On to Texas

We left Cave Creek Canyon on Tuesday morning. It was a fairly relaxed start. We were on our way east. It was just a short drive north on NM Rt 80 to NM Rt 9, which runs east all the way to Texas. It pretty much parallels I-80, but about 30 miles south of the Interstate. For about two-thirds of its length, it runs right along the Mexican border (not close enough to see the fence).

Our original thought was to stop at Pancho Villa State Park in Columbus, NM, but it was still morning when we got there. Amazingly, the campground was nearly full. It is located at a small state park in the middle of the desert in a tiny border town. When we inquired, we were told that this coming weekend was a celebration of the 100th anniversary of Pancho Villa's raid on Columbus, New Mexico, which is also the reason for the park's existence. They were streaming in for the celebration. We didn't ask if there were going to be re-enactors; we just continued down the road.

Next stop Texas, El Paso to be accurate. We needed to provision. For somme reason, I had the expectation that El Paso was a middling border town like Nogales. I plugged, what I thought was the only Albertson's market, into the GPS and we were on our way. It was a bit shocking to see that El Paso is a rapidly growing, large, spread out city (albeit one with a large fence running along one side separating it from Juarez, Mexico).

We found ourselves on a busy 10-lane highway heading into town when I saw an Albertson's 10 miles from where the Zumo had the next turn. I got a bit over-excited and thought that it was another GPS joke, where it routes us strangely and includes a U-turn. We hurriedly got off the highway and checked again for supermarkets and found that there were now dozens of them. We picked one that was on the far side of town on the way to our final destination, Hueco Tanks State Park, instead of the one I'd originally aimed at, which was downtown. Groan.

After doing our grocery shopping, it was time for lunch. Actually, it was well past lunchtime, but we were hungry. Back to the Google oracle for a restaurant along our route out of town. We found Alejandro's Tortilla Factory and Bakery. It had a wide selection of Mexican foods and sweets (and tortillas). We settled for a couple of delicious (and cheap) barbacoa burritos, which was just enough. We also picked up a dozen cookies to take along.

We were now on Montana Ave, US 180, heading east. It seemed to be the edge of the city, with stores and new residential developments on the south side and bare land on the north side. After we passed the edge of Fort Bliss we got to an industrial area that was populated with auto junkyards, about 10 miles of junkyards. We even passed a couple of RV junkyards. I could have sworn that I saw a Roadtrek in one, but Ellen wouldn't let me stop, she was afraid it might be in better shape than Speedy.

Hueco Tanks State Park wasn't far from El Paso and we arrived in late-afternoon. The park encompasses several stone domes and cliffs rising out of a flat desert. They are historically and archeologically significant. There are many natural pits in the stone that collect water. They are called tanks. They were a significant source of water for the pre-historic native american cultures as well as the early European settlers in the west. The pre-historic cultures also left many pictographs on the stone. It is still a site used by Native Americans for some ceremonies.

I first heard of Hueco Tanks in a much different context. Starting in the 50s, it became known as a rock climbing area and by the 70s, it was the heart of the bouldering branch of climbing. It still is one of the premier bouldering spots. (Not that I was going do do any climbing, having twisted my back at the RV park in Rodeo a few days earlier.)

It was, however, one of the strangest State Park experiences we've had. They shut the park at 6 PM and you have to be in the campground after that time. Two-thirds of the park is off-limits without a guide and that includes the area right behind the campground. Campers must watch a 15-minute video before being allowed to camp and get a talk from a ranger as well.

One might ask why? Evidently, a few years ago, there was a spate of grafitti activity in the park, nearly destroying many of the ancient pictographs. The park was closed for a while until they figured out what to do. The result was a strict management of the park, closing the park at night and setting the areas with the preponderance of pictographs off-limits for unaccompanied access, but leaving the North Mountain open for access and climbing (it was the major climbing area anyway). The required video for campers was part of the changes, as they are the only people allowed to stay in the park after the daily closing time.

It was actually quite a nice campground, not a lot of sites, but good restrooms and showers. Our site backed up to the cliffs and we walked down to the open part of the park in the morning for a short bit of pretty good birding in the morning. We even climbed up on the rocks a bit, no bouldering though.

We left by mid-morning and continued east on US 180, which took us directly to Guadelupe Mountains National Park, our next stop.