Spring trip through the Southwest, 2013

The year before in October I took a motorcycle trip across the country with a lot of stops at Native American sites in the Southwest. That gave me a desire to see some more, so in late April,between tasks at work, I took off, this time in my Subaru Baja. I knew it was a little early in the year, so I decided to play it safe. I packed one of my folding bicycles, but ended up hardly using it. Initially, I pretty much took off straight for San Antonio, TX, with stops along the way at the usual Motel 6s, to pick up on the Mission Trail where I’d left off. There was one more mission I had missed, and I saw it this time. Not the most impressive one, but a good way to start, Mission Espada and San Juan:

http://ikemi.info/graphics5/SanAntonioMissions2013/index.html

The pictures of the aqueduct are actually at a physically separate site a short drive away.

In San Antonio I visited the Institute of Texan Cultures:

http://ikemi.info/graphics5/TexanCultures2013/index.html

This place was very interesting since there were sections dedicated to all of the ethnic groups who had lived in or come to Texas. Even a small section on the few Japanese Americans in farmed in the area!

From San Antonio I headed to Fredericksburg to see the Pioneer Museum:

http://ikemi.info/graphics5/PioneerMuseum2013/index.html

I’ve recently developed an interest of heritage museums that attempt to present life in earlier days.

I decided to rush of out Fredericksburg and head to Austin, which turned out to be a bad idea since I was rear ended there. My bumper was damaged, but otherwise I was able to continue with my trip. The next day I visited the LBJ Museum, which had an iPod app that made the tour a little more interesting.

http://ikemi.info/graphics5/LBJ2013/index.html

From there I went for a walk in the Zilker Gardens:

http://ikemi.info/graphics5/Zilker2013/index.html

From Austen it was over to Dallas where I visited the Museum of Art:

http://ikemi.info/graphics5/DMA2013/index.html

and the Dallas Arboretum:

http://ikemi.info/graphics5/DallasArboretum2013/index.html

Not as much fun as the one in Fort Worth, but still worth the visit.

It was time to head back west at this point so it was over to Fort Worth for the small but execllent Wendell Museum:

http://ikemi.info/graphics5/Wendell2013/index.html

I’ll have to visit the stockyards in yet another trip. Next was a small misstep when I went to Carlsbad Caverns and got there 10 minutes too late to go on the tour I wanted. As a consolation, I walked down into the caverns on the regular path and took the elevator up, the opposite of my October trip.

I decided it wasn’t worth waiting another day; I’ll come back again. someday. It was out across the open lands eventually to the New Mexico Museum of Space History, out in the middle of nowhere (actually near Alamogordo):

http://www.nmspacemuseum.org/

Among other things, I learned that it’s not fun to burp in space.

My photos at:

http://ikemi.info/graphics5/NMSpaceMuseum2013/index.html

This place is worth a visit if you’re in the area, speaking as someone who’s been in the business. They even have part of one of those rocket tracks. From there it was over to Roswell and the McDonalds shaped like a flying saucer and little green men at the Motel 6.

I stopped off at White Sands and drove the car around out to the end of the car trail. Didn’t feel like walking to the top of a sand dune since there were people on top sitting in lawn chairs. There was also some kind of fashion shoot going on by the side of the road.. There’s also a boardwalk nature walk you can take.

http://ikemi.info/graphics5/WhiteSands2013/index.html

It was too late to stop at the museum for the test range and you can only visit the atomic bomb site on one day of the year, the first Saturday in April:

http://www.wsmr.army.mil/PAO/Trinity/Pages/default.aspx

I stayed that night in Las Cruces, paying a return visit to the High Plains Brewing Company, which I think is the only brewery in town, and for a ways around.

The next destination was the Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument, kind of near Silver City, New Mexico:

http://www.nps.gov/gicl/index.htm

The drive up is on mountain roads, and I took the easier of the two possible routes on Highway 35. Gila Cliff is small but worth the trip because you can walk right through the structures. Apparently it was built by a splinter group of a few families who came from some other people, already equipped with the skills for building cliff dwellings. The guide said they only lived there for a couple of generations. Definitely an impressive setting, and there’s also backpacking into the surrounding wilderness.

http://ikemi.info/graphics5/GilaCliff2013/index.html

I finally got to do some car camping in a nice campground on the way down near a lake. First time I saw wild pigs in my life when they wandered into the campground. Also took a walk part way around the lake.

My next goal was to finish the tour I’d started of Petrified Forest that I’d started in October. This time I entered from the southern entrance and headed north.

http://www.nps.gov/pefo/index.htm

My photos at:

http://ikemi.info/graphics5/PetrifiedForest2013/index.html

From there it was on to Canyon de Chelly. I got there in the evening and drove in to the campground, which was pretty nice, but no showers again. Checked out the cafeteria that was part of the resort, but I decided to have another meal of 10 year old imitation MREs. The next day i checked out the visitors’ center and drove out to both sides of the canyon. Except for one place, you need guides to go down into the still inhabited canyon. This is a place where my Zeiss binoculars really came in handy. You really can’t see the ruins of the Native American dwellings with the naked eye, but you can see them with binoculars. My Celestron telescope would have been even better if I’d taken it along. In one place you can take a worthwhile hike down into the Canyon to see one set of ruins. Even then, it’s fenced off and you can’t get close, but you can understand why. The ruins were covered with graffiti. I guess we don’t deserve to get any closer. On the way out I stopped to buy some Gatorade from some local women who were selling mainly jewelry. I talked with them a little bit and headed back up. Driving away, I also stopped at the historical Hubbell Trading Post:

http://ikemi.info/graphics5/CanyonDeChelly2013/index.html

My last stops on the way home were at Native American sites in Phoenix. The first was long detour to Canal Park, where you can see the last vestiges of a once vast irrigation system. As you can see from the pictures, the canals themselves were not small. It just looks like a regular city park unless you start reading the signs.

From there it was on to Pueblo Grande where there are the remains of a once large mound, sort of the like the ones in the Midwest. Pretty neat for something in the middle of a big City

http://phoenix.gov/recreation/arts/museums/pueblo/index.html

My photos at:

http://ikemi.info/graphics5/Phoenix2013/index.html

And from there it was back home. Still more Native American sites to explore!