Banking is Happy and Goodwell is, Well, Not as Good

The Oklahoma panhandle is only 34 miles from north to south, and yet it's the most expensive state I've visited.

You undoubtedly see where this is going.  Let me give you another hint:  I have made a new friend on the trip, an Officer Ramirez who has a car with a lot of lights on the top.

But first, north Texas.

Did you know that there is a bank in Amarillo called the Happy State Bank? (If the name wasn't homey enough, their website features a Recipe of the Month.  January's is Sweet Potato Casserole which looks delicious.  Check it out today before they change to February's.  I may e-mail PNC and suggest that they start such a feature.)

And did you know that the largest known gas field in the world is one mile east of Highway 87 north of Amarillo?  It transmits gas to Denver and Chicago and all sorts of places in between.  That's enough to make a person happy, isn't it?

We saw a cowboy riding along north of Amarillo, too - he had chaps and everything, riding his horse through a field.  I couldn't tell whether he was happy.

One thing that wouldn't make a person happy is the desert sandstorm which we drove through for about eight miles.  But it wasn't too bad for us:  it's like driving through fog, and we were in a car with the windows rolled up.  Probably didn't make my cowboy friend very happy, although I guess cowboys would just view such things stoically.  At least, that's how they view them in the movies.

You drive through several little towns on the road from Amarillo to Liberal, Kansas, which is Highway 54 in Oklahoma.  One of them is Guymon, home of Marla's restaurant where the advertised special is Green Chili Chicken Fried Steak.  Perhaps Marla is from Hatch.  We didn't stop.

Just north of Guymon there's a wide spot in the road that consists of a convenience store and only one other thing.  Unfortunately for me, that thing is a police car equipped with radar and occupied by one Officer Ramirez.

The speeding ticket would have been less frustrating if I hadn't spent the last two months truly being conscious of my speed and either following the speed limit or only exceeding it slightly.  Unfortunately, Aunt Susie and I were chatting and listening to various news programs on satellite radio (topic of the day:  immigration reform) and I just stopped paying attention for a few minutes.  The convenience store apparently constitutes a town with a speed limit of 40 m.p.h.  I was going, um, somewhat north of that.  Officer Ramirez was very polite and kindly wrote it for a number in between 40 and what might have been my actual speed which meant my debt to the Great State of Oklahoma, Town of Goodwell, is only $144.  (I was going to pay it online this morning but there's no way I'm paying a "convenience fee" of $9.95.  They can wait on my finding a stamp.)

Lesson learned, and the rest of the day I used my cruise control a lot more.

When the day began, I had thought that the highlight of the day would be Dorothy's House and the Land of Oz in Liberal, Kansas.  It wasn't.

 

That's it, and I don't think that I need to go into great detail why I was slightly disappointed.

In fact, the Sinclair station a couple of blocks away was more interesting, featuring as it did a Work of Art.

(I am mostly including that picture for my friend Ken who was fascinated to learn that Sinclair stations still exist.  And Ken, somehow it may seem appropriate to you that this dinosaur is located in a town called Liberal.)

We had originally planned to stop in Wichita Tuesday night but called an audible and decided to have dinner with Aunt Carlene who lives south of Topeka in a little town called Overbrook.  That meant that we had a full day of driving so we didn't stop in Meade, Kansas, home of the Dalton Gang Hideout, a fairly large local history museum, and a gun shop.  Looking at the website post-facto, there is apparently a long tunnel which would have been cool to see.  Perhaps I'll go back for Dalton Days sometime.

Although it was disappointing to miss the Dalton Hideout, I'm glad we made the choice we did and saw Aunt Carlene.  She is my grandmother's sister, the lone survivor of that generation of Swartzes (my mom's mom's side of the family), and is an incredibly spry 92.  Really sharp and nice lady, and makes the best brownies I've ever had.  Her daughter, Eualee, joined us for dinner at a bar which is the only eating establishment in Overbrook, but that serves really good food (isn't that often the case?).  Eualee and Aunt Susie are first cousins and we got to hear some funny stories about them as girls.  Discretion prevents me from sharing them here.

