Music for the journey 12/30

Good desert music:

Theme from Lawrence of Arabia/Maurice Jarre

To the desert

We began our trip back into more Texas-like landscape by driving this morning from Pinos Altos to Alamogordo, NM. Unfortunately we had a bit of a rocky start. While I was making breakfast I heard a big thump, and turned around and saw that Richard had fallen on the stairs from the loft bedroom. The stairs were carpeted, so I guess he must have just caught the edge of it as he was walking down and his feet went out from under him, and then he fell on his back and on the back of his head. I was fairly worried, and he was feeling definitely bruised and a bit faint, but felt better after some juice and a quick lie down. He didn't want to go see someone about it, so I drove and kept an eye on him, but I think overall in spite of some remaining pain he's doing better. It's our first accident of the trip, but we're fortunate it wasn't a really bad one.

The drive took us mostly eastward, putting the wind at the back of our car and giving us some extra boost and some pretty good time traveling. We were able to stop at City of Rocks State Park for a while, and make our way through the really surprising rock formations, shaped initially as a result of volcanic activity, and later modified by the action of winds. The land in this area is part of the Chihuahuan Desert, and so in addition to the rocks there was a great collection of plants (including some unique agave and cacti) and some new birds to add to the list. Rich spent much of his time there taking some great photographs of the formations, both for himself and also for his later geology unit that he teaches for my Darwin course. Although this was a quick and somewhat spontaneous stop on the trip, it's definitely a place that we would come back to if we traveled this way again.

One of the places I most anticipated seeing was White Sands National Monument, which we visited just prior to getting in to Alamogordo. You first see the basin where White Sands lies after going over the pass just after Las Cruces. Once you hit the pass and then go through it, you look down on the desert below, and start entering the missile range. We were fortunate on this trip that there was no missile testing, so we were able to just take 70 and go straight through. There was a brief stop for Border Patrol, and then we got to White Sands. The parking lot was packed, so we thought it better to hit some of the side trails that were less populated, since a lot of the park visitors were bringing sleds and plastic disks for kids to slide down the sand. Although that might seem a bit wintery, there was in fact a thin layer of snow on the sand from the snowfall that had hit us in Pinos Altos, and it was an odd combination of the dry desert with what we'd experience at the high altitudes.


It's amazing to see the dunes, and then to pick up a handful of the gypsum that they're made of and look at the finer structure. Smith had a great time walking around and sniffing, and we occasionally just went running down the individual dunes and he really loved that part. The interpretive signage is great, and they do a good job of showing some of the major natural features of the site for anyone whose willing to take the time. Richard got some great photos of the plants and scenery, along with some close-ups of cross bedding. We'd seen it on rocks in Palo Duro canyon, and then could compare it to the active sand movement that is occurring at White Sands.

We're resting up a bit for two long days of travel, broken up in a segment from here to Pecos, TX, and then another big jump from Pecos to home. Smith is completely exhausted, and Richard is getting a soak in the tub to help his back feel better.

Music for the journey 12/28-12/29

The band Poi Dog Pondering was big in the 90s, and with the album Wishing like a Mountain was somewhat in the Aldo Leopold spirit. We played this one of the days in the cabin:

Everybody's Trying/Poi Dog Pondering

Mountains

After leaving Gallup we traveled via Arizona to get to Silver City on a relatively untraveled north-south road. The road itself went through some beautiful areas, much of it in the Aldo Leopold Wilderness and on two-lane highway (where in 70 miles we saw only 8 cars), and reminded me of the country described in Leopold's "Thinking Like a Mountain", one of my favorite essays about nature and man's relationship with it. Toward the end of his essay he writes:


"We all strive for safety, prosperity, comfort, long life, and dullness. The deer strives with his supple legs, the cowman with trap and poison, the statesman with pen, the most of us with machines, votes, and dollars, but it all comes to the same thing: peace in our time. A measure of success in this is all well enough, and perhaps is a requisite to objective thinking, but too much safety seems to yield only danger in the long run."


