Sunday, February 04, 2024

Las Vegas at night

The Plaza Hotel at sunrise

Driving the full way from Las Cruces to the Springs would have been brutal. We decided on one last stop less than four hours from home, but with enough character to merit a stop. 

There were a number of crossroads with a few old hotels and a bar or restaurant, but many stretches with no lodging anywhere. 

Fortunately, Las Vegas checked all the boxes. I don't mean the Las Vegas everyone knows, but the historic one in northeastern New Mexico. Their shared name, which translates from Spanish as “the meadows,” feels much more applicable to the New Mexico city. New Mexico’s Las Vegas lies along the high plains, 100 miles south of Raton, and just east of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. 

Much of the land to Vegas’ west is protected as the Pecos Wilderness, including the headwaters of the Pecos River and Truchas Peak, New Mexico’s second-highest mountain. 

Las Vegas is a city many have seen but few have heard of. The city has more than a century of movie-making experience, starting with Tom Mix westerns in the 1910s. 

In Easy Rider, the parade scene took place in Las Vegas (Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper end up arrested for crashing the parade). 

When U.S. enemies invaded Colorado in the original Red Dawn, Las Vegas became Calumet, “Where the Great Plains Meet the Might Rockies” and where our teenage heroes faced off with the invaders. Most of the buildings used in filming were Vegas originals, and still stand, with the Calumet cowgirl mural still visible. 

 In the TV series Longmire, Vegas plays Absaroka, Wyoming, even if the town plaza is unmistakably New Mexican. New Mexico’s long-running film credit makes it a common stand-in for the rest of the West, with the town’s proximity to the High Plains playing Kansas in Kevin Costner’s Wyatt Earp

These days Vegas might be best known for No Country for Old Men, as it played a major filming site. Rewatching the movie after I returned, I was shocked at how much of Las Vegas appeared in the movie. The city stood in for Texas border towns Eagle Pass and Laredo, with a highway bridge dressed up to look like a U.S.-Mexico border crossing. 

The motor courts on the east edge of town and the historic Plaza Hotel played prominent roles. Dating to 1881, the Plaza Hotel holds reams of history, not just movies. The hotel hosted the first reunion of Theodore Roosevelt’s Rough Riders in 1901, and Roosevelt announced his run for reelection in 1904 from Vegas. The Plaza doubled its size when its owner bought a defunct department store adjacent to it on the Las Vegas Plaza. 

The hotel was our main reason for stopping here. The historic hotel is still priced reasonably, has a café, a nice bar in the fine-dining restaurant, a coffee bar, and a lobby selling local wares. When you walk in, there stands a staircase where Javier Bardem’s hitman confronts Woody Harrelson’s bounty hunter. Many of the rooms have signs explaining who stayed there during which production, including President Roosevelt, the Coen Brothers, Patrick Swayze, James Woods, and dozens more.  

The rooms were spacious and somewhat spartan (with a 21st century bathroom), but I am not complaining. Historic hotels should emulate their prime era, and the Plaza certainly does. When the Topeka, Atchison and Santa Fe Railroad arrived in 1879, Las Vegas took off and the demand for hotels soared. 

After a dinner in the café, we wandered the plaza and the main streets that were mostly deserted on a Sunday evening. A handful of bars and restaurants stayed open. Outside downtown sat Las Vegas’ Carnegie library, the only Carnegie built in New Mexico, and New Mexico Highlands University, a modern-looking university that dates back to 1891. 




We passed the now-closed Western Wear store where Josh Brolin wandered in wearing just a hospital gown and cowboy boots. A slow current drove the Gallinas River, separating the two towns that later merged into Las Vegas. The river broadens on the south end of town; it will join the Pecos River further downstream. 

The plaza was well-lit but empty, just a few carryout customers from the pizza place and people ending Sunday dinner at the Plaza Hotel. A few skittish cats sprinted across the plaza. 

In the sunrise, the pavilion was the domain of pigeons. We came back after a hearty breakfast at Charlie's S'pic & Span (amazing tortillas made onsite), the plaza needed a last look. The hotel’s façade glowed in the chilly but clear morning. A few people walked dogs but it stayed quiet aside from the pigeons. 

