Day 30, Tuesday 10/15, Alameda Park Zoo & Lincoln National Forest

  Alamogordo claims to have the oldest zoo in New Mexico, started in 1898, the Alameda Zoo. The zoo is small and the animals have nice accommodations, on a Tuesday, the zoo was quiet, and the shade felt good.  Some highlights include a bob cat, Mountain lion (sleeping), black bear, several types of monkeys, a great little aviary, foxes, a giant tortoise and more.

   The Lincoln National Forests is immediately east of the city.  Our access was on Rt. 82, an east bound mountain road.  The views shortly became very nice on the western climb, with typical desert scrub. We passed through a small village for mountain folk, High Rolls, and at the height of the road, the air is 20 degrees cooler at the summer resort town of Cloudcroft. Cloudcroft has a couple of funky in town street with shops for vacationers and tourists like us.  Near Cloudcroft is a historic train trestle from the no longer operational “train to the clouds”.

Day 31, Wednesday 10/16, El Paso, Special Stop

   The drive from White Sands to the west side of Big Bend is 382 miles, about 7 hours with the RV including stops. We have a special planned stop in El Paso, TX. We have a hug to deliver to a soldier in service at Fort Bliss, and a few items from home. Patrick, the soldier, will be dispatched with his troop on an urgent basis to an unnamed destination for 12 months. We felt good about meeting Patrick and delivering the warm hug from mom and a few items. 

   Past El Paso, the travel is on I-10 east for a while, a highway sign indicates San Antonio, 500 miles,…  wow 500 miles, and you are still in Texas,…  how is it possible you can travel 500 miles and still be in the same state???  Damn, must be as big as Texas! then a turn onto a more local road, US-90 south to Marfa, TX, a scenic farming and mountain byway, by way of Quebec. This route did pass by another ghost town or two, life is tough in these remote desert communities, really tough.

    US-67 heads south to the border, the geography becomes more mountainous in south west Texas, and the drive east on TX-170 roughly follows the border to the “big bend” in the river. I had read the drive through the Big Bend Ranch State Park is beautiful, it sure was.  The State Park is en-route on Tx-170, the scenery gets better and better, and the road becomes more challenging at the same time.  Because of the remoteness, the roads follow the land up, down, around.  Stream-ways are not piped under the road, but are allowed to cross the road.  These dips in the road allow rain water run-off to run across the roads, and the gauges show drivers the water height, up to 5 feet deep, yup, 5 feet, not a good time to run across the rapids in your expensive automobile.  Well, these dips in the road are dry today, and since this is a desert, I would guess they are dry 363 days a year, just be careful on those 2 days when the flash floods are rippin! 

   So, while the scenery and beauty is fantastic, besides the dips in the road, the inclines are a bit like approaching the apex of a roller coaster!!  These are roads, which at time look like a magic carpet waving in front of your truck towing trailer!  Up, down, up down, some of these apex summits feel like you feel when skiing, at the top of a ledge, when you look down and cannot see the slope ahead!  It’s a really steep down slope, and your truck is being pushed by at 6,000 pound trailer, hold on!!  Later we see warning signs about the inclines, up to 15%, that doesn’t seem so bad, but this was the first time the F150 ECO boost had trouble pulling up the hill, ever, it was a relief to crest that big hill!!  I was saying that these steep drops would never work in northern climates with snowy winters, not drivable with snow or ice… 

Bottom line:  I highly recommend driving TX-170 through the Big Bend Ranch State Park, the scenery is beautiful and you get a few views of the Rio Grande, well worth it. (it turns out the roads are more dramatic than within the National Park.)

• 2019 Fall