Aguirre Spring in March

I don't know why it always surprises me that a half hour from our house 

we can get so far from civilization.

On the other side of the Organs--the very mountains we see from our house--we can take a windy little road off the empty highway to Aguirre Spring, the only high-country campground in the Las Cruces area.

The road overlooks the vast and empty Tularosa Basin, ancient site of a salt lake and long-ago lush grasslands. 10,000 years ago men hunted bison here. Even in the late 1800s the native grasses grew "as high as a horse's shoulder." Because of drought years and overgrazing, 

the land we now see is mostly desert shrubland. 

The basin is now home to the military's White Sands Missile Range and the White Sands National Monument. If you look very hard at the middle of this photo you will just be able to make out a long thin tongue of white sand, actually gypsum crystals. 

The Aguirre Springs area is known for its wide variety of plant species, such as alligator juniper, gray oak, mountain mahogany and the sotol you see here.

This time of year we go to see the wild Mexican poppies. Depending on the season's rainfall and our timing, we might see entire fields of gold spilling down the sides of the basin.

This photo is for my friend, Helen, who moved away but still reminds me to go and see the poppies.

It was a good morning, fresh and quiet and very, very still.

Today's Adventure at 8000 Feet

By calling today's outing an adventure, I certainly don't mean to imply that anything particularly exciting happened when we went up to the Lincoln National Forest this morning. The exciting thing to me is that we continue to include some form of exercise in our daily routine.

Today's goal was to walk and bike in the thin air at 8000 feet up. After Beez set out on his bike, I followed on foot. This is little Weetzie, my excellent hiking companion. We headed up (why is it always up?) this logging road, keeping a careful eye out for lovely deer and fierce, protective, and combative mother bears. 

At one point, Weetzie made an unexpectedly loud snuffly noise which made my hair literally stand up all over my head. Once I had ascertained that no mother bears were charging, we decided to wander back down the road toward the car, my chair, and a book for some nice forest-y contemplation. 

Looking closely at the ground, we could see that there were tiny little wildflowers, which you will hardly be able to make out in these iPhone photos I took. In my defense, I have a very difficult time making out what I am taking a photo of when then sun is shining on the screen. But, oh dear, I do wish they would be in focus just for once.

Think of these as impressionist photos of flowers.

The mixed pine, aspen, and spruce (I think) forest was beautiful (except for where someone had thrown empty beer cans into the woods). Everything was so quiet, except for the birdsong, the whirring sound of iridescent green hummingbirds going about their business, and the wind sighing through the pines. 

The smell of the piney air was delicious.

I must give a plug to the beautiful Sacramento Ranger District Visitor Center. It was like a lodge inside, with a stone fireplace and lots of natural wood everywhere. The rangers were friendly and eager to introduce us to their forest home. And I must say, the restrooms were pretty amazing, with advanced technology toilets that could flush two ways, depending on need--a water-saving feature for this drought stricken part of the country.

We met some people from New Hampshire out in the parking lot and, as people will do, established that we knew someone in common within the first 25 words of our conversation. It was a pretty good example of our small world. 

On the drive back home, there was a turnout for gazing at this view of the Tularosa Basin, with the White Sands National Monument sparkling out there in the middle. 

Gold, Dust

While the rest of the country is experiencing Spring in unusual ways--more snowfall in the Northwest, and lack of snow and early summer-like temps in the Northeast--we are having the usual early Spring weather here in southern New Mexico.

The Organ Mountains still have bits of snow on the eastern side. 

Fields of poppies are in bloom.

These poppies were blooming at the site of one of last summer's wildfires. You can see the scorched yucca trunks here.

Click to enlarge

In this last photo, you can see the beginning of another springtime tradition here: Dust storms. The dust here in the distance is gathering along the floor of the Tularosa Basin. Later that day, back in Las Cruces, we experienced howling winds and "brown-out" conditions all day. As we paced around uneasily inside the house, listening to the shrieking outside and watching as dust made its way inside through every crack and under all the doors, we couldn't help thinking that the Dust Bowl of the 1930s never really came to an end. And I thought of the long-ago settlers out on the prairie quietly going mad in their earthen dugouts, as the unmerciful dirt-filled wind scoured and tore at everything they had worked so hard to build.

Storm Over the Tularosa, for Skywatch

When we drive through the Tularosa Basin on our way from Alamogordo to Las Cruces, New Mexico, we always marvel at the amazing skies. Something is always happening, something that makes me put down my knitting (imagine that!) and gaze up at the miraculousness of it all.

One tends to think big thoughts in the Tularosa.

For more skies and the thoughts they inspire, please be sure to visit Skywatch Friday.

*****

Klaus Peter, 1960-2011

 Today's Skywatch is dedicated to the memory of Klaus Peter. According to the Skywatch site, "he was an active participant, supporter, and eventually owner/maintainer of Skywatch and the founder of That's My World." He will be missed by so many, although we may not have met him in person.

Yellow Skies Over Tularosa, for Skywatch

These were the skies over the Tularosa Basin as we drove back from a trip to eastern New Mexico a few weeks ago. For sky photos from all over the world, please visit Skywatch Friday.

Miles to Go for Skywatch Friday

... But I have promises to keep,

And miles to go before I sleep

And miles to go before I sleep.

~Robert Frost, Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening

We drove to Las Cruces and back a couple of weekends ago. Unfortunately, we had to do it all in the same day, 4.75 hours each way. We actually had time when we got there to have lunch at Nellie's great restaurant, look at several houses with a realtor, and make an offer on one of them.

But that meant hours of driving home through the dark, so when we saw these wonderful sunset colors over the Tularosa Basin, there was no time to stop. I just snapped away from the moving car, getting these somewhat smeary photos as we emerged from the San Augustin Pass in the Organ Mountains and hurtled on down the highway.

I still love the muted colors, though.

For sky photos from all over the world, taken at all times of the day, please visit Skywatch Friday.