May 1999

Charles Kuralt complains in his book, America, New Mexico is badly named. "It should be called Precambria for the sea that crashed upon its shores for tens of millions of years; or Mastodonia, for the mammals that later roamed its plains. . .; or Sandia, for the mountain where the camp of an Ice Age hunter, the earliest known American, found in a cave. . . New Mexico is old, stupendously old and dry and brown, and wind-worn by the ages." Although Kuralt spent his time in the northern portions of the state, his statement is applies to all we have seen thus far.

On the first day of this year's adventures, we saw evidence of the Southwest's drought. Last year at this time, the wildflowers were glorious. The road and hillsides were covered with patches of yellow, orange, red, and purple blossoms. This year the colors are dull browns and greens. Even prickle pears, fat and covers with pale yellow and coral blossoms last year, have a shrunken, starved appearance. But that was in the southern portion of the state. For the past week or so, we have "enjoyed" afternoon rainstorms. The drought up here has been broken. We can't call the storms "showers" (although the weatherman does) they are far too great an event. Great, huge, towering clouds open up, lightning starts flashing, big, fat rain drops fall with a splate against the ground, and the arroyos run thick with mud. Pretty amazing.

Our first National Forest for this season was the Lincoln, home of Smokey Bear, Bill the Kid, the bloodiest range wars in the U.S.of A, and winter. It may have been May in most of the country but this part of New Mexico felt like mid-March. Up around 9,000 ft, with a wind blowing hard all the time, it felt darn nippy most of the day and right chilly at night.

Fred likes to "check the local color" with a visit to a local bar. In the town of Cloudcroft, we visited the Western Bar and Caf‚. There we met Butch, a transplant from Virginia Beach, and Jay, a transplant from Austin, Texas. Both came to the area for work in the building boom the area is experiencing and both admit winters can be long. With little or no building done in the winter and a normal snowfall of 48 or more inches each year, unemployment and cabin fever produce drinking problems. Although we found both men interesting, it was the ceiling that held Suzi's interest - it was covered with scribbling of it's patrons. The stories found scribed in chalk above!

While at Lincoln, we had a chance to visit the White Sands National Monument (recommend visiting only on overcast days to prevent blindness - it is that white) and a petroglyph site named Three Rivers. White Sands is a 250 square mile area of gypsum sand dunes. Waves after waves of pristine dunes have been produced over millions of years by the wind and rain's effects on the ancient landlock Lake Otero. On the enormous dry lake bottom, the late summer rains leaches gypsum from the lake bed, during the winter the sun dries out the bed, and Spring brings15 mph or higher winds to pick up the tiny gypsum crystals and carry them to the Monument. Amazing!

In contrast, the Three Rivers Petroglyph site is in a jumble of ancient lava rocks etched by the hunter/farming culture. There are some 20,000 images scattered among the ancient rocks. Some are easy to read (snakes, birds, men). Others are not easily understood. It is thought, because the site is a raised knoll, hunters etched images on the rocks while on lookout for game or enemies. Whatever the reason, the petroglyphs are beautiful in their simplicity.

It was while in the Lincoln we experience for the first time the combined effects of a dry winter and high Spring time winds - dangerous forest fires. Two fires in the Lincoln were started by careless humans. Since than we have heard of almost two dozen fires within the boundaries of the Forests we have visited. But those were the by-product of lighting strikes.

After the Lincoln, we traveled to the Gila (pronounced Heel-ah) National Forest and Silver City, New Mexico. Silver City is something like New Mexico's version of Bisbee. (In our opinion, a very poor copy.) Like the Lincoln, the Gila National Forest offers an interesting contrast to the cactus dotted lowlands that surround it. The towering peaks that reach skyward wear capes of magnificent, green Ponderosa pine over their shoulders while below heat waves shimmer the barren brown flatlands. The Gila features two Wilderness areas (the oldest in the country). Tucked in between them is the Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument. Something of a miniature version of Mesa Verde's cliff dwellings, Gila's are such fun to explore. To think people lived in these structures. Here they were born, grew-up, got married, had children, argued, loved, dead, and did all the same things we do today. And they did it all some 800-years ago.

From the southern portion of the Gila we traveled it's northern section. Here we found lakes, all man-made. We also saw what the area must have looked like fifty or more years ago. Scattered along US Highway 60 are tiny, weather beaten clusters of buildings surrounded by junk cars and grazing livestock. Often their names, Quemado, Magdalena, Amigo, Abo, are bigger than the village. And far more impressive.

These sad but determined villages lead us to our last National Forest this month; Cibola National Forest. Our work in this Forest gave us the opportunity to visit Albuquerque. We spent a couple of hours wandering around the Old Town area and enjoyed a pleasant lunch at a restaurant right on the Plaza (or Town Square). But Albuquerque is so huge. It spreads across the Rio Grande valley for miles in all direction. At least a quarter of New Mexico's population live in or around Albuquerque! Once again we experienced the culture shock of the hurry up life of a big city.

We have returned to the quiet, slower pace of country life in a formerly uranium mining town called Grants. We started this month in the towering peaks of the Sacramento Mountains outside of Las Cruses and end the month surrounded by ancient cliffs that tell stories of ancient oceans, volcano eruptions, uplifting, receding seas, wandering mastadons and camels, and people that have lived in the area for some 8,000 years. Wonder what stories we will learn in June while working on the Santa Fe and Carson National Forests here in New Mexico. Keep ya posted.

Suzi and Fred