Oct. 30th - Nov.3rd On the Road to Texas

Rio Grande Gorge near Taos

     I've covered a lot of distance since I wrote last Friday. Tonight (Nov. 3rd)  I'm  in Fredericksburg, deep in the heart of Texas, about 1000 miles from poolside in Santa Fe. Oh yes, for those in the mileage contest, I've gone about 6900 miles so far! Six weeks down, home two weeks from today. I confess to being a little tired but still loving every minute of this trip. My song of the day is the Haley version of a favorite Irish ballad  Its a Long, Long Way from There to Here .

Jack, Edwin and the girls

     The "Three Amigas", Hats, Lynn and I had a couple more laugh filled days in the area before I bid them adios Monday morning at the Albuquerque airport. Drinks with friends Friday night, a drive up to Taos on Saturday and the Rio Grande Gorge, and Sunday spent visiting the art galleries on Canyon Road. And church at the beautiful Basilica of St.Francis.

White Sands New Mexico

     On my own again for the first time in 3 weeks, I decided to "go rogue" and deviated a little from my original itinerary. Pretty much in the center of  New Mexico (Alamogordo if you're putting pins in a map) is the White Sands National Monument which is actually a 275 sq. mile "desert" of white gypsum. It looks like snow and some kids were actually going down the dunes on flying saucers. Several times a week there are test missiles fired overhead from the nearby air force base but I didn't have to dodge any bullets on my visit.

Cloudcroft Resort

     Really getting off the beaten track, I took a gamble on another "historic" hotel, this being the Cloudcroft Lodge, situated at 9000 feet in the Sacramento Mtns. Very quaint, rustic and...... as I lay reading about 3:30 am ( not that unusual, eh ladies?) I heard the coyotes outside howling in the night.  I wish I could have stayed longer...the lodge has a spa, golf course, ski lift nearby( no snow)  and its supposed to be haunted which is enough to put it on anyones bucket list. And best of all, only $109!
     Yesterday afternoon I rolled into Carlsbad Caverns in time to wander around for awhile and get ready for the "famous" (their description, not mine) bat exodus from the cave which happens around dusk. Well, why not? Its a cloudless afternoon, I'm staying nearby, so I settled in. At the peak summer evening they have about 400,000 of the little furry darlings come flying out. The day before they flew out at 4:43.
I got to the spot about 4:30.  The cute little ranger is telling funny bat stories as 5:00 passes, 5:15, 5:30. Where are the friggin bats? They do migrate to Mexico so I gave up at 5:45 and assumed they heard I was coming and hit the road to Mexico the night before. Damn them.

The Sonic!

     I took another little tour of the caverns this morning which was actually pretty cool...just 10 of us with  candles which really gave a different perspective on the whole cave thing. That said, I'm done with caves for this trip. A long drive cross West Texas past Fort Stockton and Pecos brought me to this "hill town" where I hunkered down in a familiar La Quinta Inn and dined at the Sonic Drive-In which are big out here in the west. A glass of wine, "Modern Family" on TV and a good night sleep and I'm off to Houston.
  

Note the bullet holes