Fall Trip Part 4 - Southern New Mexico - Fav Photos 2014

Fall Trip Part 4 - Southern New Mexico

This album contains the fourth and final part of the fall road trip adventure, of my five member family group
of Iplehouse dolls; JIDs Owen and Leona, KID Peach, and BIDs Efreet and Bonnie

The Valley of Fire

After leaving Albuquerque, we were passing through the Valley of Fire in southern New Mexico - a desolate stretch of cracked black lava dotted with cacti and yucca - and at a roadside stop we unpacked the horse we'd purchased the day before....

Leona and Peach were very pleased with the Morgan horse....

White Sands National Monument

We had just arrived in one of my very favourite places in New Mexico, when Bonnie and Efreet looking out the windows,
exclaimed "Snow!". So they quickly put on their sweaters, hats, mitts and scarves, and grabbed the sled....

They had a great time sledding down the hills....

Bonnie even made an 'angel'....

Meanwhile, Leona and Owen had laid out a picnic on the dunes....

Efreet and Bonnie were getting rather warm, so were heading back to find the rest of the family....

Owen and Leona turned to see them coming, and were rather shocked....

"What are you silly children doing dressed up like it's the dead of winter?
These hills aren't covered with snow! Those are dunes of white sand! It's desert, and it's hot!"

"Take off all that stuff immediately, before you get heat-stroke! And then come and cool off." They didn't need to be told twice.

Leona offered Efreet a big slice of juicy watermelon.......and Bonnie helped herself to the box of popsicles in the cooler...

Bonnie and Efreet soon felt a lot better. They had been confused, and didn't understand why they had been so warm.
But now they understood. It was white sand, and not snow.

We spent the night in Alamogordo, and early next morning we were back in White Sands.....

My little family decided to take a hike across the dunes....

Later that day, Leona and Owen were taking a nice relaxing break atop a dune,
with drinks and donuts, while the kids were having fun elsewhere.....

Jan decided to join them - which made for a fun picture. But who is out of scale in whose world?

We left White Sands and headed west, with the intention of heading into the mountains and taking the very first hair-raising drive to Puye Cliff Dwellings that we took on our very first trip here to the southwest almost 20 years ago, and see if it was really as scary as we remembered. But the road was closed - probably washed out from all the major storms the past two days - so we had to spend hours doubling back. One bonus - the sunset over the desert was amazing that evening....

the Very Large Array

The Very Large Array is a radio astronomy observatory located on the Plains of San Augustin, west of
Socorro, New Mexico. I've always wanted to see it, and this time we made the effort to go...

The observatory consists of 27 independent antennae, each of which has a dish diameter of 25 meters (82 feet). They can be moved to prepared locations along a 'Y' shaped track that extends 21 km (13 miles) in each direction. With a maximum baseline of 36 km (22 mi): in essence, the array acts as a single antenna with that diameter.

The morning we went to visit, they were in a close configuration....and they were all turning simultaneously
to point at some new far off spot in the universe....

We took the free, self-guiding tour.....

Efreet, who is interested in all things scientific, was very impressed....

Roswell

On our way to our final trip destination, we passed through Roswell, the famous site of the 'Roswell UFO Incident' of the summer of 1947 and the following 'Cover Up Conspiracy' theory. Roswell residents and businesses have fully embraced their town's infamous notoriety, and little (and not so little) green men can be seen everywhere throughout town......like here at Walmart...

At first the kids thought it was all in good fun, and enjoyed looking for the green aliens, and being photographed with them.....

But by the time lunch rolled around, they'd become much more paranoid. We were going to treat them to lunch
at McDonalds, but the Playland was in the shape of a flying saucer, and they refused to go in. So we got 'Take Out'
and found a park with an 'Air Force fighter jet'.

They made themselves some aluminum foil hats, and climbed onboard the 'jet' with their lunch.
They figured they'd be safe there.....

Carlsbad Caverns

Our final destination was Carlsbad Caverns, a subterranean wonder on the edge of the Guadalupe Mountains in the very southern tip of New Mexico. The cave was discovered by a cowboy, Jim White, almost 100 years ago. He thought he saw smoke in the distance, and when he went to investigate, it turned out to be millions of bats leaving the mouth of a giant cave. At first no one would believe the caves were everything White said they were, but after showing photos to Congress, in 1930 it was proclaimed a National Monument, and became one of the most famous caves in the world. In 1995 it was designated a World Heritage site.

Carlsbad Cavern Natural Entrance

What surprised me most the very first time we visited, was that the cave entrance is in the top of the mountains,
so one has to drive seven miles up a winding mountain road to reach it.

The trail switchbacks down into the mouth of the cave

The most spectacular way to see the caves, is to descend through the Natural Entrance trail down to the main cave complex,
then take one or more of the mile long tours down below. It's a steep mile long trail, descending 800' down into the earth. So After Jan returned from taking the Natural Entrance Tour, we both went down the easy way - by elevator - to the caves far below....

It's hard to tell scale from the photos, but the cave formations are gigantic. People are kept well back so as not to touch the formations, which are very dimly lit. The photos are misleading, since they were taken by flash. Personally I'd have liked a bit more light to more fully appreciate the rock formations, but the Park service wants to keep it as "natural" an experience as possible, so lighting is kept to a bare minimum, with hand railings on both sides of the winding trail to help guide people through the caves. Children must stay within arms reach of their parents at all times

*Note: Efreet and Bonnie only got to explore the displays in the Visitor Center, which is where I photographed them - we did not take them down into the cave. Which proved to have been a smart move. The cave was so dimly lit, that photography was a huge challenge, and it would have been impossible with dolls. But Efreet and Bonnie did enjoy what they got to see in the Visitor Center.

Well, this is finally the end of my doll's adventures on our Fall Trip. I can't believe how many photos of them I took. It's probably because of my decision to take a group of contemporary dolls along - after all, they can be photographed almost anywhere. I'll have to do that again. Anyway, we visited many fabulous places, and experienced some spectacular wilderness scenery.

I was touched by a quote on the cover of the Carlsbad Caverns Visitor Guide.....

Forever Wild... "If future generations are to remember us with gratitude rather than contempt, we must leave them something more than the miracles of technology. We must leave them a glimpse of the world
as it was in the beginning, not just after we got through with it." - President Lyndon B. Johnson

the Welcome Home!

After being away for three weeks, everyone was happy to be home, and to be welcomed back by their friends who could not come....