A lot of the land we traveled through was anti-wolf, and it was interesting to see how it was manifested through billboards and the occasional pelt tacked up in warning. The rhetoric became a bit more pro-nature as we traveled into Silver City, NM, and then up to our cabin rental in Pinos Altos. The cabin was quite fantastic, and we drove over somewhat icy roads to get there. The forecast called for snow for Monday and Tuesday, and when we woke up on our first morning there was a full two inches on the car, and plows were traveling up the roads next to the cabin.

Although it was still snowing, the day was supposed to warm up, we took a morning hike up the mountain on an old forest road. The snow had fallen on ice, so I decided to wear my Yaktrax and Rich his crampons from his old fieldwork in the UK. Since Smith had nice strong feet, he was pretty steady on the ice and snow. This paid off well for him in scrambling up the mountain, and eventually as he tried to track some javelina that had walked across the fresh snow. We got some good pictures of him sticking his nose into the different footprints. When we took a break at the top we invented a game to distract him, but to keep him interested in sniffing out things. We stuck an M&M inside a snowball and threw it so that he could chase it down the trail. He would go get the snowball and then break it apart to get to the candy inside, and was having a lot of fun. Later as we got back to the cabin he saw an actual javelina hanging around outside the cabins, and so it was pretty exciting for him having the real (and smelly) thing around.

We hadn't gone into any cities or done any window shopping at all, but decided to go into Silver City to have a look around their downtown area. The shops were eclectic but nice, and generally fairly dog-friendly so they let him come in as we looked around. By that time Smith was getting fairly tired, so it was back home and then a relaxing evening watching more snow fall.

Music for the journey 12/27

The song Route 66 was written in the mid-1940s, but has been reinterpreted over the years for each generation. So, pick your version below:

The original Bobby Troup interpretation

The Nat King Cole interpretation

The Rolling Stones version

1980s Depeche Mode version (mixed with "Behind the Wheel")

John Mayer's version from the film "Cars"

Navajo road

In Farmington NM this morning it was a brisk 16 degrees F, although breezeless and comfortable once the car's heater got going. Our first stop was Four Corners National Monument, where the borders of New Mexico, Arizona, Utah and Colorado meet. The drive to it was beautiful, with mesas and a mixture of snow and sand visible beneath the scrub. It was less busy here than the last time I'd been through (summer '98), but we stopped for Indian frybread and coffee, both wonderfully hot to fight off the cold. Rather than pose ourselves in four states at one time, we let Smith do the work, although as you can see he had a preference for New Mexico and Arizona, and we never got him set up with one leg in each state. Perhaps he's partial now to New Mexico, or Colorado/Utah were too cold.

Most of the drive was through the Navajo Reservation, and overall it was relatively free of a lot of the roadside signs and other kinds of things that distract from the landscape. We looked at Shiprock Peak from the road, but since it's considered a sacred place you can't get much closer. Several similar peaks emerge from the landscape, but none are as big or as striking as Shiprock.

Entering Gallup we took a small diversion to Red Rock State Park. It hosts an annual gathering of 50 different tribes for the Intertribal Indian Ceremonial, and so in terms of infrastructure the park is full of buildings, corrals, amphitheaters, and stables. But on a day like today these were completely empty, and there was literally no one around and it felt like a ghost town. Eventually we found a parking area that led to the Pyramid Trail, and it was worth being persistent. The trail winds up into the eroded sandstone pinnacles and rocky ledges, and allows you to see not just the geological formations but also I-40 as it passes by. It was a very pleasant afternoon hike and break from driving. Rich was reminded of the film "Cars", and we could guess that in the research for the film that the writers and producers must have stopped here. You could think of the fictional town of Radiator Springs, the silhouettes of the emerging rocks, and the line that Rich repeated that on the highway they're "passing by but they just don't see how beautiful it is here". Smith struck a suitably pensive and contemplative pose on a rocky outcrop to consider it all, and then we hiked back down on the rocky and snowy path to our car.

