Meteor Crater and Walnut Canyon state Park

Between Winslow and Flagstaff on the Interstate highway 40 the Meteor Crater is only 6 mile to the right.  It is privately owned  and story has it  that the owners tried to sell it to the government  just after the government proclaimed the Grand Canyon at the turn of the 20 th century and the government response was at the time  that they just bought  a big hole and they don’t want another hole in the ground.    The fee to enter is $15 per person of over 60.  This hole turns out to be the best reserved meteor crater on the earth.  It is about 1 mile in diameter and it was caused by a meteor half the size of a football field some 50000 year ago. The visitor center features the American Astronaut Wall of Fame, and it played a role in the preparation to land man on the moon.  The astronauts were trained in this crater as it closely resembles the craters on the moon, and it has such artifacts on display as a boilerplate Apollo command module and a piece of meteorite found in the area.

Just before Flagstaff we briefly stopped at the Walnut Canyon for a quick sightsee and also in the hope to find a cheap State Parks campground for the night.  This park offers no camping facilities so we had to stay over in town and here the cap sites charge $30 to 40 per night.

Look if  you can spot the dwellings againt the cliffs of the people that lived her in ancient times.

Web sites in case you interested in more specific detail:

www.meteorcrater.com/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meteor_Crater

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walnut_Canyon_National_Monument

www.nps.gov/waca/

Painted Dessert and Petrified Forest National Park near Holbrook AZ.

On our way from Gallup NM to the Grand Canyon we visited the Painted Dessert and Petrified Forest National Park. It is 23 Miles east of Holbrook next to the Interstate Highway 40 or also on the route 66.    This park was proclaimed in 1906 to protect and make available to public one of the largest petrified wood deposits in the world.

The Painted dessert  is a very interesting and colorful place to visit and in certain areas  it almost look like an oil painters pallet  with various colors mixed to show the different colors of red, brown , white, grey, blue  and if you lucky even green grass fields in between.   225 million years ago this was a steamy, swampy, equatorial climate with Hugh trees and dinosaurs inhabiting the area Today it is a dessert and  when you see the erosion that shaped this environment as you see it today, one cannot help to wonder where all the earth out to.  The same goes for Hugh parts of AZ and NM, as is evident in the canyons across this desert like states.      Nevertheless the vistas created by this erosion are spectacular and leaves one humble when you realize the massive forces at work over millennia.   Just look at the colors below.

Humans also lived in this area for at least 10,000 years, and several more modern Indian tribes have ancestral ties to this place.   A small pueblo partly excavated tells a story of +- 200 humans occupying this area in a village with 100 rooms.  This is an archeological treasure chest as erosion uncovers more archeological secrets every day with also include Dinosaurs.

The long colorful logs and the huge diameter of these logs of petrified wood indicate how fertile this environment used to be. Some petrified logs hide crystals and despite a century of crystal collectors vandalizing the environment a few crystals still hide in the Crystal forest part of the park.

Earlier environmentalists  tried to preserve this log over the creek by supporting it with concrete.  Nowadays the practice is for nature to take its course.

Just outside the southern entrance to the park Crystal forest museum and Gifts offers a wide range of Indian artifacts, Crystals, polished stones and petrified wood items for sale. They also have dry camping facilities for free, which is where we stayed for the night. 

Visit web page 

www.arizonaguide.com › Places to Visit › Arizona Parks & Monuments

www.petrified.forest.national-park.com/ 

Gallup and the Red Rock Park

Gallup claims to be one of the last true Wild West towns in the USA as it claim to still have the untamed unpretentious spirit of the west.   It is often called the “Indian capital of the world” for its location in the heart of the Native American lands with many Indian tribes in the area. You will note all the American sightseeing   / tourist attractions boast abound being the biggest or the best in the world. It is a major Indian   arts and artifact area with 100 trading stores in town.  The town is also famous for the murals each with a unique style and captures the dynamic heritage and history of Gallup.  A short walk down town will lead you pass all these murals.  Compared to the world class art we saw in Santa Fe and Albuquerque this is very native in style.  During World War 2 the forces needed a communication code that the enemy could not decipher and the local Nevajo tribe’s language was used to develop a secret code known as the Nevajo code..  Local Nevajo Indians was trained and used  for the communication corps in the war.

