July 23
A long driving day— in fact the longest drive of my trip (the runner-up will come Saturday when I head for home, a slightly shorter drive than Petrified Forest to Carlsbad, NM). There’s not much to tell about the drive. I started through some interesting country, moving from areas of white limestone cliffs and mountains to bright red sandstone, and back again, but after a while it leveled out into flat grassy plains for mile after mile.
However, I did pick up one spot of interest along the way. My route led through Albuquerque, which I reached right around noon, so I diverted to Petroglyph National Monument for my picnic lunch, and spent a little time seeing the stone carvings.
Petroglyph National Monument covers a series of black basalt bluffs right on the edge of Albuquerque (in fact there’s a suburban housing development just across the street, which makes for an unusual contrast). The bluffs represent the edge of a massive lava flow that poured from a series of now-dormant volcanic vents outside of the present city. Piles of basalt boulders cover the slopes, and the Ancestral Pueblo people carved petroglyphs into them for many years.
With a long drive still ahead of me, I only had an hour or so to devote to walking some of the easier trails in the area. Looking at my pictures, it seems many of the petroglyphs were too faint to show up on camera, though I could see them at the time. Here’s a selection of the better pictures:
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According to the information displays, somewhere in the park is a petroglyph showing a human figure being carried off by a giant bird. Either it was beyond the limited area I explored, or else I missed it. I’d like to have had a picture of that one; whatever story lies behind it according to the archaeologists, as a science fiction writer I have a more exciting one.
Driving on, my road turned south. On the way to Carlsbad I passed through Roswell, where I saw nothing unusual in the sky. The town also looked disappointingly ordinary, although I did pass the “International UFO Museum and Research Center” with a facade that looked like a sci-fi ride at Disneyland, and one liquor store had a sign out front reading “Aliens – Wine – Beer.” I never think to stop, park, and take pictures of these things until I’ve driven past them— but on the other hand, if I let myself start doing that all my drives would take twice as long, or more. There’s been interesting stuff all along the way.
Carlsbad, NM was the hottest place I’ve visited so far, with the thermometer at 103 when I drove into town. A thunderstorm rolled over and knocked that down a bit, but it’ll probably be just as hot again tomorrow. Fortunately, tomorrow’s National Park is naturally climate-controlled.
Tomorrow: Carlsbad Caverns
