Traveling to New Mexico (Part 1)

In September of 2007, my parents and I took a trip from New York to New Mexico. The next several posts will include pictures and captions of our two-week excursion. This is actually the first page of my scrapbook, which features a postcard of the pueblo-style housing found throughout the state. Please note that there are links throughout the text -- these will take you to websites with more information about the topic. What can I say, it's a librarian thing.

As usual, we took AmTrak across the country from Syracuse, New York to Chicago, and then from Chicago to Albuquerque, New Mexico. We generally book sleeping cars, since the trip takes at least three days. One of the advantage of AmTrak is that travelers can spend their time looking out the window at the scenery, eat in the dining car, and often find entertainment in the lounge car. On this trip, a man from the National Park Service rode the train for several hours, pointing out plants along the route, telling us about the history of various places we passed, and describing the lifestyles of people in the area. Very educational, and at no extra charge.











In Albuquerque we rented a car and drove south to Alamogordo. About 13 miles outside this city is the White Sands National Monument (and the White Sands Missile Test Range). White Sands is full of, naturally, sand dunes. The sand is gypsum, carried down from nearby mountains by run-off water into shallow lakes. The lakes dry up, and wind picks up the sand and deposits it throughout the park. You can get a good idea of the vastness of the dunes from the above picture. The dunes actually move as wind pushes the sand and gravity pulls it down when the dunes get too tall. A variety of plant life has adapted to the area. In the picture at left, there is a small yellow flower called a yellow evening primrose. At right is a yucca plant, one of the symbols of New Mexico.


Skunk bush sumac, below. Remember when I mentioned that many plants had adapted to this area? This is one of them. These bushes are everywhere in the park. They grow a very thick, deep root system while young. Because the sands move, many plants would lose their anchorage as the dune shifts. The sumac, however, holds the sands in place with its roots, thereby forming a distinct hump on the landscape.

I'm not sure if the picture at right will show enough detail, but across the central dune is a row of footprints left by one of the park animals. We saw only a few small lizards while we were there, mostly because we visited in the middle of the day. Most creatures are smart enough to come out during early morning or evening, when the air has cooled and there is still some moisture around.

Carlsbad Caverns

No trip to New Mexico is complete without a visit to these famous caves. We drove from Alamogordo to the caverns and spent the afternoon touring the rock formations. Below are several pictures of some of the more interesting sites, such as the Sword of Damacles (left), the Lion's Tail (center), and a small grotto off the main cavern. (Please excuse the picture of the baby bat in the corner of the right-hand picture. I was trying for "cute", since some of the people looking at my pictures were afraid of bats....)

At right, my parents at a table in the underground cafe near the elevators. Taking the elevators down shaves about 90 minutes off the time you spend in the caverns. While I would have liked to go in through the natural entrance, we didn't have the time, and my parents certainly were in no condition to make that kind of trek.

And then there are the bats. The caverns are home to thousands of Mexican free-tail bats during certain times of the year. Visitors can sit and watch the bats leave the caverns in the evening, or return in the morning. The bats are out all night forage for food -- insects. Naturally the bats are drawn to street lights, which is where the insects are. (I watched a couple of bats later that evening outside my motel room.) There is a seating area just outside the caverns' natural entrance where people can sit and wait for the daily migrations. A couple of park rangers talk about the bats and their habits, as well as myths about bats. Everyone in our group was told to turn off their cell phones and cameras, as the sound from the batteries apparently messes with the bats' echolocation, making it difficult for the animals to navigate. Anything that requires people to shut off their cell phones is okay by me! This picture of the bats is actually a postcard, purchased to commemorate the event. I also bought an "Adopt a Bat" kit that included pictures, information sheets about bats, and instructions for building a bat house.


The History of Space Museum













Back to Alamogordo, this time to visit the Space Museum. New Mexico has been home to many projects that tested missiles and aircraft. The Museum has four floors of displays, including whole sections on rocket testing and history, a spacecraft cabin you can walk through, actual satellites, space suits, food packs that astronauts have taken to space, and a section on visions of the future found in books and other media. There are also interactive computer games that deal with space and rocketry. Around the walls of the building on all four floors are pictures belonging to the "Hall of Fame". The pictures depict various people who dealt with space or space-related sciences, from Copernicus to Ray Bradbury to many astronauts and rocketeers.

The picture above shows the outside of the museum. Below is a lunar rover on display. Both are postcards that can be purchased at the gift shop.














After Alamogordo, we moved on to Santa Fe. More in the next post.