Hispanic heritage murial

 

Nevajo code talkers murial

 

Inter tribal ceremonial murial

 

Native American trading murial

 

Coal mining era murial

Great Gallup murial

Gullup community life murial

Veterans memorial murial

Long walk home murial

The Indian culture and way of living reminds me of our rural South Africa, even with tribal lands and homelands of 18 years back.   If you are very interested in the Indian Culture and Spanish history the area can keep you busy for a long time.   After all these AZ and NM has the oldest culture and history in the USA going way back before the Europeans came to the USA.  We just find it overwhelming throughout Arizona and New Mexico, so we give the Indian and Spanish culture sights a skip.

The town’s entire existence is due to the railway running through town with no less than 100 trains per day passing through.  Early Coal mining and logging was enough motivation to route the railway through Gallap at the time. The famous Route 66 or Mother Road also run through Gallup.

 

We wanted camp in the Red Rock Park but upon our arrival a strong wind caused an unpleasant sandstorm and on insistence of the wife we had to find a more pleasant RV park to stay for 2 days.

Red Rock Park has spectacular red rock cliffs which was formed 200 million years ago.

The famous Church Rock is also in this park and many western movies were shot in this area.

See wind erosion in action look careful at the paterns

Church rock  looks much more impressive than this photo

White spires behind the red rocks

Note the white, red and yellow colours

Fire and Ice

After spending another day in Albuquerque trying to sort out my NM driver’s license and NM ID for my wife we decided we had enough of big busy cities and head west towards the Grand Canyon. Besides my wife was getting very impatient by just hanging around and not getting to see any of the big WOW sites we both thought will be an every day event on our tour.  We are after all now one month in the USA mainly focusing on admin type stuff and organizing the very basics of al the necessities that needs to be in place.   We studied the maps and information at our disposal  and thought  the trip  to the Grand Canyon  will  take us out of NM state  but  if need be we can come back to NM  as it  is far but  not too far wrap up the licensing ID  and vehicle registration when we have received all the paperwork needed.  We planned to sleep over at Grants +- 70 miles from Albuquerque quickly see whatever there is to see and move on to Gallup the next day.

As we traveled the Highway 40 the landscape changes from the normal NM dessert almost Karoo like landscape to a glassy black rock, rolled and folded into crazy shapes and landforms with little trees and plants, crevasses and wrinkles in the surface of the rock.  It looks like some environmental disaster where some industry had dumped millions of truckloads of giant coal / charcoal all over the low lying areas.

This is a sink hole in a very large tube

Locals call it “the Bad Lands” and the first impression is real bad.  We will learn later that that a more descriptive name is in fact “The land of Fire and Ice”.   We found the RV Park where we planned to stay in the middle of this big black “coal” dump with the visitor center next to it.   Luckily we decided to go to the visitor center first and this is where the real enchantment started. The visitor center is an excellent source of information with a huge display area and theater with plenty of brochures and very helpful rangers advising on sightseeing opportunities.  The El Mapais National Conservation Area is the youngest National park in the USA park system, just celebrating its 25th anniversary but it has millennia years of geological history. The ranger told us about a Bureau of Land Management (BLM) campsite 20 miles south from the center and we decide to try it out instead.  After all the RV is stocked with enough food,  fresh water, propane as tank is full, batteries are fully charged and grey and black water tanks are empty and who wants to sleep in a packed RV park in a dump for a fee when  nature has so much more to offer for free.  BLM camping is usually very primitive and either free or at very low cost.  At this stage it was clear that El Malays has so much to offer that 3 or 4 nights won’t do it justice.  Arriving at the Joe Sheen campsite on top of a North South running sandstone ridge we found a newly upgraded camping area and each campsite with a very neat corrugated iron canopy, picnic table, a braai and a fire pit. No water or electricity or dumping facilities  but the RV is designed to be self sufficient for at least 3 to 5 days depending on how you conserve the onboard resources.   We found a fairly level site 30 meters from the edge of the ridge and let the jacks down and slides out.  Indeed a perfect campsite in the nature with the closest neighbors 100 meters away. Even more incredible, a strong wind was blowing from the west howling up against this ridge and through the scrubs, blowing right over our site with only a little breeze where we camped as the air was sucked up into the turbulence above our heads.  We could not have asked for a better site and it is all for free.

Perfect campsite at Joe Sheen  for free.