 At one end of the plaza stands a plaque attached several pieces of petrified wood. On it is the declaration that Brigadier Gen. Stephen Kearny gave at the Las Vegas Plaza in 1846 at the start of the Mexican-American War, telling the town residents they are now part of the U.S. 

I’ll take the little, historic Las Vegas over the eyesore in the desert any day. Hopefully I’ll take in the little town on the high plains against before too much time slips away.



Tortillas on the line


Saturday, February 03, 2024

Southern highlands

The mountain ranges of south-central New Mexico run deep with history, from ancestral Native grounds to legendary outlaws to heroes of fire prevention. 

The Sacramento Mountains form the craggy eastern border of the Tularosa Basin, then rise even higher to the unseen Sierra Blanca. Always associated with the Trinty Site where the first atomic bomb was test, Alamogordo (fat cottonwood in Spanish) is the metropolis of the region, although still a quintessential western town built along a single federal route. 

At the much-smaller town of Tularosa, one must decide with the calmer route to Carrizozo along the edge of the mountains or one which ventured into historic realms of southern New Mexico. The route was never in doubt. From Tularosa the elevation gains sharply, although like much of New Mexico, the roads are four lanes and forgiving. 

Snow and clouds walled off Sierra Blanca, the highest peak in the region. At nearly 12,000 feet above sea level, Sierra Blanca is the southernmost alpine mountain in the U.S. Even with its upper heights obscured, the mountain’s massive base seemed to overshadow the whole region. 

Much of this quiet wilderness lies within the Mescalero Apache Reservation. The Mescalero invited other Apache peoples to join their reservation, so multiple bands live on its 463,000 acres. Much of Sierra Blanca lies within the reservation, and hiking the peak requires a permit from the Mescalero. 

The scenic beauty of the reservation lands and neighboring Lincoln National Forest have turned the reservation into a destination for hiking and skiing – Ski Apache Resort is the southernmost resort of its kind in North America. The rain that fell on the reservation fell as snow a few thousand feet higher. 

Past the Mescalero, Billy the Kid begins to take over. A man known only from one grainy photo but central to endless movies and stories moved into legend in these mountains. The tale of Billy the Kid feels overblown. William H. Bonney became embroiled as a gunslinger during the Lincoln County War, a range war between cattle barons. 

We passed through tiny Lincoln, county seat and home to the real-life exploits of Billy the Kid. The Kid stood trial in the county courthouse and made his final escape while killing two deputies. Lincoln and neighboring Capitan sit in a river valley between the Sacramento Mountains and the Capitan Mountains. Overblown or not, Billy the Kid’s story has become etched in the west. 

 But The Kid is not the only legend formed in these mountains. In Capitan, we stopped at the resting place of one of the world’s most famous bears. 

For 26 years, a real-life Smokey Bear lived at the National Zoo in Washington, D.C. I never expected to roam close enough to Capitan to see Smokey Bear’s grave. But the return trip brought us within 20 miles, and I had to see it. Ever since I found out there had been a real Smokey Bear, I could not escape the story or images of the tiny cub too small to survive in the wild.  

The Smokey Bear wildfire prevention campaign began in 1944. During a devastating 1950 Capitan Gap wildfire, firefighters found the tiny bear cub in a scorched tree, his paws burnt and his mother never found. A forest ranger and his family treated his burns and brought the cub back to health. While they considered other names including Hotfoot Teddy (really), Smokey Bear stuck. 

When Smokey Bear died in 1976, the U.S. Forest Service wanted to return him to the New Mexico forest where he was born. The spot where firefighters found Smokey was quite remote, and they feared vandalism if they buried him there. The Forest Service chose Capitan, the nearest town, for a memorial garden. Most of the businesses in little Capitan have names honoring their famous resident. 

The state of New Mexico administers the historic site. A museum tells the Smokey Bear story and the influence of the fire prevention campaign, which has been adapted worldwide. The international posters are often unintentionally funny, such as the French one in which a man carelessly taps out his pipe's tobacco onto the ground. 

Smokey Bear’s final resting place lies beneath a boulder taken from the area of the Lincoln National Forest where the rangers found him. A simple bronze plaque told his story. Smokey’s grave anchored a three-acre garden of trees representing the trees and plants that live in New Mexico’s various vegetative zones, leaving out only the sub-arctic tundra found on the state’s tallest peaks. 

