The first national park that we visited was Carlsbad Caverns, which had been on my bucket list for a long time. We read on the NPS website that if we’d been in a cave within the last 10 years and were wearing the same shoes or using the same camera, to had to disinfect them before entering the Caverns. This was to prevent spread of a fungus that was infecting and killing the bat population. We had been in caves in Italy and China but we weren’t wearing the same shoes; however, Donya did have her cell phone disinfected because she had used the camera in Italy. We rode an elevator down to the entrance and took the self-guided tour of the Big Room, the largest chamber in the caverns and the largest by volume in North America. The cave was formed by the action of sulfuric acid eating away at the limestone (rather than water erosion as is the case with most limestone caves), so the stalactites and stalagmites were dry and not growing. We noticed a worker picking lint off of the mineral formations (nitpicking) – she said that lint sloughs off the clothes of visitors and they needed to do this periodically to keep them clean. The caverns were discovered by miners who were looking for bat guano used in making fertilizer. As in Austin, thousands of Mexican free-tail bats emerge from the cave at dusk to feed on insects.
After touring the caverns we returned to the RV, packed up and continued west to our next destination, Las Cruces. We had just passed the White Sands Missile Range when the fourth tire blew. Good Sam Roadside Assistance sent a young man to change the tire (using the spare tire), but his jack wasn’t strong enough and it broke. He called for assistance, so another man arrived with a bigger jack. After the tire was changed, we asked them to follow us into Las Cruces in case the spare failed, which it did five – miles later. Five blowouts in 36 hours – must be a record. However, the two men couldn’t help us because they didn’t have a tire, and Good Sam couldn’t find a tire company that was open on a Sunday night. Donya and I weighed our options and decided to get the RV into a safer place and spend the night on the side of the road. We walked down the highway using satellite GPS to find a place to pull into. We came upon some abandoned buildings and were trying to assess the area with a flashlight when we heard a man call out to us. This man was living in a nearby trailer and suggested that we park in front of an abandoned gas station. He gave us his phone number in case we needed anything. We walked back up the hill to the RV and limped back down the hill, being careful not to ruin the tire rim. We felt safer being off the road, but we had no power and had to decide if we were going to sleep in the RV with no A/C or go to a motel. It was well past midnight and we were very tired, so even though we found a motel with vacancy, we decided to make the best of it and sleep in the RV.
The next morning Good Sam Roadside Assistance sent out two men who put on two new 14-ply tires. That was enough to get us to a gas station (we had idled for hours running the truck A/C trying to keep cool, so we were low on diesel). We also wanted to weigh the truck and RV to make sure we weren’t overweight. After filling up and getting weighed (Livy weighed 13,500 and Stanley weighed 11,300 – well within the allowable weight limit), we drove to the tire company and had two more 14-ply tires put on. We now had four brand-new, top-of-the-line 14-ply tires plus two 10-ply spares. The Las Cruces KOA was just down the road, so after settling into our spot, we spent the next two days recovering from this trauma.
White Sands National Monument, located near Las Cruces, is absolutely amazing. The sand dunes are made of gypsum and calcium sulfate instead of quartz. Surprisingly, it is cool to the touch because of the high rate of evaporation of surface moisture and the fact that the sands reflect the sun’s rays rather than absorb them. The park ranger told us that the sand is even cooler under the surface. We bought two disc-like sleds and tried to slide down the slopes, but we were too heavy for the degree of slope of the dunes. Instead we dug holes in the sand so that the dogs could cool their bellies.
Las Cruces doesn’t have a lot going for it, but it does boast a huge roadrunner sculpture made out of recycled parts and a motel proudly displays the largest red chile pepper I’ve ever seen. We took the dogs for a walk in a park next to the Rio Grande and before we knew it, Monty jumped in and went for a swim. Fortunately, he was still on leash so Donya was able to extricate him from the water.
Beautiful pueblo-style architecture in Santa Fe
Loved the art galleries along Canyon Road in Santa Fe
