5. New Mexico

A short 1 hour ride from Guadalupe Mountains National Park in Texas to Carlsbad, New Mexico. Stayed overnight Apr 26th,  and next morning drove 20 miles to Carlsbad Cavern National Park. Did the two fantastic self guided tours which take you down into the caverns and then through the Big Room. That afternoon, did a ranger guided tour which was disappointing, as the ranger was condescending, boring and spoke way too slowly.  Pictures did not come out too well inside the caverns.

Entrance to the cavern - a 1 mile switchback path from here takes you down 750 feet to the main cavern area which has a cafeteria, rest rooms and four elevators (so you don't have to walk back up).

One of the formations in the Big Room which is huge - takes about 1 hour to walk around.

Stayed one more night in Carlsbad, toured city next day.  It is on the Pecos River, which they have dammed and call Lake Carlsbad. There is a nice park there which I rode my bicycle all around.

That afternoon, drove up towards Roswell, stayed just outside the city.  Next morning toured the Roswell City Museum which was boring but then toured the UFO museum which was very interesting.

That afternoon drove to Lincoln, site of Billy the Kid and the Lincoln County War. The entire town is a state historic site, with good displays about the events. Inside the 2nd floor window of this 1880 building was where Billy the Kid was jailed. when he shot 2 deputies and escaped, only to be killed a few months later.

Drove another hour to Smokey Bear Historic Site where Smokey was found  as a little cub after a forest fire. He then lived the rest of his life at the Washington DC national zoo. When he died, his body was flown back here and he is buried in the park's garden.

Then drove another hour to an Apache Indian casino in the town of Ruidoso, where I lost $100 playing craps and slots, and then had to pay $26 to stay overnight in their crappy RV site.  Next day toured a horse museum at Ruidoso Downs, a large horse race track in the middle of nowhere. It was boring.

Drove an hour to Alamogordo where I toured the New Mexico Museum of Space History. It was not too exciting, as I think I have seen so many space museums that there isn't much new out there.

Stayed in Alamogordo overnight.  Next morning had the front end of the RV worked on as the steering wasn't feeling very good in the past few days while I was driving through the mountain passes. $240 later, the wheels were aligned and balanced, and the rotors had been removed, turned (smoothed with a lathe), and replaced.  That afternoon, drove 1 hour to White Sands National Monument, a bunch of gypsum sand dunes in the middle of the desert.  Did a 2 hour hike into the sand dunes, which was eery, as you had to keep the previous and following markers in sight to avoid getting lost.

That evening, drove South through Las Cruces, onto I-10 West and stayed overnight in Deming, NM, about 70 miles east of the Arizona border. Decided next morning to visit the Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument in NM, so drove 80 miles North into the mountains, which took 3 hours as the road was steep, curvy and narrow.  Toured the small cliff dwellings - only six caves - but the 2 mile hike there and back was very picturesque.

Stayed overnight in a RV park there, which had mostly National Park volunteers staying, so had a good time talking to them and learning about what it is like to be a volunteer - perhaps I might do that sometime.
Next morning, May 3rd, drove 4 hours up and down two passes, by a huge open pit copper mine near Silver City, NM,  and into Arizona.