Although Overbrook is only about 20 minutes from Topeka, and Topeka only three hours from Omaha, we decided to stay in Topeka Tuesday night because it was drizzling - with the likelihood of freezing, and we were in no great rush.

And yes, it froze.

Wednesday we drove the only unpleasant leg of the trip, through snow and ice-covered roads, along with some rude and reckless drivers (most of whom were in semi's), but we made it safe and sound to Omaha.  My brother's basement was waiting for me, and it felt like home.

NOTE TO MY BROTHER AND HIS WIFE:  I know it's YOUR home, not mine.  Your hospitality has been gracious and overwhelming but don't worry.  I'll be leaving Monday!

Seems Like There's Always Something to Blog About

Today Cousin Sherry and I made an on-time departure from Silver City for the 90-minute drive to Hatch, New Mexico, Chile Capital of the World.  How do I know that this is the Chile Capital of the World?  Because their street sweeping machine said so on its door:

So now you know.

On the way to Hatch we saw a small windfarm, which is hardly notable anymore, but also a solar farm, which was cool.

Hatch has numerous stores dedicated to chiles - both red and green, although I didn't see any wreaths made from green chiles.

We met my aunt and uncle in Hatch because it's on I-25, north of Las Cruces which saves some travel time.  Plus it's home to Sparky's Barbecue which has great barbecue and the regional favorite, green chile cheeseburgers.  And fun decorations.

Aunt Susie and Uncle Terry said that Sparky's used to have a gigantic statue of a pig but that public outcry forced them to move the pig to the outskirts of town.  This is difficult to understand, but I guess the pig crossed the line and violated community standards.

 

Here I am, a bit fuzzy with Colonel Sanders, although I didn't see fried chicken on the menu.

 

And then we were off to Omaha.  I-25 goes north and follows, more or less, the path of the old Camino Real.  At Albuquerque, we turned east onto I-40 which follows, more or less, the path of the old Route 66.

 

One detour we did not take was to the Very Large Array, which is about an hour west of I-25.  You can't do it all.

 

We stopped in Tucumcari for dinner.  This is an old Route 66 town.  When I said something on Facebook about planning to stop there, a friend commented that she'd been through last year and that the town was "abandoned."  That's the right word, although it is not entirely empty.  When we stopped for gas Sherry asked a lady where we could get a bite and she directed us to Del's, which had a great soup and salad bar.  Plus a steer on its sign.

 

There's something about small towns in New Mexico that seems to encourage restaurateurs to put large animal and human figures on their properties (as long as they aren't pigs, of course).  Across the street from Del's was a cute little building that didn't have any large figures on it.

 

 

Then we headed east to Amarillo.  On the way I saw a remarkable salute to multi-culturalism:  a billboard for Dhillon's Truck Stop near San Jon, where the restaurant is called Taste of India.  No large cow figures here.

 

The other notable thing about northeast New Mexico and the Texas panhandle is that the scenery is 100% Old Western Movie Set.  I expected John Wayne to ride up over the horizon, although Sherry said that she hoped he wouldn't.

 

Tonight Aunt Susie, Sherry and I entertained ourselves in Amarillo by watching MSNBC and checking the weather.  Oh, and blogging.

 

Tomorrow we're aiming for Wichita.  See you then.

Wherein It Rains In New Mexico

One quickly acclimates, and I certainly have to the extent that when it rained in Silver City on Saturday I found it to be both odd and refreshing.

Friday was a gorgeous sunny day and I spent most of it in my cousin's courtyard reading Caro's "The Passage of Power."  The first 200 pages, about LBJ's abortive run for the Presidency in 1960 and his Vice Presidency, were painfully slow (as I think they were in real life) and took me about two weeks to get through.  The next section, about Kennedy's assassination and Johnson's first two weeks as President, was 300 pages and I didn't want to put it down.  It is fun to see pictures of LBJ's living room at the ranch when I was just there a couple of weeks ago.  (Caro doesn't have any pictures of his bathroom - but I do.)

