Sabbatical Part 5: National Parks and Zoos of New Mexico
After 18 nights in Los Alamos, it was time to move on to new adventures.
Sunday, September 18 - Los Alamos to Ruidoso, NM. ~260 miles.
We'd seen my friend Beth back on September 3. After packing the car and heading south, we met her and her two children at the ABQ BioPark Botanic Garden in Albuquerque. This is in a complex with a zoo and an aquarium, which we did not visit.
Most of the garden was well shaded and quite pleasant despite the heat. Birdie particularly seemed to enjoy the a children's garden where everything was "blown up" quite large like Alice after knocking back a poorly labeled potion. I myself preferred the Islamic-inspired gardens, not dissimilar from what I'd seen in Spain and Portugal. There was a garden with a really great arbor, a butterfly room and an assortment of other pleasant areas to wander.
After parting ways with Beth, we drove southeast on smaller roads until we ended up in an AirBNB in Ruidoso. Ruidoso is a ski town, and our lodgings were up a road that was steep enough that the host recommended having tire chains to climb it in the winter. Thankfully, we just had to deal with rain. We also didn't have to deal with bears, but our trash at this house was placed carefully in a bear proof dumpster.
Monday, September 19
Today's itinerary took us about an hour westish to White Sands National Park. The white sands of the title are gypsum, which fill a small valley. It's small enough that it was was only promoted to National Park in 2019, and if you aren't going for a long hot hike in the white sands you can see the whole park in a few hours.
Visually, driving in White Sands is like driving in North Dakota after three weeks of snow. It's solid white in all directions, with the sunshine from the impossibly blue sky making it even more blindingly white. They actually plow the roads to remove sand drifts, and the piles of sand along the edges of the roads and parking areas look very much look snow piles.
M's really wanted to sled down a sand drift. They sell children's sledding saucers and sled wax in the vistor's center, so she picked one up there before we drove into the park. After following the out and back road for a while, we parked at a three different areas. At the first stop, we climbed to the top of a massive drift of sand and looked in all directions. It's beautiful, but very hot. While M and Birdie wandered a bit, I unsuccessfully tried to help a couple of tourists jump start their car. We saw them leaving a few hours later, so whatever the problem was corrected. At our next stop, Birdie splashed in some puddles (again, looking much like melting snow in a parking lot) while M tried sledding. At out last stop, we took a boardwalk out into the desert and back.
White Sands is a beautiful place, but it doesn't take long to see enough of it for my taste. Even with a fair number of other tourists, it was quiet. The sand absorbed the sound, and the only man-made sound was the fighter jets from the neighboring air force base flying overhead. M gave her brand new sled to another tourist and we headed back.
The nearby town of Alamogordo hosts the Alameda Park Zoo, which was a surprisingly nice tiny zoo. We had a pleasant time wandering around, particularly the aviary, which was full of fun birds and turtles. Birdie had a great time.
On our way back to Ruidoso, we stopped at the World's Largest Pistachio for photos and ice cream. We saw an elk and a gigantic flock of ravens near the AirBNB . That night, we relaxed in the hot tub after Birdie went to bed. I don't need to own a hot tub, but it's sure nice to have one once in a while.
Tuesday, September 20 - Ruidoso to Carlsbad, NM. ~150 miles.
M really wanted to stop in Roswell for alien related tourism. We got there and had lunch, but it was so ridiculously hot that wandering around town seemed unpleasant. Fortunately, there's quite a bit of alien ephemera visible from the car, including:
- A McDonald's that looks like a UFO.
- Numerous other buildings with UFOs or aliens featured on the signs or on top of the building, or alien themed murals.
- All of the street lights on the main street have eyes on them so that they look like grey aliens.
- M stopped and used the bathroom at the International UFO Museum and Research Center, which features a lot of alien-themed dioramas and feels like something that should have been in X-Files.
After our success of the day before we tried out Roswell's Spring River Zoo, but it was not well shaded and it was miserably hot. It was so hot that we saw nobody except zoo volunteers there, one of whom sold us our ticket and then met us at the carousel to operate it for us. Birdie loved the capybara, which was contentedly swimming, and the badger, which was running around despite the heat.
We stopped and took Birdie's picture at the "Welcome to Roswell" sign as we headed south to our next stop at Carlsbad.
Wednesday, September 21
What do you do in Carslbad? Not much, but you can drive a short distance to Carlsbad Caverns National Park. We had a timed entry to enter the cave for the primary Big Room tour. Rather than hike down in the heat, we opted to take the 75 story elevator, which flies down to the cave in 63 seconds.