On a trip full of quiet, contemplative places, the peace in this little memorial garden was worthy of the world's most famous bear.


Thursday, February 01, 2024

The ever-shifting White Sands



The wild rock formations that gave the Organ Mountains their name hid under a blanket of clouds. The San Augustin Mountains didn’t fare much better. The mild rise to San Augustin Pass barely feels like a mountain gap. 

In winter, the Tularosa Basin hid its treasure well. The gypsum dunes of White Sands National Park barely register near the road. Some scraggly, plant-covered dunes lie just past the White Sands Missile Range. 

A national monument from 1933 until 2019, White Sands' entrance had the same look as in 2016 on my only previous visit. The historic district comprised of Pueblo revival buildings housing the visitor center and adjacent stores stood in contrast to the sharp white dunes. But this visit was a world away. With a living dune field, it can’t help but change. Plus, White Sands yielded an unprecedented archaeological find in recent years. 

White Sands map

I would consider any trip to White Sands magical. My last visit came on a sunny September day, the heat blazing and the sands blinding. The light was bruising and I resolved never to go without sunglasses again that day. Even on a cloudy day not getting into the 40s, the dunes required sunglasses. As exquisite as they look, the gypsum sand dunes thoroughly resemble snow mounds, and can prove unkind to the eyes. 

Everything is scenic once the dunes surround you. They roll for miles in every direction. Mountain ranges rim every horizon. The rain fell sporadically, but never hard enough to chase us off the dunes. White Sands owes its existence to past lakes and seas. 

The Tularosa Basin once sat below the shallow sea that reached over to the Permian Basin in west Texas. Gypsums crystals from that sea rose to the tops of nearby mountains. As the winds eroded them, the crystals settled on the basin. As the waters evaporated, the crystals broke down into sand. 

In wetter climate times, the Tularosa Basin was mostly covered by Lake Otero, a 1,600-square-mile lake (white sands covers 275 square miles, still the world’s largest gypsum dune field). 

Lake Otero flourished at the end of the last Ice Age helped to show evidence of a healthy ecosystem, with mammoths, predators, and more, including early humans. Sixty preserved footprints found at the site have dated between 21,000 and 23,000 years ago. Some have disputed the dates, but the prints correspond to seeds of that age found in the same sedimentary layer. 

In the 21st century, White Sands still sees plenty of action from water. Lake Lucero, a remnant of Lake Otero, reappears in the park during rainy times in the park’s southeastern corner.  

Unlike the stable dune field at the Great Sand Dunes, which has worked its way to the northwest corner of Colorado’s San Luis Valley, White Sands move all the time in the Tularosa Basin. They leave plants that grew on their slopes, but the yuccas have adapted with deep-running roots. 

In some places, the yucca almost turn into forests, the plant’s underground structures make them look larger than they typically would. The yucca will die as the dunes move on. Skunkbush does better, with roots that form sand pedestals that become denning sites for kit foxes. 

Aside from the occasional car on the park road, the dunes grew incredibly silent. Even with determined hikers marching into the fields only to turn back after the January wind caught them, voices didn’t carry. The screams of joy did, mostly from children sledding a few hills away. The light rain solidified the dunes and made for a better experience, although none of the dunes close to the road were tall enough for a long ride. 

Most of all, I relished wandering the dunes. Everything became wilderness beyond sight of the road. You could lose your path easily as new dunes without vegetation all tend to look identical. Spitting rain, Southwest winter conditions – it couldn’t have been a better time to get lost among the sands of the Tularosa Basin. 

 I don’t know in what season I will next grace the gypsum dunes, but I will have to roam and get a little more lost. Besides, the whole place will have changed again.


Monday, January 29, 2024

Little Mesilla goes a long way

Marriage proposal on Mesilla Plaza
Escaping the urban clutches of El Paso did not prove simple– the interstate was closed all weekend on the west side, forming a major traffic snarl in both directions. Just getting to New Mexico took some maneuvering and numerous detours. But soon the Organ Mountains came into view, and Las Cruces loomed close. 

I like El Paso, but on this trip the smaller towns were the focus, the places I had not seen before. We escaped and found refuge in Las Cruces' little, quainter sibling, the village of Mesilla. 

