New Mexico Roadtrip - Part 1

We left Houston on Wednesday evening and started the long haul journey to New Mexico – some 10 hours driving and most of that on one road, actually the same road as we took last year to Big Bend – I10! We took it in turn to drive the 500 miles, switching every three hours, to Fort Stockton. Listened to 'Radiolab' podcasts (www.radiolab.org) and 'The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo' audiobook to keep us entertained. We reached Fort Stockton in the early hours after a excitement free journey – I only passed two deer standing on the roadside – it was my biggest fear after seeing so many of them killed on the road last year. We slept in the car for a few hours, in a truckers stop (truck, truck, car, truck, truck …), before a quick drive to Carlsbad for breakfast. I have to say I had quite a crick in my neck when I woke up and the car smelt quite ‘ripe’ as well!!

Now Thursday morning we drove the final hour into New Mexico, with the sun rising behind us, for our breakfast at the Blue House Bakery & Cafe Carlsbad. This place had come recommended on the internet and I would certainly recommend it – we had a fine Breakfast Burrito each!

First stop of the day was Carlsbad Caverns (One of the World’s largest caverns) - http://www.nps.gov/cave/index.htm. We missed the Ranger Guided tour of the Kings Palace Cave, to my disgruntlement, but visited the Big Room cave by ourselves. This is reportedly the largest cave in the Western Hemisphere and the Big Room was certainly big!

Geology lecture 1: The cave was dissolved along cracks and faults in the limestone rock by sulphuric acid. The limestone was laid down about two-hundred and fifty million years ago, as part of a reef complex along the edge of an inland sea. Seventeen to twenty million years ago, the ancient reef rocks that had been buried under thousands of feet of younger rocks began to lift upwards. Tectonic forces pushed the buried rock layers up and erosion wore away softer minerals to expose the ancient reef as the Guadalupe Mountains. Deep in the basin, brine originating from oil and gas deposits and rich in hydrogen sulphide was forced into the limestone at the edge of the basin. When this brine encountered oxygen-rich rainwater moving down through the rock, it created sulphuric acid. This acid dissolved the limestone creating cave passages. As the Guadalupe Mountains continued to lift up, the water drained out of the cave allowing fresh water to percolate through and leave minerals on the ceiling, walls, and floors that we know as cave decorations.

I learnt a new word 'speleothem', a collective term for cave decorations such as stalactites, stalagmites, flowstone, etc. Unfortunately most of our photos didn’t come out great but it was really impressive (and cold) down there. I would recommend walking in and taking the lift out as we did. If you get there at sun set you can watch all the bats leaving from the cave entrance.

Next we went on to White Sands - (The world's largest gypsum sand dune field) - http://www.nps.gov/whsa/index.htm. We set off for White Sands and thought it would only be a couple of hours to get there, but the road over the top of the Sacramento Mountains took forever as the speed limit got down to as low as 25mph at some points (actually through a school zone it was a mere 15 mph – have you ever tried that!), and we didn't want to speed as we heard the New Mexico cops are pretty good at catching speeders.

As we descended from the Sacramento Mountains we could see the vastness (275 square miles) of the White Sands shining in the sunlight. It was like the ocean. Because of the delay in getting to White Sands and still having quite a long drive to get to our hotel for the night we didn't spend much time at White Sands and only had a short time to walk around the dunes. But it was spectacular and exactly what I wanted to see.

Geology lecture 2: The common mineral gypsum, a hydrous form of calcium sulfate (CaS04. 2H20) is rarely found in the form of sand because it is soluble in water. The gypsum that forms the White Sands was deposited at the bottom of a shallow sea 250 million years ago. Eventually turned into stone, these gypsum-bearing marine deposits were uplifted into a giant dome 70 million years ago when the Rocky Mountains were formed. Beginning 10 million years ago, the centre of this dome began to collapse and create the Tularosa Basin. The remaining sides of the original dome formation now form the San Andres and Sacramento mountain ranges that ring the basin.

We were heading for Truth or Consequences but on the way passed Hatch - The Chilie Capitol of the World - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hatch,_New_Mexico. I knew Stuart would like to see it so we stop and took some photos of the chilie fields and checked outt a roadside shop (Gilly's Hatch Valley Chile Company) to by some red hatch 'Ristas' (strings of chilie peppers). Gilly and is brother were very friendly and very excited to get some foreigners to the shop, but was a little confused about Scotland as he said; "Oh! Scotland, those funny wooden shoe people". Gilly can ship you chillies so look at the sign closely for his phone number :)

Finally we arrived at Truth or Consequences, approximately 1300 miles after we set off the night before! The town was originally named Hot Springs, however, the city changed its name to Truth or Consequences in 1950 after a radio competition!

We stayed at the Sierra Grande Lodge http://www.sierragrandelodge.com. We first got asked – ‘What time would you like me to run your mineral bath?’ We actually decided to take the mineral bath – run from the local hot spring in the morning, but when we got to our room it was beautiful with a huge sunken bath in the room. The bed was so high you had to take a running jump at it and overall it was a lovely place (highly recommend it). We had a quick wash and went out for dinner before everywhere closed up and had an alright dinner, but since we didn’t want a lengthy affair it worked for us. We were in bed by 9:30pm and did not wake up until the alarm went off signifying it was time for our mineral bath. The mineral bath was steamy hot in a private room! And we had an hour of getting seriously ‘prune-i-fied’ before heading to breakfast. Breakfast was also great as they bake all their own bread, rolls and muffins (I even wrapped up one in a napkin to eat later :) ).

Just an interest fact, nearby Truth or Consequences they are building 'Spaceport America', the worlds first purpose-built commercial spaceport http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spaceport_America