We had always wanted to visit the Carlsbad Caverns to see the bats.
We planned to get away for a bit after Anne's classes concluded this past Wednesday (10/26). Our first thoughts were to visit Canada's maritime provinces, perhaps driving from northern Maine to Prince Edward Island. When I checked into specific establishments, I discovered a lot of them would be closed for the season by mid-October. While my Canadian friends think it was still doing, we decided on something very different - the US Southwest. My original plans were to visit as many National Parks and Monuments as possible, but eventually decided to take it easy and thus skipped both Petrified Forest and Saguaro. Our main "loop" would take around 12 hours, which should mean a leisurely pace for the week.
Our planned route for the week. Visits to a couple of NWRs and three National Parks/Monuments.
This was the original plan, with Petrified Forest and Saguaro added to the itinerary. An additional ten hours of driving. Too tittle time left for the actual sight-seeing.
10/29 Saturday. We didn't get much sleep last night, and left the house around 8:15 am to catch a 10:03 am flight. My two recent encounters with TSA were not ideal, the X-ray machine seemed to take a long time and was clearly the bottleneck. All the complaints, however, and we were still through in about ten minutes. For a change both our Newark-Denver and Denver-Albuquerque flights were smooth, ahead of schedule, and without incident.
Priority Pass allowed us to have lunch at Sweetwater Mountain Taphouse, located at the end of this long concourse B. Still doable because UA391 arrived 45 minutes ahead of schedule. The EWR-DEN flight used a 737-900 plane that looked old for a 7 year old plane, and the DEN-ABQ A319 is 20 years old, and looked equally sharp inside. Even though it was an hour-long flight, we still appreciated being upgraded, and the copilot actually wrote me a note on his business card thanking me for being a 1K member.
I had the window seat on the DEN-ABQ leg. The scenery out the window is quite captivating.
Took many photos from the plane. I am piecing together where the features are by looking at where the plane was (via Flight Radar 24) when the pictures were taken. This was soon after we crossed into New Mexico on UA1227 from Denver. We were flying south, the white capped mountain range to the west (I was in seat A), and they should be the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. Wheeler Peak, the highest point, should be there somewhere.
This, and the one below, should be in the Valles Caldera National Preserve area.
Is this a ski resort?
By the time we checked into the hotel, it was a little after 4:30 pm. We settled a bit, and then left first for a quick dinner at Chic-fil-A, then to the Lensic Performance Center to watch the opera "This Little Light of Mine," commissioned by the Sante Fe Opera through Opera for All Voices.
We missed the entrance to the parking garage and had to drive through a lot of traffic (probably people out and about because of Halloween) to get back to the garage. We made the performance with 10 minutes to spare.
This auditorium at the Lensic Performance Arts Center reminds me of Count Basie and State Theater in NJ.
Curtain Call after performance of the opera "This Little Light of Mine."
Accommodations: Courtyard Sante Fe. (1 night)
Miles driven today: approximately 70.
10/30 Sunday. Anne read this article about pueblos, there being quite a few in New Mexico. We considered making a detour to visit one of them, and decided against it. Perhaps towards the end of the trip. There are several reasons for my reluctance. Having visited the Smithsonian Native American Museum, where lack of a coherent story-telling astounded me, I don't think any of these local attractions would do any better. Native American reservations I have driven through before all had this somewhat depressed feel about them, that no concrete actions have taken place to improve the people's lot is one of the frustrations with the experience. Some of the pueblos listed are expliciting not welcoming of gawking tourists, and many of them require quite a detour to get to.
Another place worth noting is the Very Large Array Radio Telescope. That's a detour of about 50 miles each way. Unfortunately it won't be open for the days we will be in the area. Could be interesting.
I wasn't expecting much with the Bosque del Apache NWR as this is not peak season for birds wintering in the area. Turns out there is quite a variety, with Sandhill cranes and snow geese in rather large numbers. There is a loop (actually a Northern and a Southern loop) similar to one in Forsythe back in NJ. We ended up spending a few hours there, and saw quite a variety of birds including the Gambel's Quail, a bittern, a couple of herons, and the American Coot.