Saturday Cousin Sherry and I drove into the Gila National Forest to see the Gila Cliff Dwellings.  It was raining in Silver City and up through the mountains, so the scenery was softened by fog and it was very beautiful.  These pictures don't do it justice.

The National Monument (the cliff dwellings themselves) was established by Teddy Roosevelt in 1907.  They had been documented by an archeologist named Adolph Bandelier in the 1880's and when he arrived had already been looted which makes determining the history even more difficult.  In the early 20th century, an ecologist/forester in the region, Aldo Leopold, encouraged the Forest Service to designated the Gila Wilderness in 1924 - the first designated wilderness area in the U.S.

Running through the forest is the Gila River.  This is the longest undammed stretch of river in the continental U.S.  Having seen the sand box which comprises the Rio Grande, it was nice to see actual running water.  The Gila River itself is quite impressive but I don't have a picture.  Here is a picture of the much smaller West Fork of the Gila, which you walk over to get to the cliff dwellings.

The rain that had been falling for the previous twelve hours contributed to the stream; normally my cousin says there is not as much water in this branch.

The cliff dwellings themselves are something of a mystery.  They are natural caves that were then modified and used by the Mogollon people from about 550 to 1300.  At that point, they were abandoned and no one seems to be quite sure why.  After a hundred years or so, the Apaches moved into the region but didn't appear to live in the cliffs.

It's a fascinating place to walk through - and conveniently enough, the rain let up while we were there.  The holes in the cliffs that look like eyes are a couple of the cliff dwellings, as seen from the path that you walk to reach them.

Here are what some of the caverns looked like.  You can see that there was considerable adobe work to build walls in some of the larger caverns.

 

 



The corncobs in this last picture apparently date back hundreds of years.

The National Park Service has some good pictures here.  It's hard to get good shots in some of the caverns with a camera phone so if you're interested in seeing more that's a good resource.  (Of course, a better plan is for you to visit here yourself - I highly recommend it.)

We went to a fun place for dinner Saturday night in Pinos Altos, a few minutes north of Silver City:  the Buckhorn Saloon and Opera House.  To call the outside of the building "nondescript" is to overstate its grandeur.  The inside, though, is really impressive.  Quite large and very Old West.  And the food was great, too.

The top picture is one of the rooms in the restaurant.  The bottom picture is of the Opera House (which is right next door); they were having a fundraiser for the Aldo Leopold School - sort of funny since I had just seen his name that morning in the Gila Forest.

Monday my aunt, cousin and I are headed northeast to Omaha.  On the way we plan to stop in Tucumcari, NM, which is apparently an old Route 66 stop with some interesting things to see.  It's a long way from here to Omaha (about 17 hours from the town north of Las Cruces where we'll pick up Aunt Susie) and we're planning to break it into three days so we can be a bit more leisurely.  Please think good thoughts about weather for us!

Town of Enchantment

Not to mix metaphors, but Silver City is a diamond in the rough - which from a traveller's perspective makes it even better than one in a polished setting, right?

Silver City sits, more or less, at the very southern end of the Rocky Mountains, and a little higher than Denver.  A cloudy day here consists of more sun than clouds, and there don't seem to be a lot of those kind of days although today is one.  The downtown is charming, the scenery beautiful, and the people are very friendly.

So, where to begin?  How about Boston Hill, where Cousin Sherry (pictured - and yes, I know we look a lot alike - it's called "genetics") and I walked around a little bit Wednesday morning.  Silver City is a mining town - both historically, and depending on copper prices, currently - and Boston Hill is an area where prospectors could dig their own mines years ago.  The result is a very rocky hill with a great view and a bunch of paths for walkers and runners.  It's very pretty, if not entirely pristine.

Then it's a five-minute drive downtown.  (Cousin Sherry maintains that nowhere in Silver City is more than seven minutes from anywhere else.)  Downtown consists of several blocks of older buildings - most are fixed up and occupied, but there are enough unrenovated that it doesn't feel like a theme park.  Lots of fun art galleries (painters, sculptors, jewelers, fabric) and good restaurants, along with some other boutiques and a biker bar.  There's an interesting mix of artist-hippy types and miner-rancher types in Silver City, along with the campus of Western New Mexico University which apparently has a new president who is working to build the school.

