Somewhere with the name ‘White Sands….’ conjures up images of Caribbean beaches but not these white sands… White Sands Proving Ground (now Missile Range) was created for the US to test its fire power and also, its nuclear bombs. Three weeks after a test here, the first was dropped on Hiroshima and then the last, on Nagasaki. The Trinity Test Site is the area it happened, and how it got that name when we consider the Holy Trinity, baffles me. Now open for tours, why would you, the bomb test heat fused the sands and turned them green, (called Trinitite) so can you imagine what it did to the people… Anyhow, it’s now the largest facility of its kind in the US, at 3200+ sq miles (nearly half the size of Wales). Not wanting to ignore the history though, we set out to explore and find out, but not until we’d been to Pistachioland and seen the worlds largest Pistachio… yeah, random eh?!
Alamogordo is the epicentre of the area with a lot to see and learn about. On the outskirts of town is The Museum of Space History which has lots of outdoor exhibits pointing skywards, and a great indoor museum charting the evolution of Space Flight. Lot’s of interesting facts, like it was the German V-2 missile that was the launch pad for US Space exploration. The V-2 rocket tech was developed in WW2 but the German scientists and all the equipment were ‘adopted’ by the US afterwards for them to learn from and develop themselves. Dr. Von Braun was the most famous and pioneered directly, The Mercury Program (man orbiting the Earth). White Sands played its 1960’s role in The Space Race and we all know who won that race eh?! Nick managed to come back down to Earth after having been beamed up to The Starship Enterprise…
Close by and part of the same complex, there’s a superb Planetarium and the ‘show’ is well worth it, as well as practicalities of Stars, Planets and Moons they also tell a lot of mythical stories about the constellations and zodiac. Interesting fact, when Pluto is above New Mexico, it is still a planet (they didn’t believe in it being demoted to a dwarf planet! Too dark for pics!
It seems odd that White Sands is actually a National Park too. Mainly known for the stunning white sand dunes they are a sight to behold as they cover a vast area. Starting to grow from gypsum, laid 250m years ago, it dissolves and flows in the valley, evaporates and the gypsum crystals get so small they’re carried on the winds to sculpt gorgeous dunes. The only stark difference is how damp the sand feels, to sand as we know it, hence, in the main it doesn’t blow away. While there we saw Lawrence of Arabia with Mrs Arabia and Carmen Miranda, practicing… Searching for the perfect picture, one without footprints in the ripples of sand (not me obvs!) we did some serious out of breath hiking up and down sand dunes. I called it ‘interval training’ as there were a lot of intervals… To be fair, the views were spectacular and very different but if he didn’t get the perfect photo he knew where the next rocket would be! Perhaps we’d have been better sledgers with one!
Passports in hand, we headed to White Sands Missile Base, they do background checks before being allowed onto the base. Y’all British eh? Clearly a rocket scientist was behind the desk that day! A live operational base with another museum to the rocket prowess of the US and a big sign ‘Birthplace of Americas Missile + Space Activity’. Not much of a nod had been given, so far to the Native Americans, kicked off their lands but here they got a mention, and the fact that US bought it from Mexico after the US Mexico War. New Mexico only became a ‘State’ in 1912 (the last one) and the base opened in 1945 for the testing. Is there some irony, in the US trying to keep people from crossing the US Mexico border into what was, for a lot more years before, their own land? Just saying! Anyhow, lots more missiles pointing skywards. Trying not to take it all too seriously, I liked Elvis’s ‘Hound Dog’ but didn’t care so much for Little Boy (Hiroshima) or Fat Man (Nagasaki) Anyway, we’d learnt a lot over a few days.
Searching for more of The World Biggest…. we headed off towards Las Cruces and after a fab Mexican Breakfast (even the tall one found the salsa a tad spicy!) found a ginormous Road Runner. It was truly a work of creative sculpture, it was all made from rubbish (trash over here) and we stood for ages just looking at all the odd bits, lots of shoes, hospital crutches, golf clubs, phones, bike bits… all to flag the wastefulness and lack of recycling. You may have to zoom the pics. We’ve noticed that the US doesn’t do much recycling, no where near compared to Europe. It’s probably something else to fight about, recycling maybe isn’t in The Constitution, who knows?! It’s just an observation as we always separate everything on the van, its habit, but then it all ends up in a single dumpster!
After the Road Runner it was off to The Worlds Largest Chilli, outside The Big Chile Inn (US Spelling) A 2.5T concrete capsicum, placed there in 2010 by the new owners at the Inn, which predated the Chilli…. Just ahead of Christmas and Las Cruces being the metropolis it is, the traffic was carnage but we headed away on the I10 through El Paso towards our camping. Hwy 180 heading in, it was miles of miles of ‘Wrecking Yards’ both sides of the road, there must have been 10’s of thousands of wrecks there, incredible! There can’t be that much need for spare parts, surely? The Alien Estate Agent office was a stark contrast to the junk! A quick stop at The Penguin Bakery (recommended) where I was able to recall some Duolingo Spanish, as they spoke not a word of English, we came away with some delicious things, even if we weren’t sure exactly what I’d asked for!
Hueco Tanks State Park was similar topographically to City of Rocks it was a great stop and a hike through the rocks, spotting some of the ancient pictographs likely from c. 1150 Jornada Mogollon folks. Over 200 ‘painted marks/faces’ in the area, many had been defaced in the late 1800’s by people travelling through and resting within the hollows too. The Butterfield Overland Mail Stagecoach used to use Hueco as a stop point taking mail from St Louis to San Francisco before the railways. (Hueco is Spanish for Hollow)
Taking our own Stagecoach we passed high over The Guadaloupe Mountains and the highest pass in Texas (briefly) and then down towards our Christmas spot near the forgettable town of Carlsbad. It’s an odd one, Carlsbad Caverns gets over 1m visitors a year yet the town of Carlsbad is as dull and uneventful as they come. Built on potash mining it’s a long strip of a road with very little of interest. Thankfully the nearby Caverns give people at least one reason to head there. In The Chihuahuan Desert (try saying that after a few drinks!) of The Guadaloupe Mountain Range is Carlsbad Caverns. Beyond immense, a hike down into them, 750ft down (most take the lift but miss the good stuff!) and there’s a realm of gigantic subterranean chambers with cave formations within. All the usual stalactites, mites, soda straws, draperies, popcorn but the scale is what slaps you in the face. We’ve been in other vast spaces that were better lit for photographs but it was magical, we all see different things when we look at nature and its forms.
The Caves are also known for the Bat Flights… at certain times of the year it’s a spectacle to behold seeing them whoosh in and out at night. We’ve learned a bit about bats on our trip and have developed a new found respect for them. Many of what are myths aside, did you know they pollinate over 70% of the food we eat? No, nor did we! Always looking for a profit, the guano in the caverns was harvested for fertiliser. As usual, greed got in the way and damage was done in the caves so it was stopped and the caves have been protected since 1923, and quite right to! What an extraordinary place!
Next stop… its Texas! This is the only state that people we chat to have ever said to be careful in, (firearms) so lets make our own mind up eh!
Jigsaws Blog Spot... They keep staying in really dry places so I make a nuisance of myself and roll in the dust. The rest of the time I’m asleep or on the odd occasion I may worship a shrub. I actually caught a kangaroo rat, it was hopping mad so I let it go! They took me on the sand dunes and lots of people took pictures of me, I like that! Thankfully they didn’t take me on the sledge. I didn’t like it when they put a red Christmas bow on me though, so boring…
The Curious Adventures of the Cat in the Camper Van 