We also saw quite a few avocets, and perhaps a roadrunner. The avocets were too far away, and I am not sure about the roadrunner - it was taller and leaner than the plentiful Gambel's Quail.
Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge hosts thousands of Sandhill cranes for several months. There is a festival celebrating these birds in early December.
Cactus garden next to the visitor's center. Many varieties of birds are found near the bird feeders.
Identified by Merlin as the Cooper's Hawk. (Accuracy depends on how well I describe the bird.)
Great Blue Heron.
These American White Pelicans look like swans from a distance.
The American Coot. Taken from a bridge whose shadow cast onto the water.
Quite a few Sandhill Cranes and Snow Geese are found at the NWR.
Nice colors from the Cottonwood trees.
Snow geese are quite abundant.
Gambel's Quails at a feeder in the Cactus Garden.
Socorro, where we would stay the night, was very empty. Evidently many restaurants close on Sundays. The hotel is quite new, and the restaurant (El Camino) is open. We had Mexican food, not as good as Juanito's back in New Jersey.
Accommodation: Econo Lodge, Socorro, NM (1 night).
Miles driven today: approximately 260
10/31 Monday. We checked out at around 10:15 am, and expected to arrive at White Sands National Park at around 12:45 pm; we ended up getting there at around 2:30 pm because of two detours we made.
There is no traffic along the route from Socorro to White Sands, and the trip would take approximately 2:30 hours. Probably quite a bit less as people could zip along at 80 mph in a 65 mph zone. But before we got to Carrizozo we saw this turn off for "Valley of Fires Recreation Area" and decided to take a look. Turns out it was a Bureau of Land Management campsite situated next to a lava field. From memory: this occurred about 5000 years ago, from the "small black peak" (which we could see), and the field is approximately 45 miles long and 3 to 5 miles wide. Walking along the trail gave us some idea what the lava flow was like, and how much vegetation has grown on it after all these years.
A panoramic view of the Carrizozo Malpais lava field as seen from the Valley of Fires Recreation Area.
Pictures of lava flow taken during our walk along the trail.
The sign in front of this cave explains bats like to live in these caves because the temperature is moderated by as much as 30F.
Here the visitor is welcome to go off trail, a steady pair of shoes is needed. I would add make sure one has a good sense of balance.
This juniper tree managed to dig itself into the cracks in the lava. The sign says its 400 years old.
There is a long stretch of newly laid down tracks along Route 54 between Carrizozo and Alamogordo. We eventually caught up with this train going along rather quickly. We estimated 250 cars, all pulled along by five locomotives.
We saw many groves with trees which we concluded were pistachio trees. This confirms it. There is a much larger outlet down the road from this one.
1 lb of pistachios, 10 oz of pistachio brittles, 5 oz of cinnamon pistachio bites, and a small pistachio ice cream (which is not small at all) total to about $35.
With the above detours, we didn't get to White Sands National Park until around 2:30 pm. This former National Monument was designated as a National Park by President Trump in 2019. The white sand comes from gypsum washed down from the mountains onto the basin between two mountain ranges. Evaporation causes crystals to be formed. These are driven from in a SW to NE direction, and break up into fine white powder. (Actual process a bit more complicated, but this will suffice.)
It's area is about 250 square miles, and there is a road (part paved, part compacted gypsum) that takes one inside the park, with stops for various trails.
We saw a lot of dessert on our way. This is just outside the White Sands National Park.
Sledding is permitted, and quite popular.
After dinner at Carina's (next door to the hotel), we went back to the park to catch the sunset, and to see the night sky (and possibly the milky way). A good photographer would probably get many nice pictures. I managed the following with my iPhone. I did see many stars I don't see in NJ, but the half moon meant the conditions were ideal. We left around 7:30 pm.
Photo taken at 6:11 pm. Sunset was 6:13 pm.
Fine gypsum sand.
Accommodation: Fairfield Inn, Alamogordo, NM. (1 night)
Miles driven today: 213.
11/1 Tuesday. According to Google Maps, the drive from Alamogordo to Carlsbad Caverns is 174 miles and takes about 3:15 hours. Most of the drive was over a basin which is at an elevation of about 5,000 feet. The first 20 or so miles, however, was a climb over the Sacramento Mountain Range. We passed by Cloudcroft which is at an elevation of 8676'. The posted speed limits were general quite high, but vehicles tended to exceed them.