It was downtown that we wandered into Wild West Weaving and met Hosana.  She had been in the back of the shop working and offered to show us what she was doing.

A native New Mexican, Hosana learned weaving from Irvin Trujillo, a seventh generation weaver in Chimayo (north of Santa Fe).  Trujillo has work in the Smithsonian, and Hosana showed us the book to prove it.

She uses a lot of natural dyes, and showed us examples of onion skin (golden yellow), logwood (purple), matter root (orange), black walnut (tan) and a beetle called cochineal (red).  Then Hosana showed us a block of indigo dye and explained how the dye itself looks yellow-green but when you pull the yarn out of the liquid the air turns it blue.  "It's magical," she said, and I remembered that New Mexico is called, correctly, the Land of Enchantment. 

I've always been fascinated by spinning and weaving.  Meeting Hosana made me decide that wherever I end up, I'll have to find somebody who can teach me the craft.  I want to learn how to do this:

One thing about Silver City is that store hours are generally more like guidelines.  A couple of places were temporarily closed for one reason or another, and a couple weren't open yet although a less laidback person might have pointed out that it was, in fact, after 10 a.m.  But that's part of the charm, really.

And speaking of Wild West, that history is not in the distant past.  Seems that there was a brothel openly operating into the late 1960's by a woman who moved to Silver City to take care of her sister who had tuberculosis.  The Grant County Chamber of Commerce features a story about Madam Millie on its website and there's a residential facility for senior citizens named Millie's Assisted Living Center in her honor.  Truly.  Toto, we're not in Indiana anymore.

Here's the biker bar, by the way:

The "no club colors" sign is on the front door but I couldn't get that with the rest of the signage in the picture.  Perhaps appropriately, it's next to the old town hall.

There are a couple of good museums here, and you know how I'm a sucker for museums.

The WNMU Museum has an impressive collection of Mimbres pottery.  Located in Fleming Hall, one of the older buildings on campus (in the basement they've restored an old lecture hall), they prohibit photography which is unfortunate.  So you'll have to settle for a picture of the building itself.

The Mimbres people, a branch of the Mogollons, lived in southwestern New Mexico from 200 - 1140 A.D.  Their pottery typically features images of people and nature (rather than simply geometric patterns).  In 1978 excavation began on a ranch in Grant County (where Silver City is located), and the museum houses a number of artifacts from that collection.  (Some of these pieces are part of the Ike Smalley Collection.  Remember him?)  Sorry that you'll have to look at the museum website to see any pictures.  I am pretty unschooled about ancient southwestern pottery but there was one thing that interested me a bit:  a very simple red clay pot, originally filled with 412 tiny amethyst quartz crystals which were displayed next to the pot.

The WNMU Museum also covers more modern Grant County history including mining and early 20th century area artifacts such as dictaphones from the early 1900's and a 1936 Zenith radio.  There were a couple of interesting things.  First was a small exhibit in honor of Rosina Patterson, an area woman who died just shy of her 100th birthday in 1992 and who left a trust for WNMU.  They have a transcript of Rosina's diaries from 1905-1907 which includes some short reports on topics ranging from Longfellow to bees, and daily entries.  A couple of the shorter entries are "Allie, May and I went for a long walk" (July 16, year unspecified) and "Nothing doing (forgot)" (July 14).  There is remarkably little biographical information about Mrs. Patterson, but it's fun to page through her diary.

The second interesting exhibit - and by "interesting" I mean "curious" - is a miniature model of the Margarita passenger ship which is in a large glass case - it's about six feet long.  The Margarita (full sized version) was built in 1900.  I have no idea why this is in a museum which is several hundred miles from the nearest port.  While the Mimbres exhibit is documented within an inch of its life, they probably could find a couple of history students to do a bit more work on the rest of their collection.  Still, a good museum, particularly if you want to learn about southwestern pottery.

