Our big year-long RV adventure has reached the ninth month of the epic journey in our exclusive series for The Independent, featuring the month-long stretch from New Mexico to the southwest Texas coast.
It includes time in superb Santa Fe, stunning White Sands National Park and the cowboy country around Las Cruces, as well as Alpine in Texas, the astounding Big Bend National Park, the city of San Antonio and glittering South Padre Island.
Simon wanted a trip up to Sante Fe for its Western and cowboy-movie history, rich cultural reputation, and the chance to see northern New Mexico, which we’d heard was spectacular. Reusable canvas grocery bags packed (because we both thought we brought a carry-on bag for the occasional hotel stay, but didn’t), we locked up Fati and hit the road in Nippy for two days visiting Santa Fe, Taos Pueblo, and Albuquerque.
What we found when we got to Santa Fe was even more compelling than we expected. Adobe buildings, a billion restaurants, and art right out there on the street where anyone could swipe it, if they had a crane and a big truck.
What is it about adobe houses? They’re so cute and different and Southwestern, and we were immediately smitten.
San Miguel Chapel, Santa Fe’s oldest church, dating to 1610 A.D.
The oldest house in the U.S.A., dating back to 1646 A.D.
We’d been given several recommendations for great dining in the Old Town area. What we didn’t know was that New Mexico closes at 3:30pm. We arrived at our first choice at 3:29pm and got a hard “No” when we asked if they could at least do soup as a carry-out after our 4-plus hour journey.
The franchise-sounding Burrito and Co. was open, though, and we’re here to tell you their homemade Tortilla Soup with fresh tortillas and wedges of lime on the side was so warming and delicious, we were almost glad we didn’t have another choice. Oh, the heavenly lusciousness of it all!
Ruthie saying, “Throw some in here!”
Old Town’s plaza was dressed up for Christmas, and a group of Native American guys were performing traditional chants that evening. They may have been doing it for weekend beer money, as young people are wont to do, but it set a tone so evocative we were spellbound for quite some time. It was the sort of cultural experience we’d been hoping for when we planned this trip, and put a human face on our upcoming visit to Taos Pueblo.
Restaurants reopened for dinner, so we got a carry-out from La Choza. We shared an order of tamales (one vegetarian, one shredded pork,) but Susan can’t do spicy food anymore, and these were up there a bit, so Simon ate most of it and Susan had a few little Biscochito, New Mexico’s official cookie.
The next morning, Ruthie helped Simon get a coffee from the hotel…
…then we set off for nearby Taos Pueblo. We knew it was a 1000-year-old “living village” with adobe buildings dating back to around 1400 A.D. and shops offering authentic Native American arts. There was a cost to get into the public areas and a code of conduct while visiting (basically, don’t be a jerk, and don’t take photos of residents without their permission).
Only a couple of shops were open, but we were primarily there to see the buildings, which have neither water nor electricity. Residents live in modern homes within the Restricted areas, and use their traditional homes during gatherings and events, and as a source of income from selling arts and crafts.
It was a fascinating window into a world that was chipped away so profoundly that what’s left of it in this country qualifies as a National Historical Landmark. That weird mix of awe and of despair for a lost way of life remained with us for some time afterwards.
With a few hours of daylight left (it was getting dark around 5:30pm) we pointed Nippy to the Enchanted Circle Scenic Byway for some mountainous sight-seeing that would take us back to Santa Fe.
The cute little town of Eagle’s Nest. We stopped at a cafe here for hot drinks, which, I kid you not, took about half an hour to make.
That night we grabbed another carry-out for dinner, but this time we won’t mention the restaurant’s name, because it went pretty badly wrong. Susan worked in restaurants in her younger years and knows things happen, but it’s still disturbing when you get a whomping great shard of broken metal in your El Salvadoran Plate’s tamale.
The photo we sent the restaurant so they knew what to look for. Penny was for size.
It was good while it lasted, but it was back to the biscochito for her. Simon was able to finish his Chili Relleno (just; Susan’s metal was off-putting), but he did place a call to the restaurant, who comped Susan’s meal and went out of their way to figure out where the metal came from (it was the tip of a knife, they later told us). They also threw out all their tamales that night, to save anyone else from a potential E.R. visit while they figured out what had gone wrong.
Before leaving town for Albuquerque on our return trip to Fati the next day, we popped into Loretto Chapel to see the “miraculous staircase” built in 1878 by an “unknown carpenter” using wood that is “not of this world.”