The park itself has been an attraction for many years, and in the years before modern conservation standards were applied, someone paved a two foot wide path through most of the Big Room. It's also been carefully backlit so that you're mostly in the dark but can see most things worth seeing without any challenge. Thankfully, it wasn't terribly crowded on a random weekday in September, so we were able to proceed at our own pace without having to worry too much about crowds.
The cave is incredibly beautiful, and I loved every minute of it. I strongly recommend it to everyone. Birdie napped in her backpack, no doubt aided by the pleasantly chilly temperature. I would absolutely go back again and do some parts of the cave that require ladders or other physical efforts that can't be done with a baby on your back.
Carslbad Caverns was certainly the highlight of the day, but it wasn't the only national park we went to. It borders Guadalupe Mountains National Park, which dips down into Texas and contains 4 of the 5 tallest mountains in that state. Unfortunately, most of the park can only be seen effectively through somewhat strenuous desert hiking, so we settle for visiting the visitor's center and two scenic overlooks from the long lonely road connecting Carslbad to El Paso. From these we could see El Capitan and Guadalupe Peak.
Upon our return to our AirBNB, I finished watching The Sea Beast on Netflix, which I'd been watching in bits and pieces for several days. I particularly liked the parts that were nautical, in the same way that I enjoyed Master and Commander.
Thursday, September 22 - Carlsbad to Abilene, TX. ~275 miles.
It turns out that Carlsbad also had a zoo, the Living Desert Zoo and Gardens State Park. Essentially, they added a zoo to local piece of the Chihuahuan Desert. As you'd expect, it's hot, but the animal exhibits are largely built into the desert and it's quite enjoyable. Birdie loved the prairie dogs the most, although I personally preferred the mountain lion, bobcat and javelinas. There was also an exhibit with a couple of roadrunners and one turtle.
From there, we turned our face toward home. Our goal that night was Abilene, Texas, which we reached via a series of comparatively smaller back roads instead of interstate. Once we left New Mexico, we went through parts of the oil patch in West Texas, but Abilene is apparently the wind power capital of America, and as we approached the city we could see quite literally hundreds of windmills in all directions.
Trip Stats
We bought four tanks of gas, taking us to 14 for the trip.
We had lunch on one patio, and we stopped for ice cream once that I'll count as a patio. We got takeout dinner twice, both for dinner. M also had Wendys for lunch one day. Trip totals: 15 patios and 11 takeout meals.
We stayed in three AirBNBs (five nights). That took the trip total to 8 AirBNBs for 11 nights.
Sunday, September 18 - Los Alamos to Ruidoso, NM. ~260 miles.
We'd seen my friend Beth back on September 3. After packing the car and heading south, we met her and her two children at the ABQ BioPark Botanic Garden in Albuquerque. This is in a complex with a zoo and an aquarium, which we did not visit.
Most of the garden was well shaded and quite pleasant despite the heat. Birdie particularly seemed to enjoy the a children's garden where everything was "blown up" quite large like Alice after knocking back a poorly labeled potion. I myself preferred the Islamic-inspired gardens, not dissimilar from what I'd seen in Spain and Portugal. There was a garden with a really great arbor, a butterfly room and an assortment of other pleasant areas to wander.
After parting ways with Beth, we drove southeast on smaller roads until we ended up in an AirBNB in Ruidoso. Ruidoso is a ski town, and our lodgings were up a road that was steep enough that the host recommended having tire chains to climb it in the winter. Thankfully, we just had to deal with rain. We also didn't have to deal with bears, but our trash at this house was placed carefully in a bear proof dumpster.
Monday, September 19
Today's itinerary took us about an hour westish to White Sands National Park. The white sands of the title are gypsum, which fill a small valley. It's small enough that it was was only promoted to National Park in 2019, and if you aren't going for a long hot hike in the white sands you can see the whole park in a few hours.
Visually, driving in White Sands is like driving in North Dakota after three weeks of snow. It's solid white in all directions, with the sunshine from the impossibly blue sky making it even more blindingly white. They actually plow the roads to remove sand drifts, and the piles of sand along the edges of the roads and parking areas look very much look snow piles.
M's really wanted to sled down a sand drift. They sell children's sledding saucers and sled wax in the vistor's center, so she picked one up there before we drove into the park. After following the out and back road for a while, we parked at a three different areas. At the first stop, we climbed to the top of a massive drift of sand and looked in all directions. It's beautiful, but very hot. While M and Birdie wandered a bit, I unsuccessfully tried to help a couple of tourists jump start their car. We saw them leaving a few hours later, so whatever the problem was corrected. At our next stop, Birdie splashed in some puddles (again, looking much like melting snow in a parking lot) while M tried sledding. At out last stop, we took a boardwalk out into the desert and back.
