Our next stop heading south was Los Alamos to visit the Bradbury Science Museum. We learned all we could about the history of the Atomic Bomb - including the pleas from the engineers to never, ever use it.
We also interacted with displays on the human genome, accelerators, and lasers - all which are currently researched at the Los Alamos National Laboratory.
The best part about the museum was seeing all age groups watching videos and working with all the hands-on activities. There were 2 groups of school children from the local Boys & Girls Club - most of them speaking Spanish - and an adorable older couple playing a trivia game on the computer.
Check out their website here.
We camped at Bandelier National Monument, passing through the heavily guarded National Laboratory.
It was south on the open, but pleasant, Highway 285. We picnicked at Valley of Fires State Park (managed by the U.S. Department of the Interior - Bureau of Land Management) and hiked the 1-mile Malpais Nature Trail.
According to the park plaques, the Valley of Fires is one of the youngest lava flows in the United States. The flow is 4-6 miles wide, 160 feet thick, and covers 125 square miles. It seems to go on forever. The pressure ridges, lava caves, and lava tubes make the most impressive formations. The wildlife is plentiful, too. We spotted this lizard enjoying the sun. Notice how his back feet are perched up - attempting to get some relief from the HOT surface.
We arrived early at Oliver Lee Memorial State Park, so we decided to set up our house and walk around the campground. State parks are generally divided into a tent area and RV area. We were the only fools sleeping in a tent, so the tent area was all ours. Most of the time this is a blessing, but sometimes we feel vulnerable out here all by ourselves.
The heat was intense, so all RVers were inside. We walked along the asphalt road and spotted Bella, an itty-bitty beagle, enjoying dusk at the foot of her RV. She ran to us and immediately rolled on her back so we could pet her belly. Her owner heard us playing and he came out to visit. He reminded us a lot of Andy - the guy we met while backpacking in Point Reyes (California). He was the classic RVer - holding a can of Budweiser and wearing jeans, a t-shirt, and baseball cap. He lives at state parks for the maximum number of days allowed (usually 14 days), travels to a nearby one for 6 or 7 days, then returns. He has been at Oliver Lee for almost 6 weeks. And he loves his Bella.
Our next stop: White Sands National Monument
"Like No Place Else on Earth" is the slogan splashed across the entrance to the interpretive center -
and they are right!
This is the world's largest gypsum dune field - covering over 275 square miles of desert (only 115 square miles of gypsum is in the national monument). It is also surrounded by the White Sands Missile Range. The park occasionally closes when the military is conducting missile tests. Thankfully, we were in the clear for the day.
We drove The Dunes Drive, an 8-mile road through the dunes, stopping to hike the 1-mile Dune Life Nature Trail. This gave us the opportunity to walk on the sand and see the vegetation and animals that thrive in this environment.
We also walked over a gypsum crystal bed - which crunched and crunched and crunched.
So what makes the sand white? Gypsum.
What is gypsum? Gypsum is a dehydrated form of calcium sulphate.
The park brochure says gypsum is rarely found as sand because it is soluble in water. Rain and snow in the San Andres and Sacramento mountain ranges dissolve gypsum from the rocks and carry it into the Tularosa Basin. Rivers would usually carry dissolved gypsum to the sea, but no river drains the basin.
Only the top few inches of the gypsum dunes are made of loose sand. Rainwater falling on the dunes dissolves some of the gypsum and cements the sand grains together, creating a crude form of plaster of Paris. This makes the white sand dunes easy to walk on.
What is gypsum used for? Most people recognize gypsum as sheet rock (wall board), but it is also used in fertilizers and other soil conditioners. I forgot where I read it, but the average American home contains about 7 metric tons of gypsum (That is 15,432.2 pounds!!!!). If you've ever broken a bone - it was probably wrapped in gypsum - a.k.a. plaster of Paris.
The gypsum from the national monument is protected, so it will never be used for production purposes unless legislation is passed. We saw hundreds of children "sledding" on the soft white dunes.
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That night we drove to Carlsbad Caverns National Park to watch the much-anticipated bat flight from Bat Cave. I know many of you will be disappointed, but we arrived at dusk with no time to view the caves. We hope to return one day to view some (if not all) of the 113 caves of Carlsbad.
We walked down the trail to the amphitheater - greeted by warning signs of weak knees and exhaustion. The amphitheater seats about 150-200 visitors - and it was packed on our visit.
There were hundreds of swallows and bugs swarming the entrance to Bat Cave. Everyone sat quietly as the ranger shared the discovery of Carlsbad by an adventurous 16-year old named Jim White, the guano (bat poop) business, and facts about the bats - all while intermittently reminding visitors about the no camera or film rule, and that anyone caught photographing or filming will be given a ticket. The park is strict on their rules as any electronic buzz or quiet click can strongly effect the bats and their travel out of the cave. Photography and film requests must be made 2 weeks prior to the visit.
The ranger told us to listen carefully for the distinctive click over the loud speakers. She said once we hear that click, everyone must be seated as quietly as possible. The bats would appear about 2-5 minutes after the click because they are traveling about 1/4 mile from inside the cave.
We expected to see the bats exit in one large batch, but tonight, they only trickled. The ranger said it is hit or miss... sometimes the bats swarm out in one large group and other nights they trickle.
Either way - it was a magnificent, natural event.
Bat Facts:
- 7 types of bats roost in Carlsbad Caverns, but most prevalent is the Mexican bat (also called Brazilian free-tail bats).
- The bats live at Carlsbad from April to October, flying south to Mexico for the winter.
- Baby bats (known as pups) are born at Carlsbad in June, with the female having one offspring.
- The pups are born naked. The hair usually appears by their first flight.
- In July or August, the pups take their first flight from the cave.
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