As legend has it, the chapel’s 22-foot-high choir loft was not accessible to the nuns running the place, who (presumably because they were wearing habits that anyone could look up) could not use a ladder. They made a novena to St. Joseph, the patron saint of carpenters, and soon a carpenter arrived on a burro with a toolbox and a solution.
He worked for months, then disappeared without saying goodbye or asking for payment, leaving behind a magnificent circular staircase with no nails to hold it together and no visible central support to hold it up. And what the heck kind of wood was it? It certainly wasn’t wood that was available in Santa Fe. There were questions.
The work of Saint Joseph himself, some say. The wood is spruce, scientists insist. Nail-less construction was far from unknown. But it’s a great tale, and a gorgeous example of craftsmanship, wonky structural safety notwithstanding.
The railing wasn’t part of the original build. It was added later, for obvious safety reasons. Those nuns would have been bouncing precariously due to the double helix design (meaning: springy!), with nothing to hold on to.
We gabbed about theories and doubts and storytelling on the way to Albuquerque, but by the time we arrived a serious exhaustion had begun to creep in, and our hearts weren’t in it. It was time to return to Fati and let our brains cool down for 24 hours before making the two-day drive into Texas via an overnight at a Rest Area before reaching our Alpine campground retreat.
Ten whole days in Las Cruces, New Mexico! We arrived at the superbly welcoming Las Cruces KOA Journey campground full of enthusiasm for the billion things we had planned, using the city as our base; a list so long that sane people would have taken a month to complete it. But not us! We were ready to pack it in tight and see absolutely everything! YAY!!
Idiots.
We know better, too. For decades we’ve been admonishing excited visitors to Orlando who think they can do it all in two weeks. But this isn’t Orlando, and we’re professionals. Right?
Would professionals take a photo this bad? I don’t think so!
Normally we stay home on our arrival day because breaking camp, traveling in Fati, and setting up again can be taxing, and we like to start fresh. This time, we headed straight to the adorable town of Old Mesilla, not far from our campground, for its Mexican and Billy the Kid history, and its central plaza decorated for Christmas.
Everything about the tiny burg surrounded by pecan groves worked for us. Cute little one-off shops, strings of red chilis strung along the walkways, and the county courthouse (now a gift shop) in which Billy the Kid was sentenced to hang by his neck until dead for the crime of murder. He escaped, of course, and went into hiding before being shot to death at the age of 22.
We’re not sure what Ruthie is doing, but Simon seems happy.
Ever-aware of not adding any more weight to Fati than absolutely necessary, we broke our “don’t buy anything frivolous” rule and purchased two gorgeous woven placemats with the kind of bright, geometric patterns so prevalent in New Mexico. We use them every day, and they only added a few ounces of weight. We put on more than that just in belly bloat during the hot summer months, so this wouldn’t even register for Fati.
A take-away dinner from La Posta gave us our first taste of New Mexico, with tacos for Susan and Posole stew for Simon. And we’re here to say, that slightly spicy, hearty-flavored stew was the kind of “gimmie more” soup we both love!
We scarfed our food down and didn’t remember to take photos until it was half gone.
So, the tacos were fried (who fries tacos?!). I have no gallbladder. You can guess the unhappy results.
Eat this. All the time!
After a blissfully quiet sleep with none of the all-night-long train noise we’d had over the past week, we made White Sands National Park and the nearby town of Alamogordo our first full day’s excursion. We didn’t know what to expect from White Sands, but we didn’t expect the park’s 25-square-miles of dunes to be so completely like a wintery snowscape that we literally had to remind our brains it was pulverized gypsum crystals, not snow, a task made harder by all the people sledding down the slopes (albeit in bare feet and shorts!).
Now, Ruthie hates sand. You know that if you read our Michigan blogs. But this? She LOVED it. She went prancing and dancing and hopping all over the place, full of puppy energy and joy! We continue to wonder if she was a Midwestern dog that got lost from her family while they were on vacation in Florida, and that she was fooled by the familiarity of a snowy landscape.
From there we went to Alamogordo, where a giant pistachio convinced us to buy a few packets of the real thing, locally grown…
…then we headed up through Lincoln National Forest to Cloudcroft, a place so mountain village-y and so cold it felt like a winter’s day in the Colorado Rockys. Here, Ruthie got to walk on her first patch of real snow (that we know of), and she seemed to enjoy it.
