Meandering on the Way — Jan 27 to Feb 3, 2026

Tuesday, January 27th

We didn’t get much sleep last night. We had to get up at 2:00 AM to catch an early flight from Eugene to Salt Lake City, the first leg of our trip to New Mexico. Once fully awake, we piled our bags into the back of the truck and set off at 2:30 through a very quiet town, headed for Highway 99. It was going to be a long day. We’d planned it that way. Because we are idiots.

The actual flying was the easiest part. Both legs of the trip were in smallish planes, Brazilian-made Embraer 175’s with lots of legroom and only two seats on each side of the aisle. The weather was clear and the sights out the window were spectacular, especially on the flight south from SLC to Albuquerque. We arrived in Albuquerque around noon, picked up a rental car and got on the road again, heading for Alamogordo, where we planned to spend the night.

Along the way, we came to this New Mexico style rest area.

By the time we got to Alamogordo around 5:00, it was a little late for any touristy activities. We didn’t have the strength anyway. We checked in to our motel, made a brief visit to a grocery store, and had a light in-room supper. Whew!

Wednesday, January 28th

In the morning we drove 30 miles back up Highway 54 to a place where three or four low mounds rise up from the mostly flat Tularosa Basin. At the top of each mound there are basalt outcroppings, the perfect spot to make petroglyphs. The area is called the Three Rivers Petroglyph Site and lies just a couple of miles east of the highway near the base of the Sacramento Mountains. The petroglyphs at the site are from the period 900 to 1400 AD and are thought to be the work of the Jornada Mogollon people. The present day Mescalero Apache Reservation is in roughly the same general area, but it is located higher up in the mountains to the east. On the west side of Hwy 54 the land is dry, flat, and empty. There were some ranches there once, but the residents were removed in 1954 in order to create the US Army’s White Sands Missile Range.

In the afternoon we went out to see White Sands National Park, which is just a few miles south of Alamogordo. The desert was beautiful but not very hospitable. There’d been a snow storm just a few days before. We visited a section that included scattered vegetation. Other parts of the Park are pure gypsum sand in constantly shifting dunes. These are the largest gypsum dune fields in the world. But maybe not the largest in the universe; it looks like there are some pretty big ones on Mars.

For dinner we went to Rizo’s, which was a hard place to find because their sign was broken. Their food wasn’t broken though, not at all. M had the best chile verde that he’d tasted since the seventies. And E was thoroughly pleased with her shrimp fajitas. As we were leaving we chatted a bit with the owners, who had moved here from California 20 years ago.

Thursday, January 29th

We’d accomplished our main goals–glyphs, white sand, and fine food–but as we were leaving Alamogordo, we dropped in to the local historical museum. The collection includes a very rare United States flag that has just 47 stars. New Mexico became the 47th U.S. state on January 6th, 1914. Arizona became the 48th state on February 14th of that same year. According to the Flag Act of 1818, a new flag can be introduced only once a year–on the Fourth of July. Thus, the next new official flag had 48 stars. But it seems that at least a few 47 star flags were produced. And if you wanted, you could own one!

From Alamogordo, whose name means fat poplar, we took Highway 82 east on our way to Carlsbad. This was a very beautiful stretch of road, climbing steeply up from the Tularosa basin to a place called Cloudcroft at an altitude of 8,676 feet (2,644 m). From there, the road descends gradually out of the mountains and onto the western end of the Permian Basin. Taken as a whole, the Permian Basin covers 86,000 square miles (220,000 km) and is the most productive oil field in the United Sates. It is mostly in Texas, but as you see below, it also includes a chunk of southeastern New Mexico.

Our lovely Highway 82 ended at the oil town of Artesia, NM, which is just 65 miles north of Carlsbad. We turned right and headed south on Hwy 285, passing lots of working pumpjacks along the way.

In Carlsbad we stayed in a nice Fairfield Inn on the south end of town. A quick search for nearby restaurants revealed an option called Mariscos Bochon. Hmm. That sounded pretty interesting. So off we went, only to discover that this place was even harder to find than the restaurant back in Alamogordo, especially in the dark. We got there though, and stepped inside. The smallish dining area was mostly empty; there were just two or three people seated at a table near the back. One of these turned out to be our waitress, who got up to welcome us and give us some menus. When she came back to take our orders, it became clear that she did not speak English. This was a little bit of a surprise. Most of the people we had talked to in New Mexico–Hispanic looking or not–were in fact U.S. natives who spoke English as well as we did. So it was kind of fun to have to use a little Spanish. E got a ceviche tostada with avocado slices; M got drunken tacos.

