We started the day at Three Rivers Petroglyphs site. It is just north of Alamogordo. It contains 21,000 petroglyphs, including masks, sunbursts, wildlife and geometric designs. the number and concentration of them makes this one of the largest and most interesting rock art sites in the Southwest. John didn’t really want to go, but I love petroglyphs, and use them in my art, so he being the loving husband that he is, took me.
They were everywhere, on all the rocks.
It was a lovely area back dropped with beautiful mountains and a blue bird day. These glyphs are outstanding examples of prehistoric Jornada Moglllon rock art.
This sheep guy is the best know and most photographed petroglyph here. It is a sheep filled with Mimbres style geometric designs pierced by three arrows.
A Lowe’s food market. I am more used to Lowe’s hardware stores. Kind of brings to mind the saying about the futility of going to the hardware store for bread. Here it would be futile to go to the food store for hardware. . . Our next stop was the White Sand dunes. The only thing that keeps them from looking like snow is the desert plants growing up through them.
The dunes were trying to take over the road. The dunes can move up to 35 feet a year.
They are made of gypsum and are the biggest gypsum dune field in world. 275 square miles. Gypsum is rarely found as sand because it is soluble in water. Rain and snow in the mountains dissolve the gypsum from the rocks and carry it into the Tularosa basin.Rivers would usually carry it to the sea, but no river drains the basin and the heat crystalizes it much larger fragile crystals. The wind breaks it up and blows it into these dunes.
The gypsum sand is much finer than regular sand, looks and feels like dirt. But the dunes are beautiful. The light was wrong for any good photos, but here is what you get! We then proceeded through the San Andres and Organ mountains to Las Cruces for the night at the Coachlight residential Inn and RV park in a questionable neighborhood.
Our camp spot at the Coachlight. At least we had more room than in Pecos. We had a very colorful, friendly neighbor who has been living in his RV since 2008. He drives a beat up pick up named Beulah and when it gets cold he goes in search of a boyfriend. Las Cruces has this beautiful backdrop of these mountains. Lots of adobe buildings. Our other neighbors wish they lived full time in their RV, they only live 10 months a year in the RV and 2 at home in a house in Arizona. Sounds like a good compromise to me.
A few signs from the drive west. I guess they get nasty dust storms here.
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