Wednesday, December 09, 2015
Cowboys and Indians
We went to some fascinating places en route, many of them were to do with native Americans, non native Indians, and/or cowboys, hence the title of this piece. We also took in plenty of natural wonders, and a few techie bits and pieces which made for a nice change.
After an initial night in Phoenix, we drove down to Tucson, stopping at Casa Grande - a large ancestral puebloan structure in the middle of the desert that nobody really knows what it was built for. We then drove on to Biosphere2, which is a large glass structure sitting just below the base of Mount Lemmon. Biosphere2 was a fascinating place, and the scene of a very interesting experiment, whereby 8 volunteers were locked inside the building for two years, with only what they had inside at that time to live on - including oxygen and water. As such, they had their own world to live in, but had to regenerate water and air for their use. They had an ocean (measuring about 30 yards by 15 yards, and a rain forest (of a similar size), and two giant lungs which pumped the air around, to help them. They made it through unscathed, albeit with some mental scars, and now the buildings house further experiments and are run by the local University. No longer contained (we saw holes in the windows, and birds roosting inside!), it is a fascinating example of mans experiments on man.
Basing ourselves in Tucson for the first few days (staying in a lovely B&B), we were able to visit PIMA - an aircraft museum and visit from here the AMARG (Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Group) nearby on the Davis-Monthan Air Force base. This is also known as the Aircraft Boneyard, as it houses thousands (about 4,400!) planes of various types that have mainly been de-commissioned. It is an amazing site seeing what looks like hundreds of huge C-130 transport planes, or B52 bombers, all lined up, some with engines, some without. They had lots of other aircraft there too, and we really enjoyed the tour of the base.We drove up to the top of Mount Lemmon (via the Catalina Scenic Byway) after our PIMA visit, and the views from the top are very good. We did get waved down by a state trooper for going a little too fast near the top but at least there was no ticket! It wouldn't be our only skirmish with authority on the trip!
We also took a day out at Kartchner Caverns, about 60 miles south of Tucson. These caves were simply wonderful, and have not been open to the public for that many years (just over ten). They are a bit of a gem, as few people visit, and no cameras are allowed inside so spreading the word via images doesn't happen like with many other places. Security is very tight, and you have to go inside with no bags, phones, or photographic equipment of any type, in order that the environment is not damaged in any way. All I have is wonderful memories about the caverns, and the way that nearly everything in there was untouched and therefore undamaged.
On our way back to Tucson, we drove through our first border patrol immigration checkpoint. These are scattered around the south of the USA and try to deter any immigrants entering the States, as the Mexican border is so close and difficult to patrol. As we drove up, the soldier looked in and waved us through without stopping, probably thinking that we both looked like American citizens. We did have passports in hand, but didn't get to show them on this occasion.
Tucson itself was a little disappointing, and we struggled to find anywhere decent to eat, despite being near 4th Street, a hub for students with plenty of cafes and bars.
We had a long drive on leaving Bisbee, and after breakfast near the Mexican border in Douglas, got a little lost and had to ask a passing border patrol man in his car how to get back on route. He was nice, but he must have wondered who were were when we flagged him down!
We stopped at the memorial to the site of Geronimo's surrender to the US Army - he was the last native American (Apache) to bear arms against the state. He had tried to surrender his people at an earlier stage, but had heard rumours that they would all be massacred once disarmed so went on the run again. A great warrior, it was sad how his life was dictated to him over the next 30 years or so, until he died a natural death.
Our Texas destination was the ghost town of Terlingua, which is just outside the fantastic Big Bend National Park. Big Bend is one of the least visited national parks, as it is so far away from anything else really! Driving along, there really weren't that many people around, but the scenery was stunning. We drove to Santa Elena Canyon, but sadly we were unable to take the hike into the canyon as Terlingua Creek (which runs into the Rio Grande at that point) was flooded and we couldn't cross without getting very wet. We drove across the park and up into the Chisos Mountains, and had some wonderful views from up there. We didn't have time to do any hikes at the top, but vowed to return one day and make time to seek out the bears and mountain lions that live in relative peace overlooking the northern tip of Mexico. Driving further east, we came to the other end of the park, and Boquillas Canyon. Rachel needed some space, so I ventured into the canyon on my own, keeping a watchful eye out for rattlesnakes! At a couple of places, I saw jars on the ground with notes asking for money, and across the river (in Mexico) a guy would start to sing for a dollar. I declined to give, noting the row boat tied up on the far bank that the guys would have used to retrieve their gains. It was really that easy to get into the US!