We stopped at Wendy's in Artesia for lunch. This "single" was pretty close to how they look in advertisements.
We reached Carlsbad Caverns Visitor Center before 1:30 pm, our reserved time for entering the caverns for a self-guided tour. (The window for entry is 1:30 - 2:30pm.) There are many interesting formations, but most are the results of dripping water. We also learned the term "speleothem," which refers to any structure formed from mineral deposits from water. We spent about 90 minutes on the 1.25 mile route.
In front of the Visitors' Center.
The elevator takes tourists 750 feet below the surface. This is taken inside the elevator just as we started our journey.
We followed the route. Other than a few possible shortcuts, that's the only way to go.
These are called "lion's tails." It's up to the imagination of the person what the different formations can be called.
Many stalagmites have secondary or even tertiary formations. Some remain smooth, I wonder what the processes and subprocesses are.
All the photos inside the cave were taken with my iPhone 12 Pro Max, under very dim lighting conditions. Oftentimes the 3-second "averaging" feature was used.
Fairyland.
Many of these "straws" come down from the ceiling of the cave.
This ladder was used by some explorer to examine lower level caverns. Multiple layers of caverns were formed due to the changing levels of water flow.
Mirror Lake. Every now and then a drop of water would form a ripple on the otherwise calm service.
These "stone lily pads" were results of water table changes.
Crystal Spring Dome is the largest active stalagmite in the cavern. Water level at the base stopped it from growing and the base is in the shape of a bell bottom as a result. (Frankly I am repeating many words I read without fully understanding them.)
Again different people can assign different "characters" to this group of structures. My first reaction was this is a scene from hell, with the guy in the middle being Yama, the king of hell in Chinese folklore. Notice the one next to him, with a beard.
This is the statue with a beard, up close. Called "Rock of Ages" by the Park.
How many more years before the two join?
We stayed in the visitor area for a while, looking at the displays, and watching an introductory video. At about 5 pm we went over to the Cave entrance - used by visitors who choose to walk the mile or so to the cavern to try our luck at seeing bats. To my dismay I found out bats in this cave fly to Mexico for the winter, and the ranger program (talk before the bats come out to feed at dusk) already ended for the season. At about 5:30 pm a ranger showed up (a nice surprise) and talked a bit generally about the bats in the cave. What we saw, and he explained, were cave swallows that go back into the cave to spend the night at this time. There were quite a few of them, and they dove in at great speed. The ranger admitted he was trying to set low expectations by saying they saw perhaps 1,000 the night before.
At around 5:45 pm the bats began to swirl around inside the cave, and then they came out, one group after another. We think at least 15 to 20 groups flew out, and each group would number a few hundred (say 400). That would mean 6,000 to 8,000 of them were still around. The peak number (per the ranger) is 400,000. I can't imagine what that would be like.
The entrance to the Carlsbad Caverns is also what bats and swallows use. Bats are located about a half-mile into the cave.
Again the iPhone provides some detail of what the entrance looks like.
An amphitheater is build in front of the entrance. About 30 people were around tonight to view the bats. Anne and I think it was worth the wait.
We checked into the hotel afterwards, and walked over to IHOP for dinner.
Accommodation: Fairfield Inn, Carlsbad, NM (2 nights)
Miles driven today: 199.
11/2 Wednesday. Our plan today was to visit first Carlsbad Caverns. Anne and I would split up, she would take the elevator down and walk the great room route again; I would take the walk down to the cavern. We would meet up in about 90 minutes.
Zig zag path leading down to the cavern.
Keep going ...
While not as spectacular as what one sees in the Great Room, there are interesting sights along the way.
The green color, an artifact or plant growth? We are still in the twilight zone.
The zig zag path continues.
Whale's mouth.
Why are some of these structures at an angle? They survived the crash of the "iceberg rock," which is estimated to have happened over 500,000 years ago.
Quoting from the panel in front of this structure called either spongework or boneyard, There are different theories on how sulfuric acid played a role in cave development.
The Barometer APP on my iPhone indicated an elevation of 4318 ft at the entrance.