We're in Gallup tonight, and then head south to Silver City via Arizona for a two-night stay at some cabins in Pinos Altos. They are predicting snow for this area tomorrow, so we'll see what the travel is like, and whether we'll actually leave any of the cold behind us.

Bird list

Here's the trip bird list--67 species as of 12/26. Species are listed phylogenetically, with brackets indicating where they were seen (only either TX or NM, since it's too hard to list each separate location). The list will be updated as we go on, with species in bold are those added since the list was first posted on 12/26.

Snow Goose (TX)
Canada Goose (TX, NM)
Cackling Goose (NM)
Mallard (TX, NM)
Green-winged Teal (TX)
American Wigeon (TX)
Lesser Scaup (TX)
Ring-necked Pheasant (TX)
Northern Bobwhite (NM)
Scaled Quail (NM)
Eared Grebe (TX)
Turkey Vulture (TX, NM)
Northern Harrier (TX, NM)
Golden Eagle (NM)
Bald Eagle (NM)
Red-tailed Hawk (TX, NM)
Harris' Hawk (NM)
Swainson's Hawk (TX)
Ferruginous Hawk (NM)
American Kestrel (TX, NM)
Ring-billed Gull (TX)
Rock Pigeon (TX, NM)
Mourning Dove (TX, NM)
Great Horned Owl (NM)
Burrowing Owl (TX)
Greater Roadrunner (NM)
Red-bellied Woodpecker (TX, NM)
Northern Flicker (TX, NM)
Lewis's Woodpecker (NM)
Acorn Woodpecker (NM)
Yellow-bellied Sapsucker (NM)
Downy Woodpecker (TX)
Hairy Woodpecker (NM)
Loggerhead Shrike (TX, NM)
Blue Jay (TX)
Steller's Jay (NM)
Western Scrub-Jay (NM)
Pinyon Jay (NM)
Black-billed Magpie (NM)
American Crow (TX, NM)
Chihuahuan Raven (NM)
Common Raven (NM)
Horned Lark (TX, NM)
Bridled Titmouse (NM)
Mountain Chickadee (NM)
Carolina Chickadee (TX)
Brown Creeper (NM)
White-breasted Nuthatch (NM)
Red-breasted Nuthatch (NM)
Pygmy Nuthatch (NM)
Rock Wren (NM)
Canyon Wren (NM)
American Dipper (NM)
Golden-crowned Kinglet (TX, NM)
Eastern Bluebird (TX)
Mountain Bluebird (NM)
Townsend's Solitaire (NM)
American Robin (TX, NM)
Northern Mockingbird (TX)
Curve-billed Thrasher (NM)
Crissal Thrasher (NM) A great bird!
European Starling (TX, NM)
Cedar Waxwing (TX, NM)
Yellow-rumped Warbler (TX)
Spotted Towhee (NM)
Canyon Towhee (NM)
Rufous-crowned Sparrow (NM)
Brewer's Sparrow (NM)
Black-throated Sparrow (NM)
Savannah Sparrow (TX)
Song Sparrow (TX)
Dark-eyed Junco (TX, NM)
Dark-eyed Junco "Gray headed" race (NM)
Meadowlark (TX, NM; unidentifiable as to Eastern or Western)
Red-winged Blackbird (TX, NM)
Common Grackle (TX)
Great-tailed Grackle (TX)
Brewer's Blackbird (NM)
Brown-headed Cowbird (TX, NM)
House Finch (NM)
Red Crossbill (NM) Amazing bird! Seen at Pinos Altos.
Pine Siskin (NM)
American Goldfinch (TX)
Evening Grosbeak (NM)
House Sparrow (TX, NM)

The "bird of the trip" so far was the Bald Eagle, seen 12/26 flying from right to left almost right in front of the car on the highway from Tres Piedras to Dulce. It just popped out from nowhere and we were able to see it really well.

OK--the Red Crossbill isn't as big as the Bald Eagle, but was definitely quite astonishing to see!

Music for the journey 12/26

For a day of thinking about surprises

Wondering Where the Lions Are/Bruce Cockburn

Surprises along the way

The trip today took us from the snowy mountains down to the surprisingly snowy desert. In itself the shift of climate wasn't unexpected, but we did have a few other surprises as we traveled--two good, and one not so good.