Then I headed back downtown to the Silver City Museum, which is in a beautiful old home.

A couple of doors down is the Museum Annex, which is where their research documents are located.  It's a beautiful building as well.

(Hey, I just learned how to edit photos on Google Plus!  This is enormous progress.)

I really enjoyed the Silver City Museum (see how I underlined "really enjoyed" for emphasis - just wanted to make sure you understood how much I liked it.)  The museum features some art exhibits (one of panoramic photography of the Gila River Valley and one from a Works Progress Administration painter about adobe) but you will not be surprised to learn what I liked the most was the history.  Unfortunately, they have the same "no photography" rule so you'll just have to use your imagination or look at their website for a couple of pictures.

One room is a discussion of how New Mexico became a state.  (Their centennial was last year.)  Apparently statehood was somewhat controversial which is why it took from 1848 (when the Mexican-American War ended) to 1912 for it to happen.  On the one hand, it wasn't completely evident to the folks back east that there was anything to commend the region.  You had people like General William Sherman who said, a few years after the Civil War, "The United States ought to declare war on Mexico and make it take back New Mexico."  (This is the same General Sherman who had turned his obvious tact and charm on the Confederate state of Georgia in 1864.)  On the other hand, within New Mexico there was disagreement as to the benefits of statehood.  At the time this discussion was occurring, the majority of New Mexicans were of Mexican and/or Spanish descent.  The Anglo minority generally favored being a territory, since that meant the U.S. government would appoint the territorial governor - who would presumably be a white guy.  The Hispanic majority generally supported statehood, since then there'd be democratically elected government and as a majority they would presumably be able to elect a native New Mexican.  (In the late 19th century, "native New Mexican" meant someone who was originally Mexican and most likely Hispanic.  The Indians weren't exactly a political force.)  The borders of the New Mexico Territory were established in the Compromise of 1850 (although the territory shrunk when the Colorado Territory was created in 1861); the State of New Mexico was authorized in 1910 and after a public election it became the 47th state on January 6, 1912.

The towns, as you know, predate all of this bickering.  An 1879 map shows Silver City at the end of the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe rail line.

Not too far from Silver City, apparently, is a mine that used to be the town of Tyrone.  It was built in 1912 by Phelps Dodge as an elaborate company town.  When copper prices plunged a few years later, the city was abandoned and was later destroyed by Phelps Dodge when they decided it was more valuable as a strip mine than a ghost town.

In a room that is largely about the history of mining in the region, there's a mini-exhibit which is a strong argument for effective government safety regulation.  Seems that in the 1920's Albert and Frances Leach discovered torbernite southwest of Silver City.  Torbernite is an ore of radium, and the Leaches (the puns here are multiple but coincidental) developed a line of radioactive "health" products.  They sold beauty clay, toothpaste, and a product you could put in water for all sorts of medicinal purposes.  The business finally closed down during World War II.

Last but not least, they had an exhibit on a topic which made me feel right at home:  flooding. 

There used to be a Main Street in Silver City.  It is now called the Big Ditch and looks like this:

Yes, you're right:  there's more water in what used to be a street than there is in the Rio Grande.

Main Street was developed in the 1870's in an understandable if ill-fated desire to create a grid street pattern.  Unfortunately for a number of people, Main Street happened to be the natural drainage route for the area - a problem exacerbated by clearing natural vegetation and generally doing all sorts of things that increased erosion.  Although Silver City residents grew accustomed to terrible flooding in the 1870's and 1880's, they were not prepared for the massive floods of 1895 and 1902, during which time Mother Nature reclaimed her own and the street completely collapsed.  In places the ditch is 60 feet deep, and it is now shown as a waterway on Google Maps.

(Hey, now I've learned how to put an arrow on something!  This has been an incredibly enlightening afternoon.  Glad you could join me.)

Of course, there's a lot of nature around here and we'll be exploring that over the weekend.  As always, you can expect a full report but given my new skills you may also start to see cropped pictures with arrows.  I know:  it's exciting.  I can hardly wait.