We had a fine dinner at the Lescombes Winery, which has satellite restaurants around New Mexico, but grows its grapes in southern New Mexico around Mesilla. The region is also a major producer of pecans. The groves are majestic even in winter. 

Spanish for “little table,” Mesilla has a quirky history. Founded in 1848 by Mexicans fleeing the U.S. takeover of the northern half of Mexican territory after the Mexican-American War, Mesilla ended up on the U.S. side of the border following the Gadsden Purchase, the last major land acquisition in the Lower 48. 

A decade later Mesilla briefly served as capital of the Arizona Territory of the Confederacy. Mesilla thrived for another 20 years, as it sat on the Butterfield Stage and the Camino Real, the Mexican road that followed the Rio Grande before ending at Santa Fe.  Then the railroad bypassed Mesilla for Las Cruces in 1881. 

At the time, this seemed a fatal move for Mesilla. But to see it now, it might have been a blessing, as Mesilla Plaza is historic and ringed by 19th century adobe buildings, plus San Albino Church with its white-topped bell towers. 

In the 20th century, Mesilla’s revival was spearheaded by growth of its wine industry and new development that left the historic plaza alone. It hasn’t grown since the railroad picked Las Cruces, but therein lies the charm. 

This is an old city of the West, one that had lawless cantinas and has endured. Mesilla saw visits from outlaw Billy the Kid – he was tried for murder here - and Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa. 

The nods to tourism were obvious, with boutiques selling turquoise and other locally produced wares. The clerk at one of the few open stores complained of the cold. It was in the mid-40s, balmy for January in Colorado; this close to the Mexican border, not so much. 

I didn't take many pictures. I didn't want to. Mesilla had an atmosphere I needed to soak in and I couldn't get that behind the lens. 

Even in a tiny town, Mesilla Plaza was a hive of activity this Saturday night. On the gazebo at its center, a marriage proposal unfolded. People greeted us as we walked by. On this night, Mesilla did not want anyone to remain a stranger.

Little park on the border


 

I debated hard whether to stop. After days without crossing a major urban area, El Paso was immediately disorienting. But the I persisted. 

Chamizal National Memorial was not high on most park-bagger lists. Hell, it was probably not 400th on most lists, if people had actually heard of the memorial. If I didn’t want to stop, it was mostly because a wrong turn could cause problems with Immigrations and Customs Enforcement. Chamizal isn’t just near the border; it is the border. 

Across Delta Drive, the view south is obscured by the rust-colored fencing native to the southern border with Mexico. Beyond the border checkpoints, a large statue celebrates Mexico. I didn’t have my passport. If I did, I had no desire to drive my car into Ciudad Juarez, El Paso’s cross-border sibling. 

Chamizal honors an agreement that settled a century of border disputes that began shortly after the Mexican-American War set the Rio Grande as the new border. Mexican leaders dating back to Benito Juarez (the country’s first indigenous president, namesake of Ciudad Juarez, and a Lincoln contemporary) sought to settle the border issue, since the Rio Grande continued to cut new channels after floods. 

One flood created a new channel, cutting a chunk of land south of the Rio Grande into an island. The farmland known as El Chamizal would create a century of headaches, with the two countries unable to reach a solution until the 1960s. 

Finally there came a resolution during JFK's administration. The farmland became a park south of the Rio Grande, made into a concrete channel as it flows through the urbanized areas that hug the border here. A cultural center in the middle of the park outlines the slow progress toward the Chamizal border deal. 

While not great for a river environment, the agreement put an end to land questions in downtown El Paso and Juarez. A concrete channel is far from ideal and quite unattractive, but the border issue was settled and without resorting to barbed wire in the water as one finds further downriver. The setting could seem less than settled. 

Here in a placid El Paso park, I could see the border bridge and the massive fence blocked off the Rio Grande from El Paso. The bucolic borderlands with Canada couldn’t feel further away. I looked at Chamizal as an example. 

When border issues seem less settled than ever, this little park showed that some border quarrels could find resolution, and maybe others will again someday.

Sunday, January 28, 2024

A gander at Guadalupe under the peak

Mazanita Spring below the Guadalupe Mountains.

Not this trip - El Capitan from Guadalupe Peak in 2014.

