Cycling Across America #65
White Sands
Part 65 of the Cycle-Across-America series. (Read from the start in Boston or see the full index)
These excerpts are from the transcipts of a journal entry that was taped, so again they lack in coherency and structure -but you should see the full entry.
Alamogordo, New Mexico. Halloween Morning.
Perhaps it’s the Mexican food. I seem to be spending far too much time on toilets these days.
I’ve noticed that they seem to be getting taller. So I can’t reach the ground. I do be perched up there with my legs swinging - which is very disconcerting.
Anyway, I’m debating now going back to the Golden Corral, where I had a big buffet dinner yesterday. For a buffet breakfast. Load up with food and it’s fine, plenty of time to tackle the Tularosa Basin, the White Sands, and the San Agustin Pass. Cycling to Las Cruces.
Yesterday coming in here as I hit the Tourist Information place, I literally on the bike was going will I, won’t I? Will I, won’t I? And the moment I stopped that was the end of the attempt yesterday to go to Las Cruces. I reckoned just doing all the calculations in my head, especially with the climb close to the end of the day, that I’d be fighting darkness again. And I didn’t want to. I’m getting tired of fighting the darkness.
I’d only gone 13 miles but by the end of the day I’d done 55 miles anyway. Because in being a tourist I decided to go to White Sands. So there’s a 15 mile stretch of road which I’ll have done 3 times after today.
I reckoned today I’m going to just cycle but yesterday I wanted time to go out, have a look around and cycle into the road that goes into the heart of the Sands. I went in maybe 3 miles, and I did a trail in there, a big dune trail. I walked around in the sand. It’s a stunning part of the world.
[The rest of this post is continued below the fold]
Yesterday in daylight, as opposed to the dusk of the day before, the San Andreas Mountains are quite imposing. It really is a jaggedy wall, 50, 60 miles long. Maybe even 100. At times it looks like cloud it’s so unnaturally jaggedy, like fingers sticking up.
And behind me back to the east, is the Sacromento Mountains of which the Sierra Blancas are at the top of that range. They’re much more rounded and indeed square at times. And you have lines coming down and you have ridges. It looks like what you’d expect Apaches to hang around in.
So I left Tularosa and all the time going along I could see in the distance, towards the San Andreas, this White Sands. You could just see this whiteness. It’s quite something.
Coming in on the road, there’s still a few houses and farms. And these trees; I don’t know what they are. They’re like elongated corn dogs. They’re very elegant, straight up. They are very narrow, and very tidy looking.
I went past a couple of farms and ranches that specialise in pistachos. I went past some orchards, apple and cherry orchards, as I had done the previous day coming down from Ruidoso.
Oh my god, the weather is being done by somebody dressed up as Elvis. Listen to this:
“[in Elvis accent]…40 below. We got a bit of cloud cover in parts of the state but it ain’t no big deal. No rain, just a little bit of a breeze today. Tonight’s going to be good for church greeting, man. Over the weekend it’s going to be cool, like Elvis, So we’re looking at a big drop in temperatures tomorrow. Mostly expecting highs of only around 60 and then it’ll be even cooler on Sunday. I don’t think there’s going to be much rain or snow this weekend but I’ll see what I can do. I’ll talk to the other big guy, see if I can send some your way…”
I’ve compared so many landscapes to the moon, and I’ve read much that said that about White Sands, yet I deliberately decided not to go to the Space Center. I’m really not that interested in that kind of technology. Looking at the moon would have been interesting.
They have an International Space Hall of Fame. Why does this country have to have so many Halls of Fame? Like it’s official, you’re famous? It has the burial site of “Han” the first astrochimp.
An easy choice. White Sands. Forget that moon business. White Sands, it’s stunning, though to get to the most stunning bits you’ve got to get right into the middle of it where there is the least vegetation. It’s 275 square miles at the northern end of the Chihuahuan Desert, what the brochure calls the world’s largest gypsum dune field.
“Only a few species of plants grow rapidly enough to survive burial by moving dunes.But several types of animals have eveloved the white coloration that camouflaged them in the gypsum sand”
When I got there I had a quick goo around the museum in the Visitors’ Center first. It’s 2 dollars in to the Sands if you’re going in on foot or on bicycle. You have to give your name and be checked out because it’s a wilderness.
There are specific trails you can go on but you’re allowed to just walk anywhere; you’ve just got to be careful. For 50 cents you can keep your trail guide.
I saw some footprints, a picket mouse. I looked so hard for roadrunner tracks but didn’t see any. There’s Elvis again on the telly.
The name of Alamogordo is something Cottonwood. I forget. The sunbird is its logo, a fictional bird. I love being down here, in the southwest. Decoration everywhere. It’s all kind of blended between Mexican and Indian and Spanish. I was reading a magazine on the southwest. There was an article on the roadrunner. Someone not from New Mexico came here because of them and he now feeds them. They eat out of his hands; they come up to his house all the time. After a lot of patience this happened. At first it took him a long time to even see them.
I read that the coyote was already here in southern New Mexico, 12,000 years ago. It said the Indians revered the coyote. To the Indian the coyote is the revealer of good things; he represents the epitomie of good medicine. I’ve seen a few of them, but they’ve all been dead on the road.
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