The lowest point is not at the elevator shaft, but before. The actual lowest point is a bit deeper as one wouldn't know it's been reached until one walks past it. In any case, this is 756 ft below the cave entrance. (Don't know how accurate the APP is.)
I had enough time left to walk the "small" loop of the Great Room route. The scene from hell doesn't look so foreboding when seen from the side. Yama is in the middle of this photo.
A closer shot. The brightly lit head on the right is that of Yama's.
Saw this, Doll's Theater, again. Should have posted it yesterday.
Modern bathrooms at 750 feet below the surface.
We saw these mountain goats the day before also. Today we could stop and take photos.
It was a short drive from Carlsbad Caverns to Guadalupe Mountains National Park. After a short "nature walk" I took a 40-minute hike (roundtrip) on a canyon trail.
The Guadalupe Mountains are part of this "coral reef" left over from the Permian Period. The reef, made of algae (instead of the usual coral) used to ring the Delaware Basin during that 260 million years ago.
El Capitan was used as a landmark by early travelers.
I took a 3/4 mile or so walk along the Canyon Trail. Saw this tarantella walking on the trail.
A fellow hiker pointed this one out to me. It's body has a yellow/orange patch.
The walk (up to this point) was quite easy.
We had enough time on our hands to go back to the hotel to take a short rest, and then drove back to Carlsbad to see the bats coming out to feed again. Our arrival at 5:30 pm should give us enough time to go to the amphitheater - the bats came out at 5:50 pm last night, and 5:55 pm the night before. Alas, we saw murmurations of flying bats as we exited the car, so we proceeded to take videos of them while in the parking lot. By the time I reached the amphitheater, they were all gone. Anne stayed close to the parking lot and got a few more videos. In some sense this added more appreciation of this phenomenon. (Or we are trying to salvage our pride.)
It wasn't as evident yesterday that bats also fly in some sort of pattern.
Dinner was at Red Chimney BBQ. Food not expensive, but quality was just okay.
Miles driven today: 186.
11/3 Thursday. Our original plan was to spend more time in the Carlsbad area. Given what we managed to see the last two days, we decided to start out for Albuquerque and perhaps spend more time in that area. (It turns out we decided to visit the Very Large Array Telescope, of SETI fame, located about 2 hours away from Albuquerque.) The drive from Carlsbad to where we are staying tonight is about 280 miles long, and takes 4:30 hours. Stretches of highway with speed limits at 75 mph are common in this area.
We started relatively early, so had some time to spend in Roswell, of Area 51 fame. It turns out Roswell, with a population of about 50,000, is New Mexico's fifth largest city. The impression it gives is that it is a city trying to revive itself after some time in decline; but the jury is out.
This photo was taken at the Visitors' Center, for free - donations accepted. It is like what's done in these photo booths (last seen about 6 years ago). Anne took a picture of the photo.
John Chisum was a successful rancher. His statue dominates the town square.
La Gran Victoria in Roswell serves up decent and inexpensive Mexican food. This two-relleno dish cost less than $12. The restaurant is quite popular.
Photo with fellow diner.
Tourists fall for tourist traps. So here we are at the UFO Museum.
If you believe in conspiration theories, this is a prime example of what a cover-up looks like.
Alien dissection. The body wasn't opened up, so we will never know what the inside of an alien looks like.
The Roswell Museum exhibits many works by local artists.
There is a railroad track that paralles US285 outside of Vaugh (towards Encino). These stacked contains were on flatbed cars. This train wasn't moving.
Miles driven today: 286.
Accommodations: Fairfield Albuquerque Airport. (1 night)
11/4 Friday. We noticed signs for Very Large Array Radio Telescope when we were in Socorro at the beginning of the trip. Since the Visitors' Center is only open Thursdays to Sundays, we couldn't visit it. Now that we have an extra day on our hand, we could do it. It's about a two hour drive from where we stayed last night.
The visit consisted of a self-guided tour to see some of the facilities. Each of the 27 radio telescopes would have been impressive on its own - the diameter is the length of two school buses - when all 27 of them point in the same direction one could be amazed at how science and engineering can work together beautifully. It was cold, though. We started at the low 30s in Albuquerque and it didn't get that much warmer when we got to the VLA; and it was quite windy to boot.