El Paso, Texas, our next day’s destination in Nippy (we’d only be able to drive though it in Fati on our way south), should be an entire blog. It’s iconic. Everyone knows the name. It’s filled with Spanish missions and great Mexican food, and we set off from Las Cruces with visions of authentic cuisine and spectacular history on our minds. But that’s not what we found.
El Paso is a sprawling city. This was taken from high on a hill where rich people live.
We’re certain we didn’t get the best out of El Paso. Everything felt a little bit “off.” It didn’t help that the Visitor Center was located in an area that was entirely boarded up and abandoned, and the center itself had long since skipped town, too.
We tried. We really did. But, for whatever reason, we kept running into closures and locked doors. Need the restroom? Forget it. They’re all locked unless you buy something. We did find a nice market near the Old Town that opened their restroom doors for us, and we were told there is a problem with people experiencing homelessness that has caused local businesses to make the decision to lock up.
And then there’s that big whompin’ border wall that commands attention no matter where you are in town. It’s like a lurking presence. We bounce back and forth between understanding the necessity and being horrified by the inhumanity of it all.
The yellow sign and the overhead digital sign further along read, “Watch For Unexpected Pedestrians.”
The big red X across the border in Juarez is a sculpture that represents the blending of Spanish and Aztec cultures.
To lift our spirits again, we took to the Billy the Kid Scenic Byway the next morning, hot on the heels of the infamous outlaw. Our launching point was Smokey Bear Historical Park, the burial site of the little bear who was rescued after a deadly blaze and became the nation’s advocate for preventing forest fires.
A cute museum told his tale, and honors the country’s longest running advertising campaign (say it with me: “Only YOU can prevent forest fires!”).
Next up was Lincoln, where Billy the Kid was jailed for murdering a sheriff, and he then shot and killed two deputies while escaping. The tiny burg has hardly changed at all since the 1880s.
Mule deer (or, they might be elk; we never can tell) are all over this town, which added to the yesteryear Wild West feel of the place.
The mountainous drive itself was just stunning, and again, it reminded us how little we know about this country. We didn’t expect such enormous mountains in New Mexico.
But we weren’t done yet. We had two nights booked at a hotel in Santa Fe for a trip in Nippy that would also include Albuquerque and Taos. But we’ll cover that part of our journey in another blog.
Roswell and Carlsbad Caverns were also on our must-do list while in Las Cruces, but as we returned to Fati from Santa Fe we came to an energy-crashing halt. We just couldn’t add another 500 miles to our touring, not to mention having to leave Ruthie in a rented crate while we did a cave tour. It was a bridge too far.
We consoled ourselves by remembering our time in Postojna Cave Park in Slovenia, a spectacular, other-worldly experience during which we were taken “behind-the-scenes” to a pitch-black area where the blind, pure-white, salamander-like Olm (Proteus anguinus) lives. Unbelievable luck allowed us to see this magnificent creature, which lives to 100 years old and only needs to eat every couple of years. We’re not sure anything could top that cave adventure, so that’s the sentiment we stuck with when dropping Carlsbad Caverns from our journey.
One infinitesimal part of the massive Postojna Cave. That thing in the middle is a walkway bridge.
Simon and our guide looking at the tiny Olm that lives in darkness here.
And Roswell? One too many people told us it’s entirely skippable. Two people mentioned issues with crimes against automobiles. We really wanted to go anyway. But we’d been talking about having unfinished business in New Mexico, and we’re sure another visit to the state – next time for longer – is on the cards in the future.
A new day, a new state! We made our way into New Mexico just as the temperature began to plummet, but we had a lot of touring planned, so we added a third layer to our clothing and a fifth layer to our bedding, and made Deming our base for visiting Gila National Forest and a drive to the Mexico/U.S. border.
With a late start to our first full day, we chose San Lorenzo as our afternoon destination. We knew nothing about it except that it was a ghost town, but that was enough for us, and up the Whitehorse Mountain we went.
Deer and another deer. Such excitement!
While the drive along the mountain was filled with trees gloriously changing color, grazing deer, and little glimpses of actual water in an actual river, the town itself was not exactly dynamic.
The area was originally home to the Apache Nation. Fewer than 100 people live there now, an adobe church whose original construction dates to 1899 sits at its heart, and an enormous horse ranch that looks like the only money in town takes up most of the land.
Miners from Silver City and Pino Altos founded the tiny town, and their hand-made brick structures still stand. Most of the buildings in town are abandoned, hence its “ghost town” fame, while the locals prefer (and achieved) the designation “Historic District.”