After coffee we went for a little sightseeing drive to the nearby Sandstone Bluffs which dazzled us with spectacular yellow / tan sandstone cliffs in the late afternoon sun with black lava on the ground, blue skies with patches of white clouds and green trees breaking through the lava.  No fewer than 29 inactive cinder cone volcanoes in this area with patches of snow still visible on Mt Taylor the highest volcano.  Further down the 117 road we also stopped at one of NM largest sandstone natural arch called the La Ventana arch, it is also amongst the largest arches in the USA, which resides in the high sandstone cliffs but it is very accessible by car with a short walk for the energetic.  It is an excellent example of the corrosive power of nature that carved up the Colorado Plateau.

Valley  with various shades of  lava  indication of the lavas age

The next morning we needed to stock up some groceries and fill the car with gas (a full tank of petrol is considered to be one of the essentials in this part of the world) in Grants. Traveling in the states like Arisona and New Mexico, means that you always have to be prepared for each and every conceivable hardship this diverse and rugged environment can throw at you.  That means enough water and food, hat and sunblock, full tank of gas, but also warm clothes, as the temperatures changes dramatically during the day. Venturing into the wilderness also means no mobile reception and internet large distances and few people to come to your rescue.  Temperatures swing from way below  freezing to 30 degrees C in winter to 10  to 45 degrees C in summer.

The El Mapais is very unique when you imagine and appreciate how the lava flowed through the thick forest at the time.  Lava flows are thick gooey masses of melted rock 2000 to 3000 degrees hot flowing like elongated mole heaps above ground at speeds of up to 30 miles per hour.  As it flow the surface cools and harden / solidify and forms a shell within which the hot flowing lava is insulated by this porous lava shell from the outside and so it keeps on flowing and building its own tunnel in which it can flow for 30 kms away from its source.   When the lava flow subsided it leaves a network of lava tunnels and caves across the landscape. Lava fows are in various shades of grey to black which indicates is age and the youngest eruption was some 300 years back.  Over time the tunnels do cave in, due to water  and snow, vegetation penetration like trees and roots  penetrating  each and every crevasse, and the major cause for  breaking down these formations is the dramatic changes in temperature on a daily basis,  leaving the rugged sharp edged  rock like  lava debris you see in the lava flow areas.  The area still has many lava caves where bats hang out during the day and feast during night on insects and mosquitoes. These tunnels also made excellent shelters and dwellings and natural freezers (this I will explain further down) for the early settlers due to Lava being such a perfect insulator.

On our way to the Ice Cave and Bandera Crater some 20 miles west out of town on route 53 we briefly stopped at the local Rodeo stadium where the kids were practicing their rodeo skills.  It was amazing to see how skillful the youngsters are on horseback charging into the stadium, jumping of off, catch a goat, turning it on its side, and tie the 2 hind legs with one front leg.  Some kids completed the task in 15 seconds.

The Ice Cave and the Bandera Crater the largest in the region, is privately owned and they charge $11 per person for the self guided tour.  It is right next to the road and the walkways is not too strenuous for lazy bums like us.  The reception is an old time trading post from the 1930s and the beer was kept cold with ice from the Ice Cave.  The trees in the areas escaped the logging in the previous century due to the rugged landscape; therefore the trees are up to 700 years old.  The trees growing in lava find it difficult to establish deep roots resulting in twisted gnarled trees that are also easily uprooted in strong winds.

Good sample of twisted tree

Walking up the crater path, sinkholes  in the lava tubes can be seen in various stages of collapse.  

Collapsed tube

As you approach the cinder cone crater a cross section of the volcano becomes visible.   The 10,000 year old volcano began as the earth starts to swell, eventually a crack appears through which high pressure lava began spraying out. Molten rock hardens in mid air and fell back to earth as cinders in all shapes and sizes. As the eruption continuous the cinder cone becomes larger and larger.  The elements present in most lava include oxygen, silicon, iron (red color), aluminum, calcium (white colors), magnesium, sodium and sulfur (yellow Colors), potassium, titanium and other trace elements.  There were 2 stages of the eruption:  first the cinder cone developed, and then a massive lava flow broke out on one side.  At the end of the eruption the lava suddenly fell back down the main vent making the cone deeper.