After about 3.5 hours of driving we ended up in Aztec, NM, and had planned to visit Aztec Ruins National Monument. Originally when we planned to visit Aztec we thought it would be just something to do on a heavy travel day, but we were surprised at how nice the site was to visit. The ruins date to between 1100-1300 AD during the peak of the Pueblo civilization in the American Southwest. Unlike Mesa Verde and other cliff-dwellings, these were built into the ground, with several large round kivas along with nearby home sites, and they have been preserved fairly well in spite of the climate. The name is somewhat of a mistake, as Alexander von Humboldt (among others) believed these civilizations to be an extension of the Aztec dwellings much further to the south. Although we had to take turns touring the ruins (Smith wasn't allowed), it was a great and surprising site.

The second (and not so good) surprise was the site where we were supposed to stay for tonight. I don't want to embarrass them by naming them here, but we should have known when the front entrance to the cabins was closed and there was a small envelope taped to the door with out name on it that the service wouldn't be good. Rich tried (in vain) to get into the cabin we'd rented, but couldn't unlock it, and a quick look inside indicated that if we weren't going to freeze to death overnight that we might be infested with any number of desert creatures. We quickly decided to re-tape the envelope to the front door and get out of there, and made for Farmington NM and picked a reasonably good hotel instead. It's not a cabin, but at least it's not going to kill us.

The final surprise was once we got here and decided on Farmington. The clerk at the front mentioned a river walk, and since Smith was restless from the long drive and lack of a hike at Aztec, we decided to take him. The Animas River park is about five miles long, with an associated nature center, but it was a fantastic and surprisingly nice end to the long day. The wildlife were abundant along the trail, and the plant life included at least three cottonwood species (one, the narrow-leaf cottonwood apparently more rare--Jim V. can you confirm?).

Tomorrow should hold fewer surprises, but we'll see what the road brings us.

Music for the journey 12/23-12/25

Although the video is a bit odd, this is a great song by Donald Fagen that I had in mind on each hike:

Snowbound/Donald Fagen

Three days off the grid

We're back after being a bit out of touch while in Tres Piedras, New Mexico. Just outside of Taos, the cabin rental we had through Taos Recreational Rentals (if you click on the link, we were in the solar house). The cabin itself was actually adobe, built partially into the ground to conserve warmth and with one full wall of windows facing to take maximum advantage of solar heating during the day. Except for the solar heat all we had was a small space heater for the bedroom, and a wood stove for the rest of the house. About 1 1/2 feet of snow had fallen prior to our arrival, so the property was completely snow-covered, and overland travel was only really possible with snowshoes. Wildlife was abundant, and I'll post a bird list later to report what I saw.

The site was really beautiful, and we took long hikes on the forest roads that had been plowed, but still had packed snow and ice. Smith had the most fun, with occasional bounds off the path and into snowdrifts to track smells or sounds of the wildlife that had taken shelter under the snow. He really took to the snow, and completely burned off any energy he had on the daily 5+ mile hikes, only to later wind up curled up in front of the fire after wolfing down dog food and any treats he might have gotten for Christmas. We're certain he was cold on the hikes, since his whiskers were sometimes iced over, but he was nonstop through the snow.

Christmas was beautiful and sparkling, and we either hiked, sat and read (Rich bought me the novels Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters, which are hilarious) or played with fun toys (I got Rich a remote controlled helicopter, which when it wasn't bumping into the walls or furniture was plummeting from the air and crashing). Even in the cabin we were able to have a good and hearty Christmas dinner of boeuf bourguinon and mashed potatoes, and enjoyed catching up on sleep and time together.

Music for the journey 12/22

I had this in mind while driving the volcano road. The song is actually about a roller coaster, but on the winding road it definitely felt appropriate!

