Quick impressions of Santa Fe

Posted on April 4, 2014 by sumi

Just about everyone we told about being in New Mexico said we should go to Santa Fe. So the morning after camping at White Sands Nicholas and Pokin packed up the bags while I waited in the back seat, and then we drove on up.

I’m not sure what we were expecting. It seems to be a town geared towards selling junk to tourists.

There’s a church.

And an older one that we didn’t pay to go in.. And lots of souvenirs. Oh and lots of peppers.

We walked to the square.

We walked up some historic hill.

We ate chips and sat in the lobby of a downtown hotel.

Cool we can say we’ve been to Santa Fe.

Random small town, New Mexico

Posted on April 4, 2014 by sumi

Welcome to one of the many little towns we drove by on this trip.

And it’s railway crossing.

Next.

Camping in gypsum dunes

Posted on April 3, 2014 by sumi

While visiting the White Sands National Monument to ask about the missile testing, we learned we could back country camp at White Sands.

Camping in the sand dunes overnight? Sign us up!

We went first thing in the morning and had our pick from 10 different camp sites. We picked Campsite #4, one of the outer campsites facing the sunset.

Since the campgrounds were only a little over a mile away, Nicholas promised I didn’t have to go into my backpack. He said he’d carry me.

I didn’t realize this is what he meant.

I made sure to smack him some once I managed to detangle myself from the mesh.

We got to our site and set up tent at about 5:30pm in the afternoon, when it was still bright and pretty warm out. Nicholas suggested maybe we keep the wind flap off so we can see the stars.

We went exploring. White Sands! This stuff is actually made of gypsum, which is water soluble but since it hardly ever rains here it’s not a big deal.

White Sands is the biggest of its kind in the world! It goes on and on.

We scrambled to the top of one of the dunes to watch sunset.

Sunset’s not bad here. Good front row seats.

Then the sun went down. And it got cold. Really cold.

We quickly put the outer tent layer on. It was still cold. We got close to freezing temperatures and we tried to sleep on top of whatever we could to escape the cold of the ground. Luckily I’m small so I just made my bed on top of Nicholas’ backpack. Pokin and Nicholas had to freeze.

At least the night sky was cool. Pokin got to see it as she went running around outside to warm up so she could sleep.

Well after what felt like a long night because everyone kept waking up from the cold, it finally got lighter. Pokin’s crazy. She got up for sunrise. Nicholas and I wisely stayed inside. And we took her sleeping bag.

We finally ventured out only when it was completely light.

My what difference the sun makes.

This I can handle.

Time to pack up. Next stop!

Entering the White Sands Missile Range

Posted on April 3, 2014 by sumi

You are now entering the White Sands Missile Range. Yes we are. And they are doing testing today too!

Space History Museum

Posted on April 3, 2014 by sumi

Given all the time spent as Commander Sumi Shepherd playing Mass Effect 1 – 3 and given that Uncle Frank mentioned he enjoyed the Space History Museum, most naturally my best bear bud and I decided to go check it out.

While the museum was a bit dated, We got to see various replica spaceships, missiles, fly simulated missions and read up on the Astronaut Hall of Fame. Cool! There was even a Commander Shepherd listed.

And then we stayed to watch an IMAX movie on the Hubble Space Telescope. My first IMAX movie!

White out conditions at White Sands

Posted on April 2, 2014 by sumi

Well my hope of relaxing didn’t last long. Shortly after we got to the hotel Pokin wanted to scout out White Sands for potential sunrise pictures.

Denied. That high wind alert in Guadalupe National Park was in effect here too. And with the wind whipping the sand around in a frenzy things looked a little like this:

No sunset photos for Pokin. Let’s go back to the hotel.

Onto Alamagordo

Posted on April 2, 2014 by sumi

After two days of roughing it, I was ready for some chillaxing on a comfortable bed. Alamagordo isn’t exactly the hotbed of luxury though. Despite that, after driving around looking at the Motel 6s and America’s Best Value Inn’s, I just really wanted to stay at the Fairfield Inn & Suites Mariott because it looked like the nicest hotel in town. Also meaning it was the most expensive.

Well Pokin had the idea of trying to make a priceline bid for some halfway decent hotel and we lucked out! We got the Fairfield Inn & Suites for less than half of the listed price!

I claimed my bed right away.

And relaxed in the lounge.

I mean, a bear needs to recharge between adventures!

So close to Ciudad Juarez

Posted on April 2, 2014 by sumi

And this is probably about as close as I want to get to the former murder capital of the world.

Pokin wanted to cross the border. Both Nicholas and I thought she was nuts. We won.

Carlsbad Caverns

Posted on April 1, 2014 by sumi

As a bear who plans to have an epic bear cave one day, I looked forward to visiting Carlsbad Caverns. It’s not the biggest or deepest cave out there, but it’s supposed to be cool and it’s along the way so off we went.

There are two options of exploring the caves – down the elevator, or taking the natural entrance walk. Of course we took the walk so I could check out the caves in more detail.

We paid $5 to get one of those audio tour wands. I thought it’d be worth it to hear more about what these caves are about. There are 50 recordings in total on our walk.

Aside from being a really big cave, Carlsbad is known for the millions of bats that fly out. Unfortunately those bats are all down in Mexico right now. It’s cold here. I don’t blame them. if they WERE around, here’s where you’d hang out to watch them fly. They’re supposed to start coming back next month.

Anyway, after a ranger gave us some dos and don’ts we went down through that entrance.

Oooooh. Caves. I like the size, but I want my cave a bit more high tech than this.

As we went down the path, it was pretty neat to see all the formations.

Of course we stopped to take pictures of ourselves too.

About an hour later, we got to the main Big Cave complex. It got a bit more crowded there but it was still cool to do the loop. They are still mapping out and exploring caves in this complex!

And then I got hungry. Since you’re not allowed any food inside the cavern to avoid luring animals in, we took the elevator back to the surface and went to look for food. Cool cave!

White’s City and the first time I went camping

Posted on March 31, 2014 by sumi

Turns out I didn’t need to stop in Roswell. There were aliens in White’s City as well.

And a bear for good measure.

White’s City, not Carlsbad, is the closest city to the Carlsbad Cavern. Carlsbad is actually 25 miles away. Though I don’t know if it’s technically a city. There’s not much there other than a motel, an RV park, a gas station, gift shop and a restaurant.

White’s City is named after Charlie White, not related to James White (the guy credited with exploring Carlsbad Caverns.) Charlie White was just some dude who moved from Kentucky to New Mexico to cure his tuberculosis, and decided there was an opportunity for money-making outside the Carlsbad Caverns. I guess that wasn’t worth much to his descendants, who put it up for auction a few years ago.

So we’re camping here for the night before going to Carlsbad Caverns the next day. And it’ll be my first time camping!

I’m excited!

Here’s our tent. We were only one of three campers.

And I claimed my sleeping bag right away.

This is going to be fun. What great bear bonding!

And tomorrow, Carlsbad Caverns!

Hi, I'm Sumi

Tag Archives: New Mexico

Quick impressions of Santa Fe

Random small town, New Mexico

Camping in gypsum dunes

Entering the White Sands Missile Range

Space History Museum

White out conditions at White Sands

Onto Alamagordo

So close to Ciudad Juarez

Carlsbad Caverns

White’s City and the first time I went camping