In the meantime, put Silver City on your vacation "to go" list.  You won't be sorry.

Along the Road to Silver City

The drive from Las Cruces to Silver City is about two hours, but I was in no hurry since I left around noon and my cousin was at work until later in the day.  So I took a few small detours.

Let's start with Akela Flats, a highly advertised (by billboard) place which, as it turns out, is just an Exxon station and tourist trap halfway between Las Cruces and Deming.  That is to say, in the middle of nowhere.

In case it's unclear, there is no Telegraph and Assay Service or Postal Center behind these wooden false fronts.  There's a combination convenience store/gift shop/fireworks store which accompanies the gas station.  (Yeah, the whole "fireworks and gas station" thing makes me more than a little nervous, too.)  Their cookies aren't bad, though.

Along I-10, there are signs that say "Zero Visibility Possible - Do Not Stop in Travel Lanes."  These seem to refer to duststorms that apparently kick up in the area.  (While a good sign, it doesn't rate up there with the "People Have Died Here" sign I saw at Dripping Springs.)  Fortunately, Tuesday was a clear day with very little wind so I had no temptation to Stop in Travel Lanes.

Also along I-10 there are signs that tell you not to pick up hitchhikers because there's a state prison nearby.  That makes the Border Patrol checkpoint which I encountered (uneventfully) perhaps doubly useful.  ("U.S. citizen and not an imprisoned felon, ma'am?")  As I was not wearing orange, the agent waved (waived?) me through without any conversation at all.

Beyond that, there is nothing else along I-10:

When I reached Deming I realized that I was less than forty miles from the Mexican border so I decided to take a detour south on Highway 11, the Ike Smalley Memorial Highway.  Smalley was apparently a long-time state legislator from Deming, and also an attorney, prospector and miner.  Nobody out here seems to only do one thing.

Anyhoo, I stopped in Columbus which is a very, very, very small border town of about three streets.  Still, not entirely unattractive when you get off the highway.

The original point of Columbus (in 1891) was as a border station but when the railroad came through three miles away in 1903 the townspeople moved a bit north to be closer to the tracks.  In 1916 Pancho Villa attacked Columbus, causing President Woodrow Wilson to dispatch General John J. Pershing (and Lt. George S. Patton) on his historic (and unsuccessful) Punitive Expedition.  The purpose of the community today still seems to be that it is the last U.S. town before Mexico.  That's what it was for me, as I stopped to get gas and take a quick necessity break.

The border crossing looked like I thought it would, only smaller.  Palomas, Mexico, is not a major crossing so there was one narrow lane and one guard.  She waved me through without question.

I recall a line from the Orson Welles film noir, "Touch of Evil", that is something like "border towns combine the worst characteristics of both countries."  There was nothing I saw in Palomas that would make me argue with that assessment.

The Dental Implants Center is the first building you encounter when you cross into Mexico. I do not believe that this is a random placement. Location, location, location.

Rebecca and Wendy, please note the presence of a Zumba facility which I included specifically for you.

 

Then I crossed back into the U.S.  Given that I was the only, um, customer in sight I got the full attention of the Border Patrol guard.  I'm not complaining; it actually was a bit reassuring to be given what seemed to be a thorough inspection.  He looked at my passport, asked me my birthday, asked me my occupation (that was a tougher question than he'd thought it would be), consulted his computer, and looked dubiously at the Vue.  I offered to let him look in the back but he declined - perhaps it was the presence of the John Gregg sticker on the rear bumper that made him feel I was a low risk.  He asked me what I'd been doing in Palomas and seemed slightly perplexed at my explanation ("I was driving from Las Cruces to Silver City and decided to see Mexico") and the length of time of my visit (I told him five minutes, which may have been an overstatement).  I had nothing to declare, having spent no money in Mexico ("not even food or drink?" he asked.)  I guess I'd have thought more people might just do a little drive-through like I did, but apparently not.

