From Las Cruces, NM to Carlsbad, NM
From Las Cruces, NM to Carlsbad, NM
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I got up this morning and spent the first thirty minutes drinking my deluxe in-room brewed Maxwell House while watching The Weather Channel. I was trying to make sense out of the three day forecast for Texas. It looks like there is a weather system coming from the south that would put the next two days of planned rides underwater for three days. If that comes true, I could be stuck in some really podunk town down near the Rio Grande. So I've decided to head north and east in Texas and get down to the Gulf when I can. Since my time in New Mexico has not shown me the scenery I thought I might see, another day in New Mexico seems like a good idea.
So the plant to ride south through El Paso continuing through Marfa, Marathon and into Sanderson is ditched. Instead, I will ride north out of Las Cruces to Alamagordo, Ruidoso to Roswell. Then turn south at Roswell and overnight at Carlsbad. The route is marked as scenic for about half the day's mileage.
I'm up and packed and out the door at 8:20 -- not an early start but I needed additional internal conferencing time. The Valkyrie has decided to be hard to start this morning but finally fires up. I think the presence of a USAF officer on a big BMW and a few choice words in her ear got her going.
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The ride from Las Cruces up to the San Agustin Pass is really nice. The road is arrow straight so you get a great sense of where you are headed. The mountains themselves are beautiful and craggy. Finally a notch comes into view and the way over is clear. Along the way you pass a Space Museum. The museum looks like a converted convenience store with a few odds and ends in the parking area. I would have stopped for its kitsch value but because of Easter -- it is closed. Just over the pass, you get a great view down onto the headquarters area of the White Sands Missile Range. It is a long ride down to the valley floor and the turnoff to the missile range. Just inside the gate, there is a missile park. All sorts of missiles are arranged with interpretive plaques. |
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About 40 miles north of Las Cruces you come to the White Sands National Monument. The visitor's center is a great adobe building from the early 1900s. Inside there is an explanation of how evaporation from Lake Lucero essentially breeds new sand particles and maintains the great dunes. The sand is bright white and very light in weight. Just opposite the White Sands National Monument are my good friends, The Border Patrol. Thank God for this outpost of law enforcement or more than 1,000 illegal aliens would have passed this way and more than 8,000 pounds of drugs (gasp!) would have entered the country. This information is courtesy of their self-serving information sign. |
At Alamagordo, I stop to buy new batteries for the film camera. Some how they have disappeared from the camera between the time I took a picture at San Agustin Pass and my stop at the visitors center. I think aliens have stolen them. I leave it to you to determine if they were UFO aliens en route to Roswell or Mexican aliens that somehow slipped through the Border Patrol's net across the street.
Alamagordo is a handsome but simple desert town that wears its association with US missile and space exploration with great pride. On the highway into town is a welcome sign in German. If I recall my mythology the sign was originally erected to welcome German scientists at the end of World War II. In Alamagordo, there is a large space museum with an IMAX theater. The museum has a beautiful location on the hill overlooking the city. It looked great but because it was Easter, it was closed.
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From Alamagordo it is a short drive to Tularosa. I didn't stop but it seemed like an attractive town. As you leave Tularosa you start up a grade towards Mescalero. The mountains are beautiful, colored shades of pink, rose and brown. By the time I reach Mescalero, the landscape has changed considerably. I have gained altitude and I'm now in a pine forest. I'm surprised when I cross Apache Pass at nearly 7,600 feet. As you descend toward Ruidoso, the pine trees beautifully frame Sierra Blanca Peak. |
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I have lunch and gas up in Ruidoso Downs. The Hubbard Museum of the American West has a very large-scale sculpture of a series of stallions running and jumping. The effect is quite startling as these are life-size (or better) sculptures jumping boulders as if running onto the highway. |
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As I progress towards Roswell, the scenery reverts to the flat monotony that I became accustomed to west of Las Cruces. Rosewell itself seems very ordinary -- so strange that an alien spacecraft landed here. Gift shops, closed because it is Easter, offer the promise of alien souvenirs. Hmmmm. Contraband smuggled from outside the country? Junk assembled outside the solar system for sale to us tourists? Due to the holiday, I am unable to provide any insight.
At Roswell, I turned south on Highway 285 towards Artesia and Carlsbad. Artesia sounded so pure and pure I was surprised by the presence of oil industry in the form of a refinery, mud companies and producing wells. There is a distinct smell to this industry and it is pervasive in Artesia.
It has been a long day as I roll into Carlsbad. I pick a Quality Inn that promises a spa and pool. The hotel itself is motel building from the 1960s (or so) in the Miesian style of steel and glass panels and poured concrete floors. The spa is either dirty or suffering from a build up of salts -- I pass. The pool is bone-chilling cold. A grandmother vainly tries to convince her charges that if they keep moving they will warm up. The kids aren't buying it and neither do I.
I dry off and change then head the bar for some margaritas and a cheap sandwich. Pretty satisfying, but the margaritas and a very slow internet connection keep me from posting today's report. Like last night, I go to bed without a clear plan of where I will ride tomorrow. Read on to see where I go.
Depart Las Cruces heading east on US 70.
Continune on US70 through Alamagordo, Tularosa, Mescalero, Ruidoso Downs to Roswell.
At Roswell turn south onto US 285
Arrive Carlsbad, NM
(c) 2001 Thomas N. Engler Revision Date: 04/16/2001 revised
08/14/01
