Friday 16 March 2001 - Saturday 17 March 2001

 On the way here we stopped off at Carlsbad Caverns National Park, a stupendous cave system containing the biggest cavern in the western hemisphere, and with a great entrance where you feel as if you're going into the bowels of the earth ...

I shan't put any more cave pictures on the site, except for this one which gives you some idea of the size of the caverns ...

Next day we went for a walk round Mayhill, a pleasant quiet little place which mostly seemed to be for sale. I got the web site up to date while Christine did cross-stitch on a kneeler for our church and watched a most depressing film about the life of Judy Garland.

Sunday 18 March 2001 - Wednesday 21 March 2001

Long drive west to Silver City, just over the Continental Divide which is pretty high (and still snowy at this time of year) ...

We stayed at the Silver City KOA, which justified its higher than average rates by being very pretty, quiet, clean and helpful. On the way there we called in at the White Sands National Monument, a system of gypsum sand dunes in the middle of an otherwise flat and rocky desert. Walked round the boardwalk, ate a gritty lunch in a strong breeze, and watched people sliding down the dunes on plastic dustbin lids in an area specially reserved for the purpose ...

Next day, visit to the Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument (in New Mexico, everything which isn't arid desert seems to be a National Monument, Park or Forest). These are caves with additional interior walls and rooms built into them, located on a steep cliff overlooking a river.

They were built in the 13th or 14th century, but were only inhabited for about 40 years before being abandoned again. My theory is that one day the occupants got fed up with traipsing up the cliff to bed every evening and scrambling down again in the morning, looked at their neighbours who lived conveniently by the river, said 'sod this for a game of soldiers' and went down to join them.

Visited the Silver City museum where we saw a lot of pottery made by the Mimbres Indians (now no longer around) between the 11th and 14th centuries. This has fantastic black and white geometric or animal designs and still looks modern; their influence extended to many of the pottery-making tribes in the south-west, and similar designs are still produced today. Most of it was collected at the beginning of the 20th century by one man, who spent about ten years systematically looting and graverobbing all the Mimbres sites he could find in order to build up his collection. Nowadays he'd be locked up, but at the time he was hailed as an enthusiastic and dedicated collector. Not much is known about the Mimbres Indians, largely because of the damage this man did when ripping apart all their archaeological sites in his search for more pots.

Other places we saw: City of Rocks State Park, where a mixture of sandstone, pumice, ash etc. has weathered at different rates leaving interestingly shaped rocks ...

... and the Buckhorn Saloon, a wooden bar, restaurant and theatre with magnificently shabby decor located in the village of Pino Alto in the mountains. Great food, but unfortunately the theatre only operated at weekends.

Interesting info #14: A couple of road signs seen shortly after entering New Mexico:

Thursday 22 March 2001 - Monday 26 March 2001

Long drive to Bernalillo KOA, about 20 miles north of Albuquerque. The first part of this journey was a hair-raising drive along SR152, a narrow and unbelievably steep road back east across the Continental Divide and the Mimbres Mountains to get onto the I25. Apparently it was very pretty, but I was so busy gripping the steering wheel with white knuckles and trying not to die that I didn't see too much of it. Most of the hour and a half was spent in 1st gear (the remainder in 2nd), as  I tried to stop the trailer overtaking the pickup on the steepest downgrades.

Later, we passed through the town of Truth Or Consequences. This is the name of a game show from the fifties or sixties, and somehow there was a competition between various towns for the 'privilege' of changing their name to that of the show. Somewhere there's probably a town preparing to call itself 'Who Wants To Be A Millionaire' ...

Next day to Petroglyph National Monument to see - you've guessed it - petroglyphs: designs chipped into the surface of rock as opposed to pictographs which are painted onto it. About 25,000 to 30,000 of them, it is estimated. The local volcanic rock is fundamentally light in colour, but the surface weathers over millennia to be almost black making it ideal for petroglyph production.

One image that recurs in petroglyphs throughout the south-west is Kokopelli, the hump-backed flute player (here is a pair of them) ...

No-one seems to know where he originated or what he represents, but lots of people have made money from writing books about him and reproducing his conveniently uncopyrighted image on everything from tea-towels to underwear.

Also visited:

Coronado State Park, the ruins of a Pueblo occupied between 1300 and 1600 at which point the occupants moved to the Rio Grande due to drought and problems with the Spanish.

Downtown Albuquerque, which has lots of nice adobe buildings, an IMAX theatre and a park with statues of bears in it ...

Tomorrow we put the trailer into storage at the campsite, prior to a brief diversion back to Florida in order to meet up with our friends Jill, Steve, Christopher, Katy and Clara who are coming over from York for a couple of weeks of sun, sea and sand in Florida. Rather than dragging the trailer 2,000 miles west to east and then back again, we've decided to stay in motels en route (we'll be in luxury condos whilst in Florida) and hopefully see some different parts of the country.

Off on our brief diversion.

Sunday 29 April 2001 - Wednesday 2 May 2001

Hitched up again for the first time in over a month, and drove about 80 miles west to Cibola Sands RV Park at Grants, a town not notable for anything much but very convenient for visiting surrounding historic sites. This was an exceptionally good campsite with modem access, a library, free breakfast and spotless restrooms: highly recommended. Spent the rest of the day unpacking, washing, shopping, and generally sorting ourselves out and enjoying not driving.

Once again the region is littered with National Parks and Monuments. The main one is El Malpaís (The Badland), a large area covered in black lava ...

... and volcanic cones from a major eruption 115,000 years ago. There are also many lava tubes: hollow horizontal tubes created when the outer surface of a lava flow solidifies but the hotter centre continues to flow. The longest is 17 miles long, although most of it has collapsed at various points along its length. The name derives from the fact that the surface is murder to walk on: very broken and sharp, and it cuts people's and horses' feet to pieces. We climbed volcanic cinder cones, crawled into one end of a (short) lava tube and out of the other, walked round sink holes, and generally saw a lot of the countryside which is stark but beautiful.

Also visited:

The ice was mined for many years to keep beer cold, but has been undisturbed for some time and in the last 38 years has regained 10 feet of the depth which it lost. The system is self regulating: once the ice rises above the insulated area of the rock it will melt during the summer and the level below remains constant.

That's about it for New Mexico, which we feel is one of the more interesting states. Arizona tomorrow.