The Land of Entrapment - New Mexico

After leaving Colorado to head south, hopefully toward warmer climates, we made our first stop outside of Los Alamos in the town of White Rock. Why, you ask? Well, here's the list: 1) we wanted to see Bandelier NM, 2) we wanted electricity because temps were forecasted to be down in the teens, which while warmer than the single digits, don't exactly scream "southern state temperatures" to us. Anyway, the town of White Rock has a very pleasant visitor center that also had an associated parking area complete with electric hookups for RVs at a very reasonable rate. We were there.

Inside Fuller Lodge (was part of boys school and then community center for the Lab)

We explored the town of Los Alamos on a cold, blustery day, figuring we'd save the hiking for the following day, when the temps were going to spoil us by reaching into the 40s. Yea gawds, we should've thought about the post-California part of the YOFO for more than the seventeen minutes we've so far allotted. Los Alamos has some really cool history - spoiler: we forced the Japanese surrender in WWII because of tech/scientific/engineering work there. The Manhattan Project National Historic Site and the local Historical Society do a very nice job telling the history and preserving the location(s). The Lab itself has a good museum that tells the ongoing story of nuclear science and its modern applications, with some emphasis on the science of making sure that existing nuclear stockpiles don't age themselves into unusability (or worse, go boom in the night).

“I just won a scuffle, can we nose boop, please?”

Bandelier and Valles Caldera did not disappoint. The large volcanic eruption-caused valley was impressive and the human history in Frijoles Canyon was fun to explore. As an added side benefit, we got to watch a couple of male mule deer lock antlers and spar, presumably over the nearby female deer who nonchalantly observed the rack-ruckus. A third male, a little spike buck who had been hanging around the area basically unassed the location and left the sparring (and the doe) to the big boys (each 8 points or better), while the female deer continued to look unimpressed while grazing leaves. Pretty sure that there's a metaphor there, but we'll leave that unstated.

Still working our way south, next stop was Santa Fe (go south, get warmer, right? right??). We discovered that Santa Fe has a cool Margarita Trail program, so we watched the Army-Navy game from one of the Trail restaurants while consuming the first of the margaritas. Win-win - and not only since Army won!

SNta Fe proved to be a pretty cool place. We ate out more in this town than in any place in the last six months, and honestly were not disappointed with any place we stopped. The chile-based dishes and salsas were outstanding, the margaritas delivered their punch tastily, and there was beer. Also, if you haven't had posole, head to the southwest and get some. The plaza (Santa Fe’s old town square) was a fun place to people watch and just wander and see Navajo jewelry and handmade items by certified artists. Santa Fe is one of those somewhat rare cities we would revisit.

A rare “civilization” photo in the Santa Fe Plaza.

In between margarita sampling, we checked out nearby Kashe-Katuwe Tent Rocks National Monument. Again, we continue to see places where the geography is just unique and crazy and special. The hike through the canyon up to the lookout was fun, scenic and thoroughly enjoyable.

From Santa Fe, we continued our sun seeking ways by heading further south to Albuquerque. As Bugs Bunny fans, we definitely made some "left turn to Albuquerque" jokes and laughed every time our navigational program mispronounced the town's name (al-BUKKer-key). We did a few hikes up in the Sandia Mountains (and learned that Sandia means watermelon! So-named because the mountains' granite turns pink at sunset). We have seen some odd stuff on our wanderings, and ran into a weird one here - a return trail took us back down via a Forest Service road for a bit. We usually look to cut the switchbacks (Road switchbacks! It’s a no-no on trails) and were getting our bearings when we saw a deer carcass off to the side of the road. No big deal, and we didn't get any antlers for the hood of the YOFOtruck (would've/should've done that with the one Dawn hit...). About another 50ish yards down the road and around a curve, we saw some tire tracks that clearly looked like a vehicle had lost control. Sure enough, when we peered over a steep embankment (not really visible from the road) we saw a car at the bottom that had evidently hit the deer and then crashed into the tree line. We scrambled down to check it out - thankfully there was no one inside, no visible blood, and the air bag had (surprisingly) not deployed. Definitely not in the list of things you expect to see while out hiking. We were relieved we did not need to use our first aid training (or report something worse).

Note the pinkish (sandia: watermelon) colored rock of the Sandia Mountains. — Note the pinkish (*sandia:* watermelon) colored rock of the Sandia Mountains.

Our leisurely pace continued as we wandered our way down to the Alamagordo/White Sands area, where they tested the world’s first nuke at the Trinity Test site. Pretty crazy that although it was about 200 miles south of Los Alamos, the explosion's flash was visible from atop Pajarito Plateau back at the lab. We definitely were driving through desert terrain again, this time in the Tularosa Basin between mountain ranges.

Hiking across the gypsum dunes at White Sands.

You can’t see the jets playing over head, but you could hear them.

We have been having luck with Air Force FamCamps - they are cheap, well located, safe, and with the nights in the 20s and lower...they have electric hookups (which allows us to run a space heater to supplement (or supplant) our propane heat. We discovered Holloman Air Force Base sits just a few miles South of Alamogordo, and a few miles north of White Sands National Monument, so we set up camp there for a while as we restocked, explored White Sands, and went to the International Space Museum (yes, in NM). We also snuck in 9 holes of golf, which was extra fun with jets roaring overhead on takeoff. If you’re in the area, check out the Dog Canyon hike starting from Oliver Lee State Park; the views are worth the steep ups regardless of how far up the trail you go.

Our last stop in New Mexico was at Elephant Butte State Park. On the way there we stopped for lunch in Hatch, the chile pepper capital of the US. We can confirm that the chiles are tasty and regret that we had but one colon each to give in their consumption. We’ll roll out of here heading for even warmer places in Arizona (well, we think they’ll be warmer), but we already plan to return to New Mexico to check out more sites.

We got buzzed on the Holloman golf course. Almost took it out with a lob wedge.