The inspection took a couple of minutes, and then I drove off...to the next Border Patrol Checkpoint, where I encountered two guards.  One had a German Shepherd and jovially asked whether I was just getting off work.  Whether he had mistaken me for somebody else or used this line as a clever way of questioning people while seeming friendly I will probably never know.  His partner paid more attention to the Vue than the other checkpoint inspectors had done (it would have been impossible to pay less) and I rolled down the back window for him to peer inside.  I'm starting to get used to these checkpoints, which concerns me a little bit.

Next stop:  City of Rocks State Park, which is halfway between Deming and Silver City - about 30 miles south of Silver City.  It is very cool - sort of like a natural Carhenge.  It's rock formed of volcanic ash and sculpted over the centuries by wind and, I imagine from time to time, rain.  There are only six other places on earth with this type of natural formation (seven, if you include Carhenge).  They have a lot of astronomy-related programming and I really did wish I could just sleep out under the stars there.

This first picture is from a distance, and I put in the last picture so you can see the size by comparing the rocks to the Vue.

The section shown here is the closest to the visitor center but also the smallest.  There are a lot of other rocks just a bit further away, as you saw from the first two pictures.

The last place I stopped on the way to Silver City was the Fort Bayard National Memorial Cemetery at the old Fort Bayard a few minutes outside Silver City. It's like a small Arlington Cemetery and Wikipedia says that over 3,700 veterans are buried here.

It was a very interesting drive and I made it to Silver City (elevation 5,900 feet, population 10,629) in time for a very fun Trivia Night with my cousin, her husband and their friends.

Finally, Evidence of Precipitation in Las Cruces

After watching the Presidential Inauguration on Monday, Aunt Susie and I went to Dripping Springs State Park to hike in the Organ Mountains.  But first we had a hotdog at Caliche's, home of the Green Chile Sundae.  Their hotdogs are fantastic; I did not try the sundae.

Dripping Springs State Park is on the west side of the Organ Mountains and has a gravel path (sometimes steep but generally not bad) of about a mile and a half leading to an old sanitorium.  Beyond that, you can hike up on your own which Aunt Susie has done.

The fact that it's a developed path, however, doesn't avoid the fact that it's a mountain.  You know, with nature and unpredictable conditions and all.  So they put up this sign, which might be summarized as "don't be an idiot:"

It's a great sign, I thought.  Along with the "25% of TSA agents are vets" sign from Sea-Tac, it's my favorite from the trip so far.

The hike is beautiful.  Aunt Susie says that every mountain is different, depending on the elevation and what side you're on.  This mountain actually had thin patches of snow and it was definitely much greener than Picacho Peak in that respect.

This second picture shows the remains of the sanitorium, which was built by Dr. Nathan Boyd, a "medical doctor and international businessman" (according to the informational plaque) who came to the area around the turn of the last century to build a dam on the Rio Grande River.  Although unsuccessful at building the dam, he did construct this sanitorium for people with tuberculosis which lasted until the 1930's.  The property subsequently became a ranch until it was donated to the Nature Conservancy and is now operated by the State Parks Department.

A closer-up picture:

My friend Christopher had said I should go into the building and take pictures to see if any ghostly images appear which I thought was a good idea.  However, for reasons that are obvious when you actually see the structures they won't let you enter.  And so, sadly, the existence of ghosts will have to remain an unanswered question.

The name "Dripping Springs" comes from an actual springs, although it is very small (it drips, not gushes - otherwise they'd call it "Gushing Springs," I guess) so you can't make it out very well in this picture:

Aunt Susie wasn't sure what was going on with the manmade stone thing that the water drips over.  It looks like it's there to shore something up but that will remain yet another unanswered question.

It was interesting to see a little snow on the ground.  The temperature on Monday was in the 60's which it had been for a couple of days (the week before it had been more like 40's); the areas where we saw snow tended, of course, to be shadier and at higher elevation.  Still, it was the first sign of January I'd seen since leaving Omaha. 

Las Cruces has been in drought which applies to snow as well as rain, and this is an actual picture of the Rio Grande River, taken on Tuesday:

It's sand.  Dry sand.  That's it.  The riverbed is probably 75 yards across and there's not a drop of water in it.  The water level - and I use that term hypothetically - at Las Cruces is controlled by dams further north, but Aunt Susie said that even at those areas the river is very low.