The hand-made bricks tell such a story. Fascinating to see bits of straw and little rocks in their construction.
We crossed the valley into the next small town because Simon was eager to find a Starbucks, or at least a decent coffee shop, but you already know the outcome of that forlorn hope.
Our next excursion was Rockhound State Park in the Little Florida Mountains (here pronounced Flow-REED-uh from its Spanish influence) just south of Deming, and the park’s information center lady showed us the various rocks that visitors are allowed to collect, from obsidian and quartz to sparkly geodes and the wonderfully named “thunder eggs,” which, of course, Susan was determined to find.
For perspective, that boulder in the semi-foreground, on the right, is about as high as Ruthie would be if she stood on her hind legs on Simon’s shoulders.
Once we were in the dry wash where geodes and thunder eggs are typically found, we immediately realized all rocks look like rocks and we hadn’t a hope in hell of finding anything interesting without cracking them all open.
After a short wander, we drove over to next-door neighbor Spring Canyon Recreation Area, where we were told we might find gigantic-horned Persian Ibex, which were brought to the area from Iran way back when, and had recently been spotted. We didn’t see any (of course we didn’t!), but we did marvel at the 17% grade into and out of the park, which was like a roller coaster hill in Nippy, but would have been a horror in Fati.
The 17% grade doesn’t look nearly as daunting in a photo as it does in real life. It’s a LONG way down!
Minor attractions done, our next journey took us to Gila National Forest, the reason we were staying in Deming in the first place. It was a 236-mile round-trip drive, via Silver City, and the Visitor Center lady in Silver City told us we should not miss Catwalk Recreation Area on our way to the Gila Cliff Dwellings. Just head up U.S.-180 to the western side of Gila, and be ready for a short delay due to construction.
Silver City is a mining town, and that dump truck is gigantic. Its tires are 6 feet tall, maybe a bit taller.
We had already noted a sign in town that indicated the Cliff Dwellings were just 44 miles away, and our good lady mentioned Catwalk Recreation Area would come up first, so off we went.
New Mexico has to be the artsiest state we’ve been in so far. Even their license plates are pretty.
Sixty-five beautiful but confused miles later we saw the first sign for Catwalk, along with an extensive construction area that required us to follow a Pilot car along a couple of miles of torn-up road. Half an hour later we were walking through crunchy leaves along a fall-scented trail in Gila National Forest toward the metal catwalks that are the modern-day descendants of the original wooden planks over Whitewater Canyon creek, which gave the area its name.
Not Simon’s favorite kind of road.
But it would be worth it in a few minutes.
Silver and gold were discovered above the canyon, and mined for ten years, starting in the late 1890s. A pipe transporting water up to the processing plant ran through the canyon, and that’s the area visitors are now allowed to explore via catwalks.
Obligatory Selfie
Catwalk starts with a trail along the river, and it was nice to see water, which is scarce around here.
Part of the walkway wound through rocky areas above the river.
Just beauty, everywhere.
We spent more than an hour walking through the canyon and having a picnic lunch amid a scent that reminded us of Michigan in autumn. What an incredible surprise the experience had been, and how grateful we were for the recommendation. We absolutely would not have wanted to miss it.
It’s not a picnic without the Boot.
As we picnicked, we programmed Gila Cliff Dwellings into our GPS. It couldn’t be far away, since we’d already gone 21 miles further than that sign back in town indicated we would.
But wait. GPS showed another 111 miles to the dwellings. What the….?!
We were on the wrong road. U.S.-180 did indeed lead to Catwalk, but the cliff dwellings were up highway 15, on the eastern side of Gila National Park. We’ll say no more about the matter, other than that we consoled ourselves with the fact that dogs are not allowed on the trail to the dwellings, so we wouldn’t have to leave Ruthie in the car, and that we found superb dessert-flavored coffees at Javalina Coffee Shop back in Silver City to take the edge off our misery on the way back to Deming.
We were definitely on the right road when we made the trip south to Pancho Villa State Park, a little nod to America’s first (and only) armed invasion, compliments of General Francisco “Pancho” Villa, who ordered his soldiers to wreak havoc way back in 1916. General Pershing (of WWI fame) unleashed a massive can of whoop-ass, leading 3.000 soldiers 5,000 miles into Mexico in pursuit of Pancho Villa, only to fail miserably. Villa got his comeuppance a few years later, assassinated in an ambush in Chihuahua.