Diablo Rojo/Rodrigo y Gabriela

Volcano road

Heading northward along 87 we made it into New Mexico, going through part of the Kiowa Grasslands. The grasslands themselves were completely different from what we'd driven through so far, with less scrub and a gentle blend of grama and other grasses into reds and golds. As the grasslands rose into higher elevations of northeastern New Mexico we began to see pronghorn along some of the rocky areas alongside the road.

In northeastern New Mexico the highway is built upon old lava flows that emerged relatively recently in geological time (80,00+ years ago). It is difficult to imagine as you are driving the fiery volcanic valley, and in the distance the eruptions of the volcanoes. Although many of the volcanoes themselves were only cinder cones, with only a single eruptive event in their history, they have certainly left their mark on the landscape. We traveled to Capulin Volcano National Monument to see one up close. There's a winding road around the volcano itself, ending at a parking lot at the top and beautiful 360 degree views of the grasslands. Unlike Arenal in Costa Rica, you can walk up to the edge of this now-extinct volcano and even hike down into the crater. We weren't lucky enough to have a photo like the one above (from the national monument website), although we did have spectacular views from the top of the volcanic valley and the other cinder cones surrounding Capulin.

Bird-wise this has been a great trip. Through the panhandle we encountered large numbers of
Red-tailed Hawks and American Kestrels perched or actively foraging along roadsides. Today it was easy to see Meadowlarks on fence posts, and Northern Harriers working the fields alongside the roads. At Capulin though the weather and wind were bitingly cold I did manage a few sparrows (Chipping and Savannah) as well as a Western Scrub Jay squawking alongside a Common Raven.

We spend the night in Raton, NM, where Smith nearly decided he wanted to live permanently (after getting loose and running away from the car while we were moving stuff into the room for the night--thankfully Rich and I chased him down with a bag of dog treats). We're preparing for possibly 1-3 inches of snow tonight, and an 80% chance of snow tomorrow. Although the drive might be a little treacherous, we'll certainly have a white Christmas!

Music for the journey 12/21

We'll also be posting the music for the journey, beginning with this one "Beautiful World" by Colin Hay. It was one of the songs going through my mind as we hiked:

Beautiful World/Colin Hay

Prairie, dogs and prairie dogs

This is my second attempt at a blog--the other is retired for various reasons etc. etc. But we'll start here.



I'm currently blogging from Canyon TX, on the big westward adventure of Rich, Marcy and Smith. I'd been asked by various people to let them know what we did, where we went, etc., and this is the easiest way to do it. We set off yesterday from Dallas with the idea of having our own Christmas adventure and hike the great places of the panhandle and much of New Mexico. We are guided by a recently-purchased Tom Tom GPS unit. The woman/automated voice giving us directions has acquired an identity of her own already, and we occasionally (secretly) enjoy not doing what she tells us to do, like unruly schoolchildren.

Today we visited Palo Duro Canyon, which is an unexpected canyon that sneaks up on you after driving through miles and miles of scrub/prairie. We did the six-mile round trip hike to the Lighthouse formation (above left) and encountered very few people. Thou gh the temperature was in the 30s (Fahrenheit) when we started, it quickly got warmer and we were hiking in shirtsleeves on the return. Smith did great, and is now sleeping soundly and resting his paws. Rich did a lot of picture-taking, and we hope to have more to share later. Above we have a couple--the nice picture above is borrowed from the Amarillo website. For comparison's sake, I've also added a picture of Rich climbing up the Lighthouse formation while I watched Smith, taken with my cellphone. It was easier not to climb with Smith, although it didn't in the end take Rich very long to get up there. Palo Duro is beautiful and serene, and while the hiking could be hard at times, it was a nice intro for us on our travels.

The only other news so far to report is that there is evidence of lots of prairie dog activity, which was unexpected, I suppose. In the city we've walked to a nearby park and had to tiptoe around the holes, and ultimately you have a hard time not punching through one into a burrow. There are loads behind our hotel as well, which makes for lots of fun for Smith when we walk him.

Tomorrow we head for Capulin Volcano and Raton, so we hope to send more as we go. If we occasionally have a lapse, it's because we don't have online access, but we promise to post something else soon.