2005 Desert Southwest Vacation -- September 6 through September 22, Part 1

My 2005 Desert Southwest Vacation. 17 days, 5960 miles.

I hadn't done a real long road trip out West since 2001, and it was time.

I had two choices. The first took a northern route, the other a southern route. The first went through deserts and then rain forests, the other took me through deserts, and more deserts.

The first trip would primarily be to follow The Corps Of Discovery's route. It was the bicentennial of Lewis & Clark's epic journey West to the Pacific Ocean. Everything was being spiffied up and polished, but it would eventually lose to Tombstone, Disneyland, Death Valley and Yosemite.

So history would have to wait, but hey, how many times does Disneyland have a 50th Anniversary? Heh.

I'd never been to the American Deserts of the Southwest, and wanted to see what they were like. Another big draw was Tombstone, a place I'd always wanted to go. (And Tombstone was a much better movie than Wyatt Earp. Nyah, nyah, nyah.)

I've had a love affair with Scenic Route 7 in Arkansas ever since I first drove it in 1987. It's changed a lot, but the heart of it that goes through the Ozarks is as much fun to drive as it was back then.

Arkansas / Buffalo National River

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My original plan was to take Route 7 down to I-30, and take that through Dallas/Fort Worth, but this little storm named Katrina hit New Orleans. Having heard about spot shortages of Gasoline, and mass migrations of people away from the affected area caused me to change the route and take I-40 through Oklahoma City, then South to Dallas/Ft. Worth.

Well, not only didn't I take that many pictures, but I didn't take that much video, either. So the pictorial pretty much jumps from Arkansas to Carlsbad Caverns, New Mexico.

Carlsbad Caverns is another of those "Wow" places that start with an elevator ride. Down. 754 feet down.

Yes, you can walk down if you'd like, and maybe one day I'll do that. But as it was the first time there, I thought I'd spend most of my time in the cave. I'd probably never walk up though... :-)

It is another world in the cave. It's hard to describe, perhaps it the complete lack of sound, except for the other tourists, of course. There's no wind or breeze, it's completely still. Everything is artifically lit, it feels more like Disneyworld at night. It's more humid than the desert outside. And other than the guardrails, there are no straight lines.

It takes a while for your eyes to adjust to the darkness, but once they do, they show you what Mother Nature can do with acid rain when she doesn't have to battle with wind or water erosion...

The cave just happens to be in the desert. Above, you can do the Walnut Creek Desert Drive, my first introduction to the Southwestern Deserts. It arid, and only the most hardy vegitation survives, but this area has been inhabited for over 10,000 years. Americans have homesteaded here since 1890. This used to be a goat farm.

Another interesting visitor attraction here is the Bat Flight. Everynight at sunset, almost a half-million Mexican Free-tailed bats depart the cave to feed near the Black and Pecos rivers that flow several hours to the East. It was this mass exodus of the bats every night that alerted the early settlers to the cave.

Carlsbad Caverns National Park, NM

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White Sands National Monument, NM

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Tombstone, AZ

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End 2005 West Vacation Part 1
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