Month: January 2010

We left Silver City and figured we could drive for two hours before looking for a place to sleep. We were up pretty high and drove through the mountains. Eventually we ended up on a high plateau with beautiful ranches. A family of deer crossed the road in front of us. Ghis wanted to stop at a house and ask if we could ride horses. But we also wanted to get closer to Phoenix.

It was cold, too, and there was a bit of snow around and I hoped we’d make it somewhere warmer for the night. We entered a forest and crossed the state line from New Mexico to Arizona.

Then we turned a corner and found ourselves on an amazing lookout. It freaked me out to be suddenly so high up!

We drove down and down some more as the sun set over the mountains. We saw almost nobody on the road.

Then we saw lights and eventually met up with a larger highway and came to a larger town. We headed to the Wal Mart, but kept our eyes open for a good place to eat. We didn’t see anything that looked good. The only places that looked okay were Mexican restaurants, so we had Mexican food for the second time that day. Now we have had enough to last awhile!

The Wal Mart was nice and quiet and in the morning we set off for Phoenix. We drove through some more mountains and some flat parts and past many mines and then we saw our first super-cool cactus! Ghis saw them first. We almost didn’t believe him, but then we passed a mountainside covered with them – you know the cacti that are tall and look like they have arms? It made us laugh every time we saw some. Almost like we didn’t really believe they existed until now.

After sleeping at the Wal Mart in Las Cruces, we drove west to Deming. We stopped to get the van washed and Ghis asked the women working there if we should go down near the Mexican border. They said yes, if you want to see dead bodies or get shot at. We said that wasn’t quite the adventure we were looking for, so they recommended The City of Rock to the north of us.

When we arrived, it didn’t look like much, but up close it turned out to be a quiet place to have lunch. Afterwards Morgane and I adventured all around through the rocks – over, under, through. Ghis climbed up a big rock and had some trouble getting back down. I think he was trying to model for Morgane what not to do and why. I helped by guiding him so he could find some footholds on the way down.

After that we drove to Silver City and walked down the main street. Lots of cool shops. Many were closed including a thrift store that looked really neat.

We drove into New Mexico and stopped at the visitor centre and saw some roadrunners. I tried to take photos but they do run fast.

We drove into Las Cruces and ate lunch. Ghis had fresh pecans in his salad which made us realize that the orchards we’d passed coming into town must have been pecans.

Then we drove towards White Sands National Monument. As we drove through a huge valley, we understood why the area was chosen to test missiles.

Then we passed through a border patrol check station. He asked if we were all Americans. We said Canadians which was fine with him.

We arrived at the park’s visitor centre and watched a short video. Then, with only two hours before the gates closed, we set out on the eight mile drive through the dunes.

I couldn’t wait to get out and take a million pictures, but we drove all the way to the end. Some parts had desert plants while other parts were only sand.

We parked and started walking up and down, over the dunes. Carmanah surprised us by running. She ran like we haven’t seen her run in years! Later on while we were stopped, she ate mouthfuls of sand as if convinced it was snow. You’d think she’d have stopped after one mouthful, but no.

It did look like snow and even driving along the road felt like driving in the snow. The difference was that it wasn’t slippery at all.

Morgane slid on her jacket down the steep dunes and then would run, screaming, back up to do it again.

I felt like we were there for ages, but as the sun dipped behind the mountains and we arrived back at the van, I realized we had only been there for one hour. One great hour.

The road started climbing and soon we were all the way up at the observatory. There was even a tiny bit of snow in places. We loved the view.

Morgane and Ghis took a tour of the giant telescopes – “Great refractors,” Morgane told us. She’s learned SO much by watching Fetch on PBS. I download episodes onto my iphone and she watches while we drive. She also knows the electromagnetic spectrum from gamma rays to ultraviolet light.

We drove on to Van Horn and since we didn’t find a hotel we liked, we continued on to El Paso. Today: on to New Mexico!

Fort Davis was a short, stunning drive from Martha. We wanted to go horseback riding, so we visited the Prude Ranch. Unfortunately their stables are closed on Sundays and Mondays, but the lady still gave Morgane a couple of apples and let her feed the horses. She liked petting the horses and they seemed to like her as well. Maybe because she smelled like apples?

Since we have a national park pass, we decided to visit Fort Davis. It was well worth it! Morgane got to do the junior ranger program and she got a gold badge.