White Sands is a beautiful place, but it doesn't take long to see enough of it for my taste. Even with a fair number of other tourists, it was quiet. The sand absorbed the sound, and the only man-made sound was the fighter jets from the neighboring air force base flying overhead. M gave her brand new sled to another tourist and we headed back.
The nearby town of Alamogordo hosts the Alameda Park Zoo, which was a surprisingly nice tiny zoo. We had a pleasant time wandering around, particularly the aviary, which was full of fun birds and turtles. Birdie had a great time.
On our way back to Ruidoso, we stopped at the World's Largest Pistachio for photos and ice cream. We saw an elk and a gigantic flock of ravens near the AirBNB . That night, we relaxed in the hot tub after Birdie went to bed. I don't need to own a hot tub, but it's sure nice to have one once in a while.
Tuesday, September 20 - Ruidoso to Carlsbad, NM. ~150 miles.
M really wanted to stop in Roswell for alien related tourism. We got there and had lunch, but it was so ridiculously hot that wandering around town seemed unpleasant. Fortunately, there's quite a bit of alien ephemera visible from the car, including:
- A McDonald's that looks like a UFO.
- Numerous other buildings with UFOs or aliens featured on the signs or on top of the building, or alien themed murals.
- All of the street lights on the main street have eyes on them so that they look like grey aliens.
- M stopped and used the bathroom at the International UFO Museum and Research Center, which features a lot of alien-themed dioramas and feels like something that should have been in X-Files.
After our success of the day before we tried out Roswell's Spring River Zoo, but it was not well shaded and it was miserably hot. It was so hot that we saw nobody except zoo volunteers there, one of whom sold us our ticket and then met us at the carousel to operate it for us. Birdie loved the capybara, which was contentedly swimming, and the badger, which was running around despite the heat.
We stopped and took Birdie's picture at the "Welcome to Roswell" sign as we headed south to our next stop at Carlsbad.
Wednesday, September 21
What do you do in Carslbad? Not much, but you can drive a short distance to Carlsbad Caverns National Park. We had a timed entry to enter the cave for the primary Big Room tour. Rather than hike down in the heat, we opted to take the 75 story elevator, which flies down to the cave in 63 seconds.
The park itself has been an attraction for many years, and in the years before modern conservation standards were applied, someone paved a two foot wide path through most of the Big Room. It's also been carefully backlit so that you're mostly in the dark but can see most things worth seeing without any challenge. Thankfully, it wasn't terribly crowded on a random weekday in September, so we were able to proceed at our own pace without having to worry too much about crowds.
The cave is incredibly beautiful, and I loved every minute of it. I strongly recommend it to everyone. Birdie napped in her backpack, no doubt aided by the pleasantly chilly temperature. I would absolutely go back again and do some parts of the cave that require ladders or other physical efforts that can't be done with a baby on your back.
Carslbad Caverns was certainly the highlight of the day, but it wasn't the only national park we went to. It borders Guadalupe Mountains National Park, which dips down into Texas and contains 4 of the 5 tallest mountains in that state. Unfortunately, most of the park can only be seen effectively through somewhat strenuous desert hiking, so we settle for visiting the visitor's center and two scenic overlooks from the long lonely road connecting Carslbad to El Paso. From these we could see El Capitan and Guadalupe Peak.
Upon our return to our AirBNB, I finished watching The Sea Beast on Netflix, which I'd been watching in bits and pieces for several days. I particularly liked the parts that were nautical, in the same way that I enjoyed Master and Commander.
Thursday, September 22 - Carlsbad to Abilene, TX. ~275 miles.
It turns out that Carlsbad also had a zoo, the Living Desert Zoo and Gardens State Park. Essentially, they added a zoo to local piece of the Chihuahuan Desert. As you'd expect, it's hot, but the animal exhibits are largely built into the desert and it's quite enjoyable. Birdie loved the prairie dogs the most, although I personally preferred the mountain lion, bobcat and javelinas. There was also an exhibit with a couple of roadrunners and one turtle.
From there, we turned our face toward home. Our goal that night was Abilene, Texas, which we reached via a series of comparatively smaller back roads instead of interstate. Once we left New Mexico, we went through parts of the oil patch in West Texas, but Abilene is apparently the wind power capital of America, and as we approached the city we could see quite literally hundreds of windmills in all directions.
Trip Stats
We bought four tanks of gas, taking us to 14 for the trip.
We had lunch on one patio, and we stopped for ice cream once that I'll count as a patio. We got takeout dinner twice, both for dinner. M also had Wendys for lunch one day. Trip totals: 15 patios and 11 takeout meals.
We stayed in three AirBNBs (five nights). That took the trip total to 8 AirBNBs for 11 nights.