(Let me clarify that the Organ Mountains are on the other side of Las Cruces from the Rio Grande, so the little bits of snow that we saw aren't going to do any good for the water level even though theoretically the Dripping Springs area drains into the river.)

As my brother David likes to say, "the plural of anecdote is not data" (isn't that a great saying?) and I'm not going to jump to a climate change conclusion from the examples of drought in Denver and drought in New Mexico and drought in the midwest.  I will leave that conclusion for the gazillion scientists who have studied these matters.  However, looking at the Rio Grande riverbed doesn't give one a sense of optimism, which is why I'm glad President Obama talked about the need to take action on climate change in his Inaugural Address.

Tuesday I headed west toward Silver City, which was an interesting drive that involved no evidence that water had ever fallen on southwest New Mexico.  Stay tuned.

A Couple of Interesting Things I Learned While Shopping in Las Cruces

Friends know that I'm not much of a shopper.  Still, even I have found some interesting places to browse (and buy) while in Las Cruces.

Let's start with COAS Books.  This is a used bookstore, and has to be the largest one on earth.  Seriously, it takes several minutes to wind your way from the front of their downtown store (they have two locations) to the back even if you're not stopping to look at books.  It's amazing.  I could have spent days in this place, but ended up settling on three books on CD.  Aunt Susie insisted on paying for them, which at first I thought she was just doing to be hospitable.  The price to me would have been about $22 - a very good price.  But since Aunt Susie is a member, which means that she brings in her old books and has an account, she paid less than $3.  Yes, three dollars.  It's amazing.  Did I already say that it's amazing?  If I disappear while on my adventure, you might look for me at COAS Books.

Then there's San Saba Pecans.  (You may recall the name San Saba from my stay in Austin; San Saba County is a very good band.)  It's a pecan wholesaler and retailer; there's a sign in the front that says "If you've brought in pecans, wait here for your check."  I think it's kind of cool to be buying pecans in the same room where local farmers sell them.  (We saw acres and acres of pecan trees just southwest of town.  We also saw several cotton fields.  Where the water will come from for both of these endeavors is a very good question and it doesn't sound like anyone has a very good answer.  The Rio Grande, which is nearby, looks like this right now:

See the bridge in the background?  What goes under the bridge is the Rio Grande.  Right now, that is a combination of dirt and dust and grass and a very small amount of water trickling along one side.  We saw a guy walking on the riverbed today and his feet weren't getting any wetter than they would have been had he been walking along the road.)

But I digress.  Back to consumerism.

Saturday we also went to the market downtown.  In the summertime, this is either the largest or second largest market in the country.  In January, it was big enough for me and went on for several blocks, with a width of two to four vendors on each block.

This time of year there isn't much produce, of course.  To keep the market interesting and keep out the junk, Aunt Susie said that they have a rule that all products must be made in New Mexico.  This does prevent the garage sale atmosphere which can plague some farmers markets, and almost everything I saw was nice.  I bought a couple of beautiful rings:

I've got a real career as a hand model, don't you think?

Here's a product that you'll find nowhere else but New Mexico:

It tastes okay.  A little spicy for me at 10 in the morning, but probably would be better in the evening with a cold beer.  Everything in southern New Mexico is about green chilis, although I haven't seen a green chili donut yet.  But I haven't gone looking for one, either.

Aunt Susie knew a guy named Randy who offered us a chocolate cookie baked in a solar oven.

The temperature in the oven is 325 degrees (it was about 45 degrees outside) and he said it takes about 20 minutes to bake them (they were fat cookies).  This is another thing you can do with 300 days of sun every year.

And lastly, I took the following picture just because I wanted to write the caption:



Hot Dog!

Get it?  But not to fear, friends of animals, it wasn't at all hot outside.  The weather has returned to seasonal, which is to say sunny and 60's.  Yes, it is perfect weather for shopping!