We both loved Big Bend, and took a couple of hours more the next day to leave the park, on what was another fairly long drive back into New Mexico. We soon came to another border immigration post, and with no other cars around, drove up to it slowly. I had the passports ready, and we both had the windows down, but as we got to the soldiers, Rachel thought that they were waving us through (as had happened on the first occasion we came across a border station) and did not stop at the stop sign. Cue much shouting and hollering from the guards "Stop! STOP! STOPPPP!". A startled Rachel actually took a little while to find the brake pedal, and the guards were soon at our windows looking mighty unhappy. I made sure my hands were visible, and apologised immediately, saying we misunderstood their hand signals. They were not amused and gave both if us a stern lecture about stop meaning stop! After five minutes or so of fumbling through the passports looking for the entry stamp, reminding us to always do as they instructed, they let us go with another admonishment ringing in our ears.
By mid-afternoon, we had arrived at our next stop, Carlsbad Caverns, but not without more road trouble. The route up from Big Bend took us through Fort Stockton and Pecos - oil country, with hundreds of oil derricks bobbing up and down as far as the eye could see! - on Route 285. This two-lane road, due to the local oil industry, was heavy with oil tanker lorries, some going north (as we were), and some going south, but all pretty much doing the speed limit of 75mph! Somewhere between Pecos and a small town called Orla, a lorry to our left kicked up a stone which rocketed into our windshield like a bullet. The crack was bullet shaped too, but luckily it was below Rachel's line of sight, right behind the steering wheel. We drove on, thankful that we hadn't lost the whole screen.
The caverns at Carlsbad are amazing - much, much bigger than Kartchner, but visited for a hundred years or so on a regular basis has left many of the delicate structures (stalagmites, stalactites, popcorn, soda straws, curtains - we learnt so many new names of things!) damaged in some way. The caves are 750 feet below ground, so we got the lift down to them that afternoon and did a self guided tour of the Big Room (which is huge, and I mean HUGE!!!), but next morning, we walked down into the caverns through the natural entrance. With the electric lighting inside, it was easy to see the massive area and structures, but we could imagine what it was like for the first explorers who only had simple lanterns. We then joined a ranger led tour of a closed off area called the Kings Palace, and experienced a total blackout there which was fun.Then it was back on the road, but, sadly our windscreen had deteriorated overnight (it got down near to freezing, and the crack tripled in size up across the screen), and we spent ages in Carlsbad contacting the rental car company (Dollar) asking what we should do. Eventually, we agreed with them to get a police report and swap the car for another in Albuquerque the next day. We drove to the police station in Carlsbad and spoke to a couple of officers, and were then shown inside to an interview room. I was getting spooked again - I watch too much US crime TV! Eventually, after we had told them what happened a couple of times, we were told it was nothing to do with them, and we should seek out the local Sheriff, to get the report we needed for the rental company. I still don't really understand the difference between the police, Sheriff's office, state troopers etc - maybe someone can explain to me one day? So we drove back south for ten miles trying to find the Sheriff's office which was hidden at the back of some industrial estate on the edge of town and there we explain the situation again. Officer Cruz was very nice and said our report would be ready in a week or so. We tell him we just need his badge number, which he gives us and off we go again. Did he ever write up the report? I doubt it...
The delay in Carlsbad meant we had little time to spend in UFO-crazy Roswell, and we only got to the UFO Museum 15 minute before closing. We then had another 60-odd miles to go to our overnight stop in Lincoln, which was where Billy the Kid broke out of jail and shot his guards. The Worsley Hotel in Lincoln was lovely (it's where Billy had his breakfasts while handcuffed...), but we were the only guests, and the owner/manager did not live on site, so we were the only ones there that night, which was fun. Next morning, with our planned day of following the Billy the Kid scenic byway out of the window due to having to return the car to ABQ, we wandered around this small town that was the scene of a terrible local war (without which, we would probably never have heard of Billy...) back in the 1880's. It was lovely, but nearly everywhere was up for sale, and you could see that life was a struggle half-way up a mountain in the middle of nowhere.
