We have been outside...at least a few times.

It's been awhile since I've added anything to the blog...I canceled my SmugMug account last December and it's taken me nearly a year to fix all my existing posts, as I transferred all my photographs over to Flickr. But, I promise we have been getting out here and there. We've taken several trips up into the Sacramento Mountains, Three Rivers Petroglyphs, Valley of Fires, more hiking in the Organ Mountains, and White Sands National Monument. We also spent some time in Idaho and Oklahoma over the summer - I'll try to post some pictures from Idaho later on.

Monjeau Lookout

Several weekends ago we headed up to Ruidoso to spend some time in the mountains and hopefully find some fall colors. Once we got to Ruidoso on Saturday we spent the afternoon walking around town; there were a few too many people for my taste, most of them from Texas (it's easy to tell a Texan; they almost all had on some piece of apparel from the University of Texas; not to mention that nearly every parked car had Texas plates). Anyways, despite the people, it was fun. Sunday morning, however, was the real reason we headed for the mountains. We decided to drive up to the Monjeau Lookout, a fire tower constructed by the CCC in the 1930s. The tower is accessible by a nice winding forest road that leads up to over 9,000 feet. This area was hit by a wildfire several years ago so many of the trees are still black and without vegetation; however, as we climbed we did get into some aspens and saw some fall colors we had been hoping for. Aspens, for whatever reason, are my favorite tree and to me there's few things better than a grove of aspens in the fall. That's one of the things I missed most about the west while living in Oklahoma. The lookout is still closed to the public (at times it is open so one can actually go inside the tower) after the fire. It appears to be completely restored after the fire damage, at least from the outside. It is built out of stone and thus the structure itself was able to survive the fire.

Aguirre Spring

This time we headed to the "back" side of the Organ Mountains. At least, it's the back side to Las Cruces. A more appropriate term would be the east side of the Organ Mountains. Nestled up against the mountains sits the Aguirre Spring Campground. We had been up here once before, right after a rare Southern New Mexico snowstorm, but had never camped there. Since it's so close, we figured why not. It's probably about a 45 minute drive from our house in Las Cruces, and a good portion of that is the road from the highway to the campground. There were a few people in the campground, and as luck would have it, we decided to camp next to a bunch of drunken fools. They were loud, obnoxious, and disturbed what otherwise would have been a peaceful evening and morning. Everybody else in the campground acted like human beings. Somehow we still got some sleep, and I woke up just a bit before 6 am to watch the sunrise. I knew the location was perfect for a spectacular sunrise and I wasn't disappointed. At least they were asleep through that. I probably should have asked them to quiet down, but you never know what someone will do, especially when intoxicated, and they probably wouldn't have shut up anyways. There is a campground host, but he was way back at the entrance gate down the road, not even in the campground. So we just dealt with it, and they finally did quiet down. Anyways, other than that, it was a fun little trip and the kids enjoyed it. Carter slept much better this time than he has on past camping trips, which was nice. The views from the campground are amazing, as it overlooks the Tularosa Basin, and one can see all the way over to the Sacramento Mountains. We had planned to hike the Pine Tree Trail, which would have gotten us up even higher, but we decided to save that for another day.

Dripping Springs

Much like Soledad Canyon, the Dripping Springs recreation area sits just east of Las Cruces at the base of the Organ Mountains. It's so nice having such cool spots so close to home. We always intended to go to Dripping Springs when we previously lived in Las Cruces, but we never made it there. I think we questioned if Lilly would have been able to walk it at that age (she probably wouldn't have been). We finally made it up there and it was a great hike. There are several trails that lead from the visitor center, and we will certainly be headed back to hit some of the other trails. This day, though, we were headed for Drippings Springs itself, as well as Van Patten's Mountain Camp and Boyd's Sanatorium. The trail itself is mostly loose rock, and it's uphill, so it's a bit of a tough go on the way up, especially with a kid on my back. But it's not too bad, and the walk back is great. Down in the valley, it was sunny. In the Organs, the clouds were hanging low and the humidity (for the desert) was high. It was pretty good weather for a hike, other than the "humidity" (I use that term loosely having just spent two years in Oklahoma). At times it had kind of a Lord of the Rings feel to it.
Once you get into the canyon, the first buildings you come upon are the old livery buildings for Van Patten's camp. Also known as Dripping Springs Resort, it was a very popular getaway and figures such as Pat Garrett and Pancho Villa stayed there. Van Patten went bankrupt in 1917 and sold the resort to Dr. Nathan Boyd, who eventually converted the resort into a sanatorium after his wife contracted tuberculosis. The area was later owned by the A.B. Cox family and used as a ranch before eventually being purchased by the Nature Conservancy, who then transferred the property over to the BLM.