Friday, January 30th

This morning, in bright sunlight, we took a photo of the Mariscos Bochon restaurant.

But never mind that. Today we saw the Carlsbad Caverns. That was quite a deal. To get there we took the highway south toward Texas. The land on our left was flat and endless. To our right were the beginnings of some low mountains. Eventually we saw the sign for Carlsbad Caverns National Park. We turned right onto a road that went up into the mountains, eventually taking us right up to the top of one of them. There we found the park visitor center along with a giant parking lot. On this day, the lot was mostly empty.

Near the visitor’s center, just below the very top of the mountain, we entered into what is called the “natural entrance” to the caverns. This entrance was “discovered” in 1898 by a teenager named Jim White, who explored the cavern using an oil lantern and a homemade wire ladder. 

From the entrance the cave runs very steeply downward to main floor of the caverns, 750 feet below. So, down we went.

It’s only 750 feet down from the entrance the main level, but the way down is almost vertical, so the trail is nothing but switchbacks. To descend 750 feet, you have to walk 1.2 miles. At that point you finally come to the main event, a more or less level cavern called The Big Room. To see it all of that, you have to walk the Big Room loop, which adds 2.6 more miles to your adventure. Wonders abound on the loop, far too many to include here.

Eventually we reached the end of the big loop. At that point there are restrooms and a snack bar. Sadly, the latter is not open in the off season. Joyfully, however, there is also an elevator. That took us back up 750 feet to the visitors center and into the more or less real world. We found our car, ate an energy bar or two, and started back down the mountain. Below is a view of the road down.

When we got back to where this road ends at its junction with Hwy 285, M stopped to check the elevation. His phone told him that he was at 3,650 feet. Back atop the mountain, the cave entrance is at 4400 feet. Math tells us that the difference between the two is 750 feet. This means that for anyone driving along the main highway, the Big Room is right at your level and not very far away. It just happens to be inside a partly hollow mountain. In the 1930’s, there was a proposal to make an automobile tunnel into the cave, which would have saved everyone a lot of trouble and eventually would have allowed us to have a Starbucks drive-through right inside the Big Room! Alas, some spoilsport nixed that idea.

Saturday, January 31st

A cold overcast day. We went to a place just a few miles north of Carlsbad called the Living Desert Zoo and Gardens State Park. It was beautiful out there, but there was a nasty wind and we had to hurry through the outdoor part. The animals looked like they were as unhappy about the weather as we were.

Sunday, February 1st

We spent much of today on the road, driving 275 miles from Carlsbad up to Albuquerque. We can confidently state that there is a lot of desert in eastern New Mexico. We went through Roswell, which looked like a nice town and is said to have a good art museum. Alas, that museum was closed, but the UFO museum was open and we almost went there. But in the end we just got some gas and moved on.

A hour later we went through Vaughn, a kind of modern ghost town. There were about a dozen long abandoned roadside businesses, mostly small ones, but also including this cafe and motel complex, which still has a for sale sign in the window.

We stopped just outside of Vaughn to eat our lunch. There was another abandoned business out there, a diesel repair shop whose sign had fallen off its posts.

Monday, February 2nd

We tried very hard to do something cultural in Albuquerque, but it didn’t happen. There are lots of good museums and other attractions there. But half of them are closed on Mondays, and it seems that all the rest were closed for renovations. (It really is off season here.) One thing we did learn is that the town did not really get organized until 1673. It was named in honor of the Duque de Albuquerque, a Spanish nobleman who was then serving as the Governor General of Mexico. Albuquerque was the name of the duke’s hometown in Spain where it meant white (albu) oak tree (querque). These are the same latin roots that form the scientific name for the white oaks of Oregon: Quercus alba.

In the morning we walked around the old town. It was very nice, clearly a touristy place but pretty quiet at this time of year. Beautiful tee-shirts. In the afternoon we went to a state park along the banks of the Rio Grande River. Lovely clear weather in these parts: below freezing at night but warming to the high fifties in the afternoon.

Tuesday, February 3rd

Time to fly home. But this time we didn’t have to get up so early. We left the hotel at 7:00 and got back to Corvallis by 3:00 in the afternoon. We live on Oak Avenue in Corvallis, so in a way it was like traveling from one Quercus alba place to another. It wasn’t a direct flight though, we had a layover in Oakland, CA.