Cinder Cone

This part of the tour you can only sense where the fire in the name was derived from.  Now that happened 10000 years back you may say,  but also imagine black lava rock all over the environment with a summer sun  pounding down at 45 to 50 degrees Celsius,  with low rainfall that you can almost count by the drop,  it makes the Ice part of this marvel all that much more spectacular.

The other end of the reception area the path leads to the Ice Cave.  The Ice cave is actually in one of the larger lava tubes which caved in.  In the cave the temperature never rises above 31 degrees F or -1 to 0 degrees C.  As rainwater and snowmelt seep deep into the cave the ice floor thickens to its current 3 – 4 meters.   As you decent the mere 50 meters down the wooden steps in this open hole within the very hot black lava rock around you, you can sense how the temperature changes from hot to freezing cold.  Almost like your chest freezer at home.  The ice is actually very much in the open but the well insulated cave and the shape of the cave trap the friget air.   

Ol

Old trading post  now reception

Looking out from the Ice cave

3m thick ice all  year round

The fact that Fire and Ice, a mere 50 meters apart, coexist for 3400 years leave you totally amazed at Gods creation.

South West NM

We traveled North West on route 180 to Glenwood about 65 miles northwest of Silver City on Saturday 6^th April.   I wanted to see the Catwalk of the White river canyon.  Glenwood had a rummage sale where we stopped to see what is on offer.  Well I found a Hoover vacuum cleaner for $1 and a radio tape cassette adaptor for 25 sents all in working condition.  Just a week back I paid $28 for such a cassette to play the IPod music, well now I have one for the RV and the car.   My wife found some quilting books for a Dollar.   Wish I can find some much needed  tools this way.  The town also hosted the annual “Dutch oven cook-off” competition.  All dishes need to be cooked on open fire in cast iron pots.  We were too early for the feast but we bought some original soda.  At the time we did not meet or know the winner of this competition, for the 2^nd year in a row, but the following morning in church, in Silver City, this very friendly elderly man introduced himself to us and  told us about his participation, but we only learned later that he actually is also the winner.

The Catwalk in itself was a disappointment.  After a little wondering along the San Francisco River we could only see the first part of the Catwalk.  The rest was under construction because they are afraid of potential flooding.  The catchment area had a severe fire last year which destroyed all the vegetation and trees which helps to control the flooding and the water drainage into the ground. Without vegetation any rain causes instant flooding especially in this very narrow canyon.  As a precaution the Catwalk was removed.  The Whitewater Canyon Catwalk is in the Gila National Forest. The Catwalk is 1.1 miles long, following the Whitewater River into the mountains alongside huge boulders, rapids and waterfalls. Originally built in 1890 as part of a gold mining operation, it was used by miners to reach the mines and bring slurry down to the mills. 

Traveling back we just followed our noses and stumbled upon a very interesting small lake called Bill Evans Lake with exceptionally blue water high up the mountains.  We later learned that all the water is pumped from the Gila River to this lake 300 ft above.

On Sunday 7^th April we decided to visit the United Methodist Church in Silver City before we hook up and travel to Elephant Butte. I was not sure if the road over the mountain is RV friendly as the lady at the visitor center advised us against traveling this road.   It turned out that there should be no reason for concern.   There are basically on 2 ways to get to Elephant Butte e.g. the “long way 120 miles” and the “longer way 80 miles route 152”.  The longer way is the scenic bypass through the Gila National Forrest traveling a very narrow winding Emory pass over the Black range Mountains and travel time makes it a much longer and slow road to travel.  At places the speed limit was merely 10 to 25 miles per hour, which meant that the RV had easy going through the steep climbs and narrow hairpin curves.  This was a very spectacular and enjoyable trip.  Certainly my highlight of the day, but an experience playing very heavily on my wife’s nerves.

Despite the very low water level in the Elephant Butte reservoir due to prolonged drought, it was a very pleasant overnight stay at the Elephant Butte Lake State Park camping site overlooking the reservoir, this was cheap, $14 per night, considering that this was the best site we parked in thus far.  If you buy a “NM annual camping or day use pass for $240 per year the rate is a mere $4 per night.  We figured that it is not worth buying such a pass as we probably will not stay in NM for that long.

