NELSON'S NOTES #85

Fun N Sun, San Benito, Texas, May 30, 2011

From our desk,

we send highlights of a 12-day trip through Texas and southern New Mexico.

On April 30, we met Teri and Ken in Las Cruces, New Mexico, where they were participating in a two-day fund-raising campaign for KMBN (Moody Bible Network).

SNOW IN MAY?

No snow. The white is New Mexico's White Sands National Monument, a 275-square-mile expanse of constantly-moving gypsum sand. Even large trees like this cottonwood struggle to stay above the engulfing sands.

As we trudged along, gusty winds buffeted us about. Although the one-mile walk was tedious at times, it was fun. Since no one else was there, we felt like lone explorers in a white wilderness.

LAS CRUCES

Artistic water tanks are everywhere in Las Cruces. This one depicts the historical period of the Spanish Conquistadors.

This pleasant southern New Mexico city of 95,000 boasts 350 days of sunshine per year. The relative humidity is only 13% and the average annual rainfall 8.5 inches. Coming from sea level, we huffed and puffed a little the first few days, but before long we had adjusted to the elevation (4,000 feet). However, we never did adjust to the dryness of the high desert environment. Our nostrils were irritated and even the lotion laced with Vaseline that the hotel staff left in our rooms didn't help much.

Excessive dryness and winds breed wildfires. Smoke (seen here rising from the Organ Mountains) was a common sight at many places on our trip through the dry, dry southwest. When we couldn't see the smoke, we could smell it.

TRUTH OR CONSEQUENCES, NEW MEXICO

Locals call it T or C. Its original name was Hot Springs.

Some of the springs are behind the rocks in this picture. We were visiting my cousin Toni and her husband Don Stallman (far right) who recently moved to nearby Elephant Butte.

Another sign of the southwest drought: the water level of Elephant Butte Lake is extremely low. (Look closely and you may see an elephant shape in the butte.)

How Hot Spring changed its name: In 1950 when the radio show Truth or Consequence had an anniversary coming up, the show's host, Ralph Edwards announced that he would broadcast the anniversary program from the first town that renamed itself after the show. Hot Springs won the honor and for the next 50 years Edwards visited the town during the first weekend of May. The event is called "Fiesta." The town was preparing for the celebration the week we were there.

EAGLE RANCH PISTACHIO GROVES, ALAMOGORDO, NM

Bruce wears hair and beard nets, mandatory for visitors touring the pistachio processing plant.

GOING UNDERGROUND AT CARLSBAD CAVERNS NATIONAL PARK

One of nature's many dazzling sculptures is The Big Room, 800 feet underground.

We toured the Big Room in the morning, ate lunch, and in the afternoon tourned the King's Palace cave. The Park Ranger turned off the lights for a few minutes to give us a sense of what it felt like to be early cave explorers.

For about five hours we were 800 feet underground where the temperature is a constant 56 degrees. When you're used to higher temperatures, the cold sets in especially when sitting. I was wearing jeans, two T-shirts, and a sweater but even they didn't keep me warm while we were eating lunch. At the underground store, I bought a shirt and wore it with my other layers even after going outside where it was over 90.

WAITING FOR THE MARFA LIGHTS

Perhaps because the Marfa lights still remain a mystery, curious travelers continue to seek them out in this remote West Texas area. At the pleasant viewing grounds outside the charming town of Marfa, strangers talk to each other about the lights while they wait for darkness to come. Because we didn't have the patience, nor the energy, to wait until total darkness set in, we didn't see them and never found out if they were visible that night.

WILDFIRES IN ALPINE, TEXAS

While we were eating dinner in the Blue Rose Café on Mothers Day, an emergency siren interrupted music playing on the local radio station. A down-home Texas voice announced that yet another wildfire was threatening Alpine and evacuations had been ordered west of Moseley Lane. People sitting at the next table jumped up and fled the restaurant. Meanwhile, the announcer said evacuees could bring their livestock to the radio station -- except horses -- he said the station did not have room for horses. In a few minutes, he repeated information received from a listener who offered his place to evacuees with horses. These happenings and conversations gave us a sense of life in Alpine.

The next evening, when we were driving back to the Best Western from Marfa, we saw flames. They illuminated the night sky and were quite dramatic, even from a distance. Back at the Best Western, we watched teams of firefighters and helicopter maintenance crews come and go. They worked in shifts, spraying water on the fires from "flying cranes" like this one.

THE McDONALD OBSERVATORY

We took a daytime tour of these two telescope facilities atop Mount Locke and Mount Fowlkes in the Davis Mountains of West Texas. These mountain tops offer some of the darkest night skies in the continental United States.

THE GOOGLE MAPS CAMERA CAR

A little white Google car passed us about 70 miles from home. It had been raining and the camera mounted on top of the car was wrapped in black plastic. Minutes earlier Bruce had said, "In all the traveling we've done, we've never seen a Google camera car." A little later, we saw the car again.

Google cars take pictures for Google Streets which shows panoramic views from various positions along many streets in the world. It is a feature of Google Maps and Google Earth which were launched in 2007.

BACK HOME

Deeming this vacation one of my three favorites (the Netherlands and Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, were the other two), we began to settle in. Soon Bruce was up to his usual picture-taking tricks. Having just seen the 3D movie Gnomeo and Juliet, we brought the glasses home (didn't have to turn in them in) and decided to show you how we looked in the theater.

BRUCE'S NEW CAMERA

Bruce is learning how to use the many features of his new Cannon 60D DSLR camera.

Here he is:

getting ready to take a shot

packing the camera and its accessories in a specially-made backpack

going outdoors to experiment with taking pictures in the bright Texas sun.

Bruce also used the camera to take our portraits. Here's a video of the portrait sessions.

##

Marianna Nelson