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While passing through Eastern New Mexico, I discovered a town quite infatuated with aliens: Roswell, New Mexico! I even met one, who was quite shiny and friendly.

There are numerous businesses in town focused on extra-terrestrials (as aliens are sometimes known). My favorite was this Scottish restaurant shaped like a flying saucer!

They even have food shaped like flying saucers!

Although I was unable to participate myself, one could purchase priceless alien artifacts and eat alien donuts while in Roswell.

Departed Las Cruces (adios, amigos!). Up and over the Organ Mountains, through White Sands Missile Range and White Sands National Monument. I learned that the name “White Sands” is an early example of government misinformation…the dunes are actually gypsum.

In this part of the country, the government has established a series of checkpoints called White Checks. The whiter you are, the easier it is to pass through.

At the risk of inciting unending envy in all, I will report that I visited Pistashioland, near Alamogordo, NM. One under-appreciated aspect of nuclear weapons testing is the enormous size of agricultural products that are now realized. This particular pistachio is about 3 times the size of my van-house and can supply the average American family with 2.7 years of pistachio nut meats. Imagine what would be possible with additional thermonuclear explosions!

Beautiful mountains lay to the east of Alamogordo. The mountains are the ancestral homelands of the Mescalero Apache. What a fine place to live in harmony with the land! Lincoln National Forest participates in dispersed camping, so I settled into a secluded site nestled in a valley. Patchy snow remained from a recent storm. Outside temp was 17 degrees in the morning, 60 in the van.

 

Xena, the Warrior Princess, got to experience her first snow! She loved it. (I don’t know how to embed a video, so you have to click on the link to see her cavorting)

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Evenings in my tiny van-house are comfy. I’ve been watching The Expanse.

And enjoying clear blue skies in the day.

Many of you have left comments, which I appreciate enormously. However, because of some technical weirdness, most comments come from Anonymous. There is a way for me to fix it by re-subscribing you in a different way. Email me if you want me to do that.

In southern Arizona, the desert gives way to plains filled with scrub-filled grasslands. Seeing it on a dry winter day makes me wonder if they ever get enough rain to bring it back to life. I suppose it must.

In the distance to the west, I saw an enticing mountain range, so I found a dirt road heading that way and away I went. Passing through open grazing land, I discovered Coronado National Forest, replete with dispersed camping.

Found a great camp site at 5,600 ft—nice views of mountain pastures and plenty of places for Xena to explore.

Spent a peaceful night, tucked into my van-house, warm and cozy while the wind blew outside. In the morning, I left headed further east-northeast.

Stopped at a roadside marker, an enormous phallus marking the place where Geronimo was forced to surrender.

Further down the road…New Mexico!

I’ve been traveling through the deserts of the Southwest, testing out my van/house. Stayed at Giant Rock, but saw no extra-terrestrials. I did hear the Marine conducting live fire exercises at the nearby 29 Palms Marine Corps Base. The sound of artillery travels far in the desert. Xena the cat loved climbing all over the huge pile of boulders…on her leash, of course.

Traveled just a few miles further east to Heart of the Mojave preserve. So nice and quiet. Vistas, but no people, for miles. Not so good for cats, though, little to see and nothing to climb on.

Further south, I found the Cabeza Prieta Wildlife Preserve, near the (unfortunately but appropriately named) town of Ajo, Arizona, and spent another peaceful night far from civilization.

In New Mexico, atop the the towering Rocky Mountains, they have mountain meadows modeled after the opening sequence of “The Sound of Music.” Acres and acres of yellow and blue flowers growing all by themselves. Lovely temps…mid-40s at night, mid-70s during the day. Not another soul for miles around.

The City of Santa Fe (Spanish for Holy Faith, but no mention of which one) is nestled in the north of New Mexico. A river runs through it! Many tourists. There is even a state capitol there! Spread the word, it’s a nice place to visit.

 

My survey of New Mexico yielded an exciting geological feature I call the Taos Gorge (because Taos, NM, is nearby) or sometimes the Rio Grande Gorge (because the Rio Grande rushes through its depths). It is maybe a third-scale or half-scale mini Grand Canyon. Even better, there are free camp sites along the rim of the gorge. Private, serene, cool in the summer and, I suspect, bitterly cold in the winter. I’ll refrain from giving specific locations so you will not rush to the place and take all the good sites.

One wonders what made this highway sign necessary.

Manzanar is the internment camp in bleak, desolate Owens Valley, California, that housed Americans of Japanese ancestry during War World II. The site is now a National Historic Site, but there’s not much left to see. Survivors received $20,000 from the Federal Government in reparations. The curious can read more about it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manzanar