed about it. The fire lines were still blocking a good chunk of their little downtown.
When I got back to the campsite I noticed that I was missing my blue beanie. That very same beanie that had tried to lose itself back in Texas, so I was thinking that it was determined to escape me and I did not have much hope of recovering it.
Tuesday
Slept much better, no coughing! I think this parking lot had much better energy than last night’s, and maybe my cold is finally going away.
I returned to Cloudcroft in the morning and had a very nice chicken fried steak at Big Daddies, and listened to the local rehash the very sad big fire yesterday. On my way out of town I dropped by the teahouse and retraced my steps and there was my prodigal beanie, placed carefully on a bench on the boardwalk by some good citizen and left there by all the other good citizens for the last 16 hours or so! Love those small town values!
Time to head down the mountain. There had been signs warning trucks about an extra-steep grade for about the past 70 miles, so I was expecting something dramatic. No big deal really, the road was poorly banked with somewhat tight curves, but really it was just another mountain road to my vehicle, like an extra long road to Stinson, but I guess that extra little bit of gradient is tough on big semi brakes.
At the bottom I was surprised to find myself in the serious desert. Hot and unpleasantly dry and too bright to look at, just the way I left it almost three months ago, except that then I was used to it, and now it is kicking my ass pretty badly. I am on the north edge of Alamogordo, near the White Sands Desert (the white sand here is gypsum flakes washed out of the mountains I was in last night), the missile testing and bombing range, all that stuff. There are some good touristing opportunities around here, but I blow it all off and head north for the next westward cutover.
I stopped at a sorry looking gas station to fill my propane tank, which provided me with more local color than I’ve seen in a while. The proprietor was without his helper, and every farmer in the area was showing up at once to get their tanks filled. So I hung out and tried to blend in (hah! no chance on that), and ended up shooting the breeze with this tall drink of water, ramrod straight, faded, worn-out out snap-button shirt that looked like it might be the exact same Levis model that I have with about a billion more miles on it. He told me a story about brake failure outside Austin Nevada that was pretty good.
My style on these trips is to straight for the scenery and the solitude. Most of the humans I talk to are waitresses or park rangers. Unless there’s a game to watch, I don’t even go to local bars. It works for me, but I’m sure I miss out on a lot of good stories and a much deeper connection with the places I visit. People are so … unpredictable … that’s why I don’t hit the local bars, I will most likely either stare at my beer or end up listening to some conversation where I wish I had those ten minutes back. I don’t think I’m a misanthrope, I just set a high value on my mindshare :).
Anyway, I got my propane and headed north, and the White Sands bustle quickly died out and I was on a really lonely road (US 54) to the dusty little town of Carrizozo, where I hung a left on US 380 and headed across the interior of New Mexico on an even lonelier road.
For about the last 60 miles of today (and the first 50-ish tomorrow) I’m driving through the same landscape – gently rolling grasslands (still a lovely light green, they got a lot of rain in their monsoon season this summer) dotted with dark green balls that are mostly juniper trees, but occasionally pinion pines or even manzanita. It’s a very odd looking panarama – never really a forest, just these short round trees every ten feet or so, … forever. It looks like a kid’s drawing – draw some hills, get out the light greeen crayon and color the hills green, then get out the dak green crayon and make little dark green balls all over the hills for trees. These are called I believe the Plains of San Agustin (no typo, there apparently is no extra “u”!)
I ended up in Datil NM, home of the Very Large Array and the sweetest little BLM campground I ever saw. Datil didn’t look like much driving through, but as it turns out, it was a very cool place that I still think about and want to go back to..
The campground was not CCC-built, rather it was built in the 70’s by the Job Core or whatever they called that domestic Peace Corps thing. It had that sincere charm and solidity of a well-intentioned government project built by folks where were just happy to be there, who in this case also happened to have a zen-like perfect design sense. The back story is that there was a cattle highway through there in the early 1900’s – I didn’t quite get the whole idea, but the BLM (Bureau of Land Management, which was originally set up to manage cattle grazing in the west) set aside a corridor a few miles wide and over a hundred miles long to drive cattle and sheep from somewhere remote to somewhere else with a railroad depot. In the 30’s, the CCC drilled wells to water the cattle every ten along the route … and when they closed the corridor down in the 70’s this campground was built around one of the wells!
After I picked my spot – it was just me and the campground host so I had plenty of choices – I took the nice hike up the hill. The hill didn’t look like much, but at 7200′ it doesn’t take much of a hill to tire me out. I was delighted at the top to find that I could see the Very Large Array around the corner of the next hill.
The campground host said the restaurant in the junction store in Datil is good,and my plan was to go there, but I was so into my comfortable solitude that I didn’t want to risk it with the uncertain company of the local diner.
Tuesday
I really, really like this place. Firstly the BLM campground was utterly charming, then I find that the restaurant was probably cool and that it had wifi!
I went back in the morning hoping for breakfast. That was a FAIL, didn’t open till 11, but it turns out that the little gas station/store that looked so dead and uninviting from the outside was really a hive of intelligent activity, with good food, wifi, smart people, and a restaurant that was much more spacious and pleasant looking that I woulda thought. I will pass through here again, and take the VLA tour while I’m here. My theory is that the influence of having those VLA smarties in the neighborhood is what makes the country store so lively.
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