Tanks have evolved a bit since Pancho’s day.
The last remaining homestead at the park. It’s pretty much the only thing here, besides the museum and the tank. And cactus. And rocks.
Deming claims the park as its own, but it’s really located in Columbus, smack on the border with Mexico. While we were there, why not take a look at the crossing? We’d seen it in Douglas, Arizona, while we were staying in Willcox, and in that instance we drove along the wall until we saw the crossing area, where a big gap was open in the wall to allow those working in the U.S. but living in Mexico to move between countries.
Here, the only road for 33 miles led directly to the crossing, which we obviously could not do, especially with a dog. We had no options other than turning around and heading back to Fati, and common sense told us not to take photos.
Instead, here are a few rather unusual sites in Douglas.
Ummmm…metal sculptures. Not sure why.
Hands up anyone who would order a burrito from a bus in the middle of nowhere!
Strings of red chili peppers are such a wonderful constant in the places we’ve been. Susan’s parents brought one back from their travels to New Mexico and had it hanging next to the kitchen, so emotions were felt when we saw them.
Deming had one more gift in store. Along with a string of multi-colored lights we bought at Walmart to decorate our fireplace in Fati, we got into the holiday spirit by attended the city’s Christmas Market in the afternoon (a short experience, with only a small handful of vendors and even fewer visitors) and attending the Christmas parade and Tree Lighting that evening.
Ruthie did some low-grade “wooooooo”-ing when the police car and fire engine sirens passed by, kicking off the parade.
The Grinch featured heavily. He was in the parade five or six times.
Santa was on hand to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas!
The parade was so charming and homespun and nostalgic, it may have been our favorite surprise of the whole week. We attended the Christmas Tree Lighting afterwards, and departed Deming the next day feeling very much in the holiday spirit.
Today marks seven months since we locked the door to our house in Florida and set off for a year-long adventure in an RV. Here’s what we learned during the past month:
Time spent in the bathroom is sacred time, at home or in an RV. But if you’re really just sitting there playing Wordscape on the phone for forty minutes, you deserve the scorn you get when you’re found out.
Simon now knows the bathroom isn’t the right place to play Wordscape.
Get an electric skillet with a cover, and get it before you even set off on your trip. What strange and wonderful wizardry that allows you make an entire meal in one appliance! Gone are your days of flipping one burger or one pancake in the Instant Pot set to Saute. Life has meaning again!
You’ll never run out of conversation when you travel. The only time we’re quiet when we’re touring is when we’re burned out from so much talking. Some of the most compelling conversations we’ve had have come from seeing places – usually very small towns or areas where housing is spread far apart – that make us feel our privilege in ways we never did before. Not financial privilege, specifically, but the privilege of opportunity. And we wonder, are the people happy and content? Do they love their freedom and their solitude? Is this their desired life? Or has opportunity been denied to them? We come at it with our life-experience bias, and talk our way around to wider possibilities.
Visiting the desert during dry season is disorienting, and it’s hard to get used to seeing rivers and creeks with no water in them. As Mark Twain said, “Until I came to New Mexico I never realized how much beauty water adds to a river.”
Remember back in the early months, when you struggled to keep the fridge cold? Yeah, well, it’s winter now, and your fridge has become a freezer.
Literally (and we do mean literally) every restaurant in Hatch, New Mexico closes at 3 p.m. Plan accordingly or you’ll be eating “Mexican food” from the Village Market grocery store deli.
The Green Chili Stew from Village Market’s deli is pretty good!
Arizona and New Mexico have more mountains than we expected, and some of them are whoppers. Check your preconceptions at the border when you enter a new state. Surprises await!
We knew the desert gets cold at night, but really? 21F? That’s not cold, that’s Arctic! Unplug the water hose from spigot; drain water lines; wear a shirt, pants, and socks to bed; and add your robe to the five layers of blankets you already have on the bed. Oh, and your coffee or tea the next morning will be cold within three minutes. Welcome to winter.
Walmarts in New Mexico have loads of Mexican candy right before Christmas. Taste-testing results? Mixed.
With so much mountain driving behind us, Simon now has a quiet confidence while driving Fati, without relaxing his guard or taking safety for granted. Susan can sit in the passenger seat without gripping the arm rests for dear life. As of right now, this single minute, assuming nothing, travel is an absolute pleasure.
Posole (Mexican pork and hominy stew) is a gift from God. Eat it and know you are loved!
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