I have looked down on this section of the Chihuahuan Desert from the highest point in Texas. 

While less accomplished, looking up at the mountains from ground level doesn’t feel that bad on a short stop in Guadalupe Mountains National Park. 

I’m pretty sure my company on the last Guadalupe trip might have strangled me if I even suggested visiting the Frijole Ranch after finishing the round-trip hike to the top of Guadalupe Peak. If we had taken that flat walk, I might have been drowned in the Manzanita or Smith spring pools. 

 There was no time or inclination for climbing to the top of Texas again. Guadalupe Mountains National Park might primarily serve as a hiker’s park, but the Guadalupe Mountains offer plenty for the casual visitor. 

Outside the visitor center lies the ruins of a Butterfield Stage Station, a stagecoach that preceded the Pony Express and operated the first transcontinental mail route. 

The park lies at the northern end of the range for many Chihuahuan desert plants and trees, including the madrone with its flaky red bark. With its elevation, the park ends up hosting many northern hardwood species that could only survive in the shade and high-altitude riparian zones within the mountain range. 

McKittrick Canyon along the park’s northern realms offered a magical mix of desert and northern fauna, with a wealth of fall color rarely seen this far south. 

That will have to wait for this coming autumn. For this Saturday, I wanted a hike that spoke to the history of the region and kept me within sight of the fossil reef that forms the Guadalupe Mountains. 

Like most places in the Lower 48, a handful of people tried their hand at homesteading this unforgiving land and had several generations of success before it became a national park. Crossing onto the Frijole Ranch property I immediately heard the gurgle. 


How these people thrived in a mostly unforgiving land was no longer a mystery to me. Among the historic buildings was a spring house that protected the ranch’s water supply, as well as the supply that once went to the fruit orchards planted among the trees beyond. The water rapidly flowed through a gutter crossing the yard. The main house had several additions, including a dormer to add second floor living space. 

I kept coming back to the water. There’s no reliable river out here. If not for springs, no one could live here. Critical water sources sit close to the ranch house. Near the mountains lies Smith Spring, which goes underground and reemerges as Manzanita Spring, which is a half-mile from the ranch. 

A thatch of dead reeds surrounded Manzanita Spring, a natural spring that the homesteaders dammed into a pool. It was an unexpectedly placid spot among the desert plants, in site of El Capitan and Guadalupe Peak. 

The springs allow trees to survive that would normally have no chance under the Chihuahua Desert’s conditions. With the clouds and wind, there was no concern about running into the park’s abundant reptiles. 

The trail was pretty heavy with scat loaded with pine nuts, as the pinon pines grow well in this environment. Some animal had gorged itself when the nuts were plentiful. 

The wind rustled in the reeds, sometimes rippling the clear water in Manzanita Spring. Plants grew on its bottom, easily visible with the spring water's clarity. 

A historic sign showed that the spring pond had been large enough to float a canoe, although its 21st century shoreline seemed a little cramped for any watercraft. Plus, the rangers would not like that choice at all. 

One virtue of leaving the Guadalupe Mountains westbound is getting to enjoy them from a number of different views for the next 50 miles. No one can appreciate the august appearance of El Capitan until it is framed in front of Guadalupe Peak. 

By the time it disappears from distance, the Guadalupe Mountains have the chance to show off every angle.

From 2014. I had to watch it go from the rearview this time. 

Saturday, January 27, 2024

The comfort of Carlsbad Caverns




I remembered every curve of the park canyon drive. You have to earn the drive to Carlsbad Caverns, topping out at a mesa atop

Leaving White’s City (still not in any form a city), one enters Carlsbad Caverns National Park and the road winds through a picturesque desert canyon. I had driven it several times, albeit not in almost a decade. 

My Czech friend had to contend with her friends believing she was in Karlovy Vary, a Czech town whose name translates as Carlsbad. We were not in Czech lands, but in the New Mexican desert, where a flock of sunset bats gave away the location of a deep cave with the largest cavern chamber in North America. The system had changed, as Carlsbad requires a reservation for a cave self-guided tour (essentially just money for a third-party vendor). 

No one rode down with us but the elevator operator, who handled a cart of pie slices for the café 700 feet below the visitor center. The elevators whisked us down, its speed only given away by the popping of our ears. 

