I spent two years living in New Mexico and even gave birth to my fabulous daughter, Natalie, there in 1993.  My original visit in 1992 was to turn around a failing restaurant for the company I was working for and I spent every free day off traveling the back roads of New Mexico. I investigated parks and archeological sites around the state like Bandelier National Monument, Chaco Canyon, Acoma Pueblo, Taos and, my favorite, the artsy, unique Santa Fe. I focused mostly on the northern half of the state because I was based in Albuquerque.  Outside of the wonderful, Bosque de Apache, which is probably the best wildlife refuge I’ve ever been to; think thousands if not tens of thousands of sandhill cranes and snow geese, I had never ventured much further south on my own. 

Southern New Mexico is home to three noteworthy stops: Carlsbad Caverns National Park, the town of Roswell, and White Sands National Park.  There is also a bonus National Park called Guadalupe National Park. It’s actually in Texas even though it’s only 20 miles of Carlsbad Caverns and none of the clocks (including my apple watch) acknowledged that it’s Mountain Time, Guadalupe is on Mountain Time and not Central Time. 

I initially visited Carlsbad Caverns NP on my trip to the west coast in the mid 80’s with my then husband, Orlando.  I was really looking forward to getting back to the caverns to revisit and to also get out of the extreme 100 degree plus heat that is southern New Mexico in late May. Regardless of the time of the year, I visited on a Friday in May. The parking lot was about 3/4 full. I was surprised except that everyone else was probably trying to escape the heat as well.  I had no problem getting a ticket for the self-guided tour of the caverns but that was probably because the elevator wasn’t working.  Gulp. They made it very clear that I could walk down the 79 stories to the bottom of the cavern (and more importantly the walk back up).  I hesitated but decided that it was worth the try to get down to the bottom which is billed as an extremely steep and difficult 1 1/4 mile  hike down.

So, the walk down is dark and steep and although they advertise “hand rails”, I would bet that’s only about 20% of the walk.  There are no steps so it’s a long winding paved trail down with upwards of 30 switchbacks and most of it is either dimly lit or dark. The opening at the top of the caverns is enormous and there were hundreds people including school groups at various stages of either traveling down or traveling up (remember the elevator was not working). There were upwards of fifty wrens flying around the entrance during the walk down but apparently the wrens are replaced by bats at nightfall.  I made it down about a mile and saw one more very steep descent and, being that I was traveling alone and still had a two-hour drive to Roswell to camp in my RV, Abeona, I decided to turn around. It was still worth the trip down but since I have only myself to depend on this trip, I felt it was prudent to turn around. There were several formations that I got to see and walking down some 60-ish flights is pretty amazing.  I also met several people on my hike down and up as we were all suffering from the lack of elevators.  I remember the elevator in my first trip there with Orlando.  It was quite the journey down into the belly of the cavern.  I would definitely go back but make enough time to be able to complete the trip or be whisked down in an elevator.

Roswell is worth the stop even if you’re not into all things alien.  This town has totally embraced its UFO identity.  The street light posts are painted like aliens, there are alien themed window paintings and signs throughout the town including a picture of an alien taking money from an ATM at a local bank.  There is even a credit union with a space ship in its logo.  If it’s from outer space, it’s in Roswell.  This all stems from the Roswell Incident when an alleged UFO crashed nearby in 1947.  There are several museums including The International UFO Museum and Research Center, Roswell Space Center, Roswell UFO Spacewalk and Alien Zone.  For a town of close to 50,000 people, that’s a lot of museums dedicated to space and aliens. I went to the UFO museum and for $7.00, it was worth it just for all the interesting displays. If you are really into all things alien, the UFO festival in early July is not to be missed by everything I read.

My last stop on my trip west in New Mexico was White Sands National Park.  Orlando and I had visited here as well back in the 80’s.  I remember the park being basically vacant on our early November visit. Fast forward to this year and considering it was over 100 degrees there were about 100 or so folks in the visitor center. After going through the visitor’s center, I headed out to the 10 mile loop road through the white sand dunes.  I should have read the map or asked about the road conditions before I headed blindly out on the Dunes Road.  About 3 miles in there was a sign on the side of the road that said “pavement ends.”  Did I mention I was driving my new RV?  I was not expecting to be on sand for 8 miles. Whether I liked it or not, there I was driving on sand for about 2 miles until there was a large turn off to park.  It was exciting to get on top of the dunes and see nothing but white dunes for as far as the eye could see.  It also was a terrific surface to reflect the hot sun back.  As much as I wanted to go the entire loop as I remember Orlando and I doing almost 40 years earlier, I wasn’t willing to risk getting stuck in my RV without 4-wheel drive.  I turned around and headed back but even the one stop was worth it. Similar to my visit to Death Valley a few years ago, it’s so amazing to experience the vast array of topography and elements of the western United States. 

Between the art and architecture of Santa Fe, the wildlife of Bosque de Apache, the depths and vastness of the Carlsbad Caverns, the expanse and beauty of White Sands and the quirky, out of the world Roswell, it’s all so enchanting.  I think I could return again and again and continue to find more enchantment.