Back in New Mexico

The title of this blog is "Exploring the West." For the last few years, though, it's been more like "Exploring the Mid-West/Mid-South." Now we can get back to exploring the west. Last month I started a job as a Digital Projects Librarian at New Mexico State University. So, here we are back in Las Cruces. We lived here for two years while I was a student at NMSU and we're excited to be back, and to be close to mountains once again. While I've been busy with my new job, we have had several opportunities to get out and enjoy the outdoors here. One Saturday morning we hiked at Soledad Canyon, which is just at the base of the Organ Mountains, only a few miles from Las Cruces. It was a fun little hike, but my shoulders and back were killing me from packing Carter around.
Then on Labor Day we headed up to Cloudcroft. This is one of our favorite areas in Southern New Mexico, as an elevation gain of over 4,000 feet in a matter of less than 20 miles takes one off the desert floor and into the mountains. This typically means the temperatures are around 20 degrees cooler as well. The weather was beautiful when we first got up there. We stopped and looked at the Mexican Canyon Trestle from an overlook just off the highway. The trestle was part of a railroad that went from Alamogordo to Cloudcroft.
We then drove up to Bluff Springs, an area where we had been several times, but only in the winter. It was nice to see it in the summer, although there were a ton of people camped there. Not my idea of an ideal place to camp, as it is right off the road, but whatever.
After that we headed back to the trestle and ate lunch and then decided to hike down to the trestle (you can see the platform on the picture above). There were some ominous clouds and we heard several rumbles of thunder, but we decided to take a chance because it appeared to be skirting us. As you can well imagine, that turned out to be wrong. It was a fun hike, and it sprinkled a bit on the way down. It was coming back up when things got really fun. It started raining fairly hard, and of course I was packing Carter on my back, so he was getting soaked, as were the rest of us. You would think that growing up in the mountains would have taught me better. I admit, what we did was stupid. We were not prepared for heavy rain. I won't make that mistake again. We made it back to the replica depot which also serves as restrooms/visitor center and within maybe two minutes of getting under the shelter it really started to pour. It would have been horrible to hike in that without any rain gear. The kids made the best of it, even though Carter was shivering. But we got him in the car, threw a blanket over him and turned on the heater. Always an adventure.

Ouachita National Forest - Arkansas

This trip was originally supposed to be to Western Oklahoma. We had planned to camp on the Black Kettle National Grassland and visit the Washita Battlefield near Cheyenne. Forecasted highs nearing 100 in that area altered our plans. Instead of going west, we went east into Arkansas where temps were much more manageable (although the humidity was somewhat uncomfortable). Friday morning we made our way to the Ouachita National Forest north of Hot Springs, looking for the Winona Scenic Drive. After 4 hours of pavement, it was a relief to reach dirt and venture into the forest.

After our little side trip we continued on the Winona Scenic Drive to Lake Sylvia. There are tons of forest roads shooting off of the road we were on, it would be a blast to go back and just explore all the roads available. We stayed the night at Lake Sylvia Campground, which was quite nice and not crowded (at least in the tent camping area, there were quite a few people in the RV spots). Most of our time was spent keeping Carter from eating rocks and chasing him through the campground. Probably due to that, I forgot to take pictures of the campground and our campsite. We did get a pic of the small lake the campground is named for, though.
Saturday morning we packed up and headed towards Hot Springs, home of Hot Springs National Park. We spent a little time there walking down Bathhouse Row and stopping in the visitor center. Then we hit the road for the long trip back home. I really enjoyed this trip, I only wish these areas were closer to Tulsa.

Wichita Mountains

Probably stemming both from my past experiences working in retail, and from my dislike of large crowds of people, Black Friday is one of those days that I don't want anything to do with. The fact that it has been pushed into Thanksgiving night disgusts me; pretty soon all the stupid sales will probably start Thanksgiving morning. It's sad that it's come as far as it has. Anyways, enough of my rant. The point is we wanted to get out of town on Black Friday, as far away from people as we could (easier said than done in Oklahoma - but we managed to get somewhat isolated this time around). We decided on the Wichita Mountains, which lie in southwest Oklahoma near Lawton (about 1 1/2 hours SW of Oklahoma City). Unlike the Ouachita Mountains in SE Oklahoma, the landscape in the Wichitas is much more open and reminded me more of the West. At times I felt like I was in New Mexico. I loved our short time there and would love to return, but who knows if or when that will happen. We stayed Friday night in the small town of Medicine Park, which is a great base for exploring the Wichita Mountains and the Wichita Mountains National Wildlife Refuge (we spent nearly all our time inside the refuge boundaries). Before settling in to our room in Medicine Park (unfortunately it was a little too cold to camp with a 7 month old) we drove to the top of Mt. Scott and visited the Holy City of the Wichitas.

The Holy City of the Wichitas is built to resemble Jerusalem during the time of Christ. Many of the buildings were built by the WPA during the Depression. It's certainly one of the more interesting places I've ever visited. More information can be found here: http://theholycitylawton.com/home

Saturday we headed out to hike the 2 mile Longhorn trail, which is part of a larger trail system. There are over 15 miles of designated hiking trails within the refuge boundaries.
After our hike and other stops, we hit the famous Meers store and cafe in the old mining town of Meers. They serve burgers made from longhorn beef and they were quite tasty. I read several places online where it stated that waits at the restaurant can be over two hours - fortunately we didn't have to wait that long. If I had, I think I would have been disappointed. Don't get me wrong, the hamburger was good, but certainly not good enough to wait 2 hours for. The fries definitely weren't worth any kind of wait; they tasted like your run-of-the mill fast food fries. But the building and the atmosphere were very cool, and I think that's a big part of the draw.
We had a blast on this trip. The Wichita Mountains are easily my favorite place in Oklahoma. If it wasn't so hot in Lawton during the summer, I might even consider living there for an extended period of time. I look forward to the day when (hopefully) we will once again live in the West and have access to the wide open spaces and public lands that we miss so much. I also hope someday to go camping on Thanksgiving, preferably somewhere in Southern Utah or New Mexico, and fry a turkey. And then wake up on Black Friday morning with no one around for miles. Someday...