Ghis finally got to climb to the top of the mountain and see the view – he’s been frustrated that all of the land in Texas seems to be private and fenced.

News Flash:

Morgane and I are taking the plane this Thursday from Phoenix, Arizona to Vancouver, BC to visit my mom and stepdad and friends and celebrate my birthday on the 13th. Then we’ll fly back to meet up with Ghis in time for Busses By The Bridge – a HUGE gathering of VW van owners at a campground – in other words, a HUGE party!

Marfa was our main reason for coming to the area, so I was a little disappointed that it wasn’t as close to the mountains as Alpine and Marathon. But soon we learned that it’s the people and the culture that make Marfa special. That and the mysterious ghost lights sometimes seen on the horizon.

We walked around and visited some beautiful galleries and saw art and photographs. There are many beautiful buildings in Marfa – even the bookstore has a modern minimalist kind of feel.

We stopped in one little shop and found lovely sheets of coloured felt made from recycled pop bottles. Morgane bought some to make more clothes for her stuffed animal friends. We talked with the owner and found out that she and her husband travelled all around in a van, too, and that they ended up staying in Marfa.

We drove around to look at a few more things including a house that someone had told Ghis about. It looked like a box piled on top of another box and Ghis wondered if it had been made out of shipping containers (something he is interested in). We stopped and he went to talk to the owner. That’s how we met Candid who lives there when he is working as an architect in San Antonio or teaching in Barcelona, Spain. He let us tour the house and take pictures.

The house has windows that are like slits, like when you wake up and your eyes are barely open. But because these slits are at just the right height, you see everything when you are seated on the sofa or sitting at the desk.

We hung out and had a drink with these friendly folks and then left, promising to see them again at a free show in town that night. A musician (who has played with Beck) was going to be providing a live musical soundtrack for a silent movie from 1928. We decided it would be worth keeping Morgane up for.

One last stop – we checked out the bar owned by friends of the other VW travelling family – The Bodeswells.

We cooked in the van outside the public library (internet!) and then went to the show. It was held at the Ballroom, a beautiful venue. We were treated to an opening act which was a cowboy reading poetry. This was the best part of the show for Ghis and me. Morgane wasn’t so sure. Then the movie started. The Wind was about a woman moving to Texas from Virginia and how the wind was always blowing. Supposedly it would drive her crazy.

We didn’t stay to find out. After maybe thirty minutes, the music started to give us a headache, so we left and went to bed.

We stopped to sleep in Alpine, partly because we needed propane for the van and they couldn’t fill it until the morning. I was happy to visit Front Street Books, the local independent bookstore – they have a branch in Marathon, too, but were closed on New Year’s Day.

We asked the bookstore staff where the best place to eat Texas BBQ was and ended up on the other side of the tracks (literally, not figuratively). The amtrak train brings people from San Antonio.

Morgane is reading menus and ordering on her own now. She ordered a burger. Ghis and I consulted with our waitress and decided to split a plate with pulled pork, sliced brisket and jalapeno sausages.

The waitress brought us gigantic mugs of pink lemonade and she was quick to refill them. The place filled up with people in cowboy hats while we waited. When the food came, we ate all we could and then still had some to bring to Carmanah in the van. We didn’t feel too hot, so maybe Texas BBQ is not our thing.

We got in the van and headed to Marfa.

We didn’t see many towns as we drove through the hills. Then out of the blue we arrived in Marathon. Marathon is the first of three towns – Marathon, Alpine and Marfa.

We stopped and had the best hot dogs ever and a good milkshake at a little diner. People were very friendly and they fell in love with Carmanah. I walked down the street and found a little French grocery with lots of organic produce and other stuff we like to eat – a definite sign of tourism.

We could have stayed longer, but wanted to get to Alpine to fill up the van with propane – we need it to heat the van at night.

On the way out of town, we saw a pack of wild boars by the side of the road. There are three million feral pigs in Texas and they are not friendly. They were a ways back, so I stopped to take a picture. The pigs were already running in the opposite direction, but Ghis came out holding a big stick just in case. My hero!

We said goodbye to the deer and the caverns and drove along a backroad where we passed a lot of ranches and saw some donkeys and horses alongside the road. We even saw an armadillo!

I felt like my camera couldn’t begin to capture how big the landscape is.

A few times we got out of the van to look around. I got really prickly little things on my shoes that hurt my fingers.