The entrance offers little hope of an underground wilderness, as the first sight out of the elevator is the snack bar and restrooms. But the Big Room quickly takes over and envelopes all visitors in its geologic delights. If the visitor center changed, the cave had not, even if I barely remembered most of the features in Carlsbad’s Big Room. 

The memory I had for the park drive did not translate to the landscape below. Large enough to fit multiple U.S. Capitol buildings, the Big Room immediately put Carlsbad in a different category than Wind Cave and Mammoth Cave. I never came close to bumping my head. 

Also, anyone could enter Carlsbad through its natural entrance, but the one-mile journey to 700 feet below the surface seemed more reasonable in an elevator. 

Carlsbad might be the most fantastic NPS cave I know. The combination of geologic features from bulbous stalagmites to a roof of needle-like stalactites, and continuous drip of water, ponds with stone lily pads, and numerous columns that have connected stalactites and stalagmites across geologic eras. 

The real geologic fun begins with the Lion’s Tail, an unmistakable formation branching down from the Big Room ceiling. Don’t bother trying to catch it; you couldn’t possibly leap that high. 

The Hall of Giants and Fairyland formed a sweet spot in the middle of the Big Room. The popcorn formations enveloped an entire section of the Big Room’s floor, looking like an army of small figures. 

Time in these cave sites in a cave always bring a memory of the majestic music from Fellowship of the Ring, when Gandalf lights the cave and reveals the wonders of a forgotten underground city ("There's a wonder and no mistake," Samwise says). But the city of Carlsbad Caverns was carved by geologic eras of dripping water, not living beings. 

But they were dwarfed by the area’s other occupants. Massive formations along their edge resembled crude figures, elder gods awaiting their return to the surface. I took a glance down into the lower cave overlook, a crowded spot on the paved tour. It gives perspective to the Big Room. As large as it is, the cave goes much deeper. 

I admit the lighting placed in the cave might be perfect for viewing the formations; it stays ambient and does not light the cave formations more than it has to. I asked a man not to shine a headlamp in my eyes, and he apologized. I told him not to apologize, just to remember that everyone’s eyes were more sensitive in this setting. As long as you let your eyes adjust, the headlamp was not necessary. 

Back in the ambient dark, I came upon my favorite water-created rocks. The small ponds with lily pad formations are unparalleled. The aging of rock in caves makes me rethink what we consider life. The cave changes too slowly for us to see, those slow drips from the ceiling taking millions of years to sculpt this unlikely place. 

With a self-guided tour, Carlsbad could not flip all its switches like Mammoth Cave or Wind Cave, so there was no chance to experience total dark in the Big Room. In the end, I was just glad to see the Big Room again and roam 700 feet below the Chihuahuan Desert.



When roaming Roswell



Southeastern New Mexico practices extremes. The land shifts from treeless plains to soaring mountains. Vaughn is a collection of hotels and cafes barely hanging on among those that have already succumbed to lack of business. But you better gas up, since another 90 miles separates Vaughn and Roswell. South of Roswell, in one of New Mexico’s oil belts, a massive oil facility is the defining feature of a town called Artesia. Roswell can claim a more affable history. 

The town of 50,000 endures from a single contested event in 1947, a crash locals believed a UFO and the U.S. military shrugged off as weather balloon crash. Whether real or imagined, little green men lord over the entire town, and draws visitors who might otherwise not deviate so far from the interstate. Hotels, souvenir shops, coffeehouses, and more. The green-domed Chaves County Courthouse feels in on the theme. The lamplights along Main Street have the heads of little green men. 

At the nexus of the alien activity lies the International UFO Museum and Research Center, housed in a 1930s movie theater. The museum includes an extensive library on alien issues. The museum focuses in-depth on the Roswell incident. 

There’s a historic aspect to the museum that runs astride its silly aspects. A life-size statue of Gort from The Day the Earth Stood Still, a mock flying saucer with its crew, and some alien autopsy displays. 

Other famous UFO incidents get strong exploration. I read the books of Whitley Strieber as a teenager; the novelist firmly believes he encountered visitors. The incident depicted in the movie Fire in the Sky, when a logger disappeared in an alleged UFO incident and his coworkers became suspects in that disappearance, also received amply exhibit space. 