We drove down more straight road and made it to the rental company in ABQ, and thankfully, swapping the car was a fairly simple affair. Off the planned route, we took a punt on trying out the Sandia Peak Skyway cable car which goes up the 10,000 foot mountain north of ABQ and had lunch at the top. Luckily, we had plenty of warm clothing to ward off the cold wind, but the blue skies and snowy ground offered great photo opps with ABQ far below us.We made it back onto our planned route that night, and were lucky to be able to listen to a three-piece band play spooky songs (i.e. anything with ghosts, werewolfs, scary, or spooky in the title...) in the local Socorro brew pub on Halloween night.
We were both pretty tired of straight roads by now; although you can go quite fast, they do eventually get a bit boring and, when every small hillock looks just like the last one you went over five minutes ago, very monotonous. Of course, if a roadrunner, or cow, or stag, or dog, or deer (delete as applicable depending what day it was) decides to jump out in front of you and flirt with death, then all the better I say. Today's boring straight road took us the VLA - the Very Large Array. Here, in the middle of the desert (so there is little electrical interference), are 28 radio telescopes all parked in a Y-shape. Some days (like when we arrived) they are all close together, and some days they can stretch out for 13 miles in all of three directions. Lots of movies and videos have been filmed here, the most famous being bits of Jodi Foster's film Contact.
Our straight road carried us ever westwards, and we made it to Petrified Forest National Park fairly late in the afternoon. The ranger advised us what to do as we only had an hour or so until the park closed, and we took a couple of short hikes amongst the rocks (for that is what the forest of trees has now become). The tale goes that if you remove any of the petrified wood from the park, then bad luck will befall you. There was loads on sale outside the park, and much of it was very nice too. In fact, if we could have got a large chunk of it home then it would have looked fabulous in our garden, but sadly it would weigh too much to put in a suitcase or even post home separately...
We took breakfast in Winslow, Arizona (made famous by the Eagles song "Taking it Easy") and drove onwards to the Barringer Meteor Crater, a big hole in the ground made some 50,000 years ago! Before turning south toward Sedona, we took a quick hike around the Sunset Crater Volcano, scrunching up cinder pathways to a windy viewpoint.
Although we had been to Sedona about ten years beforehand, neither of us really remembered it that well, and we certainly didn't recall the long winding road that led down from Flagstaff to the red rocks area. We stayed in a lovely Inn right beside the Creek, and finally found a restaurant serving decent evening food - sadly they shut at 8.30 so it wasn't that good a place! We still had beer in the car so partook of that back in our cozy room, which had a lovely gas (fake) log fire, while watching one of the Bourne films on borrowed DVD.
After a lazy get up, we took the decision to drive up to the Grand Canyon for the day. We always planned to do this, but with the long hours on the road starting to take their toll, we had pretty much decided not to go out in the car that day. A storm was brewing though, and we had a lovely rainbow in our view most of the way north. Arriving at The Desert Watchtower, perched on the edge of the canyon itself, the rain was pelting down, and view of the canyon far below was severely restricted most of the time. Was it as bad as the previous time I got Rachel to the south rim? Possibly, but at least it wasn't snowing this time! There was simply no point in hanging around and/or going to other viewpoints due to the poor weather, so we headed back south again, stopping off for pictures at the Little Colorado viewpoint which at least gave us a dry look at the deep canyon below. The storm coming in chased us all the way back to Sedona, and we later heard that there was six inches of snow in Flagstaff that night!
Our last full day saw us take a 3-hour trip on the Verde Canyon Railroad, into the mountains alongside the Verde River. This was fun, and we enjoyed the first-class hospitality on board (free finger food and drinks!) while poodling along up the river and further into the canyon. The open air observation deck was OK, but it was cold out there, and we did have plenty of showers along the way too (and pretty much all the way back). It was a good day though, and we took loads of photos as the train turned this way and that.With a late flight out of the US, we had all day to do the 150 miles that it was from Sedona to Phoenix. On advice from the lovely Kyarna from our Inn, we drove to Montezuma Castle (an ancient puebloan cliff dwelling), and then via Prescott, the old capital of Arizona. She suggested a couple of places to try for lunch and one of them, Murphy's, was very nice. From Prescott, we drove over the mountains and on to Phoenix via Wickenburg.
In total, we drove 3,130 miles, so it was a long trip, but a good one!