We had to find a Chase bank in NM to change the address on the Bank Account because to get a drivers license to need to provide proof of residence similar to the FICA requirements we have in SA.  I cannot get a license with a bank statement only under my wife's name.    It has to also reflect my name.  So we searched the internet and noted Chase bank is only in Albuquerque.  We found it strange that a national bank which literally had a branch on every street corner in Arizona has so few branches in NM. Nevertheless we traveled the 120 miles to Albuquerque just to realize the Chase bank is not a normal branch and only a finance house for vehicles.  Lesson Learned - not all national banks necessarily as branches in all states.  As Albuquerque is too far away from Arizona, I opened a bank account on my name with Wells Fargo.  They also promised to have a statement ready within 2 days which will hopefully resolve my proof of address problem.

On Monday 8^th April, the drive on the highway 25 is a pleasant one with the wind behind the coach it was smooth sailing.  The lady at the Truth or Consequences information center recommended the Isleta Lakes RV Parkas it is out of town and a very pleasant area next to the Rio Grande River with lots of water birds and fishing in the wetlands. This is a tribal Indian area with the Hard rock Casino nearby. The rate of $37 per night  not exactly cheap.

Truth or Consequences, just south of Elephant Butte, is a very strange name for a town. Locals just call it T or C but it has an interesting history.  It gets its curious name from a 1950s-vintage television show that offered to film an episode in some little town far from Hollywood, if that town would change its name to match the show's. It was known for its Hot Springs, and New Mexico needed an economic boost, agreed to the deal, and has gained notoriety and consequently tourist business as a result.  The hot springs can be enjoyed at 10 commercial bath houses. All are located in the cool town's Historic Hot Springs / Business district.  The springs produce over 2 million gallons of clear and odor free hot mineral spring water per day between 102 and 112 degrees, these springs are considered one of the top mineral springs in the USA. There are over 50 pools and tubs in the downtown Spas

 The City of Elephant Butte is located immediately west of Elephant Butte Lake State Park, New Mexico’s largest lake. The area is ideal for year round outdoor activities including boating, fishing, and all kinds of water sport.  Nearby is also Spaceport America which is the first spaceport in the world built-from-the-ground-up to host private enterprise, intended to be the launch-pad of the global commercial spaceflight industry and the second space age. The $209 million project has attracted worldwide attention because of its bold premise, stunning architecture and the fact that it is home to the world’s first commercial passenger spaceline company, Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic.  Designed, built and operated by the New Mexico Spaceport Authority (NMSA), Spaceport America is nearing completion of the first phase of construction, which includes basic operational infrastructure such as an airfield, launch pads, terminal / hangar facility, emergency response capabilities, utilities and roadways. The site will be capable of accommodating the activities of both vertical and horizontal takeoff space launch vehicles, serving as the base for pre-flight and post-flight activities, and providing a tourism experience for interested visitors and spectators. The spaceport also presents a unique opportunity to excite students regarding space technology and the underlying science and mathematics.

Socorro  midway between T or C and Albuquerque features a couple of very interesting attractions like- Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge  which is part of the national wildlife refuge system, maintained in part by the Friends of the Bosque, an all-volunteer group.  This is where snow geese, cranes and hundreds of other birds stop in on their migrations. Gorgeous photography in the winter months during sunrise and sunset - be prepared for the cold!  

Fort Craig National Historic Site is a ruin reachable via a short side road from SR 1 south of the Bosque del Apache. A quick visit gives you a sense of the bleak existence faced by the Army forces based here to guard transportation routes during the 19th century. No visitor services other than toilets.

Langmuir Lightning Laboratory in the Magdalena Mountains west of town, associated with New Mexico Tech, is a major center for atmospheric-science research and has a visitor center open during summer daylight hours.

Trinity Site. Site of the first nuclear bomb explosion, now a National Historic Landmark. The radiation has long since decayed to the point that the site is now safe for visitors. The White Sands Missle Range holds an open house at the Trinity Site twice a year, the first Saturdays in April and September. Unfortunately we missed the April open house by 1 day.

The Very Large Array, long considered the world's most sensitive interferometric radio telescope and still a first-rate instrument of astronomy, is about 60 miles west of town, beyond the Magdalena Mountains and the tiny town of Magdalena. Driving out west along US 60, it is surreal to come upon this shimmering, alien-looking collection of radio dishes in the middle of the Plains of San Agustin. Open year round during daylight hours for free self-guided tours.