The UFOs are not the only aircraft known the visit Roswell.  Roswell’s airport seems crowded with airliners, far beyond what commercial airlines would route to such a small market. But the Roswell Air Center is home to numerous retired aircraft. Before it was bought in 2022, Elvis Presley's personal plane sat among the decommissioned aircraft for more than four decades. 

This deep into New Mexico, some sort of New Mexican cuisine was essential. Pasta Café might not be the most enticing name, but the Italian bistro thrived on a Friday night, with a nice menu of Italian-New Mexican fusion cuisine. We split green chile chicken lasagna and green chile manicotti. 

Outside the alien theme, Roswell possesses other attractions. The stone buildings of the New Mexico Military Institute strike an imposing tone. 

Chatty owl

Quiet capybara

Hooting owl

Away from the rush of Main Street, the Spring River Zoo sits on high ground above its namesake river, which flows through the larger park covering both its banks. We were the only people there on a Friday afternoon, unsurprising given the temperatures just above freezing. The capybaras moved around a little, but seemed to relish resembling rocks as they lounged in a secluded corner of the exhibit. The world’s largest rodent does well in captivity and didn’t seem fazed by the occasional cold gusts. 

A little-known zoo always draws a little trepidation. Will it have adequate facilities? Will the animals show the strain of captivity? These are considerations. 

Fortunately, the owls immediately put me at ease. Several bird enclosures held owls chatting in the wind. One great-horned owl sat in the sunbeam, chattering away, while a second owl huddled into a makeshift nest, delivering more typical hoots. Between the owls lied an exhibit with a badger that clawed voraciously at the ground through the holes in its fence. Those claws don’t lie; badgers can burrow deeply faster than most animals. But the badger focused on its task, not us. Both owls responded to human voices, moving around the enclosures, training their eyes on us. 


We garnered even stronger interest from Spring River’s resident elk. The female elk strode up as soon as we arrived. Clearly a social creature, she sniffed and showed interest. With his full majestic rack with shriveled velvet still dangling, the bull elk took more time to come around. Eventually he showed us attention, offering a healthy snort I almost hoped would turn into a bugle. When it didn’t, I was not disappointed – he was kind enough to bare his teeth in a personal display. 


 A number of exhibits sat empty, and the zoo’s black bears were in winter torpor. The lemurs kept to their heated enclosure. A beaver ignored the weather and frolicked in its small pool, building onto its den at times. 

Enough animals moved around on a chilly afternoon to make the zoo a worthwhile stop. A master plan showed expansion plans for the zoo. So those empty closures will not stay unoccupied, and new exhibits will broaden the zoo’s appeal. In the meantime, it’s a good place to stop and listen to the owls. 

Away from the alien imagery, I had to visit Roswell Animal Control. It might sound like an odd choice, but the cat rescue where I volunteer has partnered with RAC for more than three years, resulting in Wild Blue adopting dozens of cats who might have otherwise been euthanized.

The first Roswell cat at Wild Blue was Reevers, a sad-faced kitty who hissed at everyone. But he soon learned to enjoy the brush, and we realized Reeve’s hisses were not a sign of aggression, just how he communicated. He got adopted, survived a few weeks on the lam in Colorado Springs but was found and is enjoying indoor living again. 

I had known any number of cats rescued from this site. I had fostered one for a month – Akroyd, my poor, doomed friend. He was the last addition on a January 2022 Roswell run, and we gave the ill little fellow the best four months of his life. 

Seeing where these cats came into human care was important. Roswell was the original home to some of the sweetest cats from my years of volunteering at Wild Blue. I remember poor sweet Paddington, an orange giant with a cleft palate, who took all the pets he could get. 

At the hotel on Roswell’s north end, I drank my morning coffee outside the hotel, watching the sun rise I when spotted motion. A tabby sprung across the parking lot, ignoring all calls and darting into a storage area, a place where only the cat could squeeze. It showed only fear. As I went to leave the hotel, a second cat darted on the same path. I find myself hoping that they wind up at animal control, TNR’ed or adopted into forever homes. 

The rescue confirmed the construction sites at Roswell’s north end were frequent spots for trapping cats, so if those cats haven’t had their day with Wild Blue, I hope it comes soon.