The telescopes can be configured one of five ways depending on the type of observation to be done. The clusters would range in size from 0.6 miles to 22 miles.
Notice the direction of the antennae has changed from this photo to the next.
After lunch at Arby's in Socorro, we drove to the Petroglyph National Monument. We got there at 3:30 pm, they close at 4:30 pm, so we had to rush. (In my defense, I expected the Visitors' Center to close at 4:30 pm, turns out the shut the gates also.) One of the ways to date these petroglyphs is to compare them to historical designs. There is little interpretation of the carvings, and they could well be graffiti left by teenagers at that time.
We had time to visit Boca Negra Canyon and walked parts of the trails to see some of the petroglyphs. The NPS website estimates a total of 25,000 petroglyphs, with most carved during the years 1300 to 1680.
Some carvings we saw on our short walk.
We had crossed the Rio Grande several time during the week, and I really wanted a picture of it. The Rio Grande Nature Center State Park sounded promising, but when we got there they were about to close. Since it would be quite a walk to get to the river, we decided to try some other day - perhaps tomorrow.
Accommodation: Sheraton Albuquerque Airport. (1 night).
Miles driven today: 294
11/5 Saturday. Our flights today would land us at Newark at around 12:30 am Sunday, so I tried to see how the same day change feature worked on United. Didn't work as the options (all free) were either to leave early in the morning, or go to San Francisco for the red eye. It didn't show any options that required an extra fee, while I am sure some were available. That would mean we would have a lot of time to explore around Albuquerque before our scheduled 4:45 pm flight.
We visited three places. First was Indian Pueblo Cultural Center, dedicated to the 19 pueblos of New Mexico. My criterion for a good museum visit is how much more I know when I come out. (I know this is a cultural center, but same principle applies.) By the measure it was limited, although evidently better than my last visit in 2008. And better than the American Indian Museum in Washington DC. It appears "19 pueblos" is somewhat of an arbitrary construct in that there were at some point more than 100 in the areas, but most were abandoned with "foreign invasion" being a major reason - Spanish, Mexican, and US. Now each of them (some small) is considered an independent nation, each with its own elected governor, and determine how much the outside world is welcome.
Due to limited time, we skipped the Piedras Marcadas Canyon area yesterday, we caught up with it today and saw a few more carvings. I do wish the interpretations of the different symbols and their significance were more readily available, if they exist. After having crossed over the Rio Grande many times during the week, we finally walked to the edge of it. Pretty nice river, not grand by any measure as most of the water is diverted for various uses.
We have only vague recollections of this Cultural Center, which we visited 14 years ago (in November, no less).
A collection of small art objects.
These are a bit bigger. I do not find any description of how it represents Indian Pueblo culture, though.
We had lunch at the Center. Taco (top) and burritos. Not quite the versions we have in your typical Mexican restaurant. I seldom criticize food, but must do this time. We had a lot leftover.
We visited the Piedras Marcadas Canyon to see more petroglyphs.
There are a few hundred petroglyphs in this canyon. The question is: is this one petroglyph, or ten?
We finally managed to find access to the Rio Grande. We had to walk about 5 minutes from where we parked to get to the river's edge.
Inside Denver airport.
Our connection at DEN was going to be tight: 41 minutes. So if everything was on time we would arrive at the departure gate after boarding had started. Somewhere in our ABQ-DEN flight I noticed that the DEN-EWR flight was delayed by about an hour for lack of a crew. That gave us enough time to eat dinner at (the same) Sweetwater Mountain Taphouse. Mixed blessing as I both spilled a drink, and hurt my tooth by biting on a fork.
Flight left on time, had to wait a few minutes to get to the EWR gate, but we managed to arrive less than an hour later. So the flights were not perfect, but no real complaints.
We took an Uber home. At $58 a bit more expensive than normal, still quite reasonable.
The distance shown by Google Maps (at the beginning of this entry) has the "loop" at 767 miles. We managed to put an extra 700 miles on it, thus averaging about 200 miles a day. It was the right amount to be not tiring. Speed limits could be as high as 75 mph, and people did faster than that.
Miles driven today: 42
Total miles driven: 1480.
