Alamogordo

While in Alamogordo we visited McGinn's Pistachio Farm, White Sands National Park, tried to visit the Trinity site in White Sands Missile Range and had our broken leaf spring replaced.

McGinn's pistachio farm added the giant pistachio and a short tour to add another revenue stream.  There is also a shop that sells pistachios and ice cream.

The worlds biggest pistachio.

Pistachio Tour

Our tour bus

The tour consisted of a lap around the orchard but the guide was very knowledgeable and we learned a lot about pistachios.

We need to go back in July to hear the popping of the shells.  When pistachios get ripe the shells pop open.  During a two week period there is a near constant chorus of pistachio shells popping.

Pistachio trees

White Sands is a dune of gypsum crystals that washed down from the surrounding mountains.

Gypsum sand dunes

Gypsum sand dunes and the mountains the gypsum came from.

Dune sledding

We tried to visit the Trinity site, where the first atomic bomb was tested, but we were stopped by a locked gate.  We found out later that there is just one day a year when the gate is unlocked and you can visit.  The rest of the year it is the impact zone for live fire exercises for the military.  We'll have to get back there on the third Saturday in October.

We had to extend our stay in Alamogordo to get a leaf spring replaced.  See this post for more info.

We took highway 82 to leave Alamogordo.  The highway climbs to the town of Cloudcroft at 8,800 ft in the .  There was snow on the ground and people riding inner tubes.

Snow near Cloudcroft

We left the mountains and descended back to the desert and headed south east toward Carlsbad.

Heading east into the desert

Broken Leaf Spring

When we left City of Rocks I thought the wheels were sitting low on the passenger side but we were on a an uneven dirt road and I attributed it to that.  Had I looked underneath I would have seen a broken leaf spring.  We drove to Hatch, down to Las Cruces and on to Alamogordo.  When we were leveling at our campsite in Alamogordo we could not fit the leveling blocks between the wheels and that is when we discovered the problem.

I was able to order a spring online and found a mobile RV tech who was willing to fit me into his schedule.  We had to stay an extra two nights in Alamogordo but other than that we got off pretty easy.

One of the fun parts of my job was to evaluate broken metal to try and figure out what happened.  In this case it appears that there were some surface defects on the longest leaf that allowed cracks to initiate and repeated cycling caused the cracks to slowly propagate through the spring.  The shiny parts radiating out from the defects are called beach marks and show the extent to which the cracks propagated.  When the cracks got about halfway through, the spring could no longer hold the load and the rest failed suddenly.    

The rear portion of the spring.

The forward portion of the spring, still part of the spring pack.

New leaf spring

JP arrives to install the new spring.

Ready to hit the road again.

Hatch

The Hatch valley in New Mexico is home to the Hatch chile.  The Rio Grande River flows south from the San Juan Mountains in southern Colorado through Albuquerque, Truth or Consequences, Hatch, Las Cruces and to El Paso, Texas where it becomes the border between Mexico and the United States all the way to the Gulf of Mexico near Brownsville, Texas. 

When Hatch chiles are picked they are green.  They can be eaten fresh or the can be dried to preserve them.  When they are dried they turn red.

Hatch chiles are of the genus "capsicum" and the species "annum".  Interestingly, so are bell peppers and jalapenos.  

We had lunch at the Pepper Pot

Hatch Chile Burger.  Yum.

We added a new member to the trailer guardian crew.

Hatch was full of roadside statues from decades gone by.

Dinos from an Enco gas station (perhaps)

The New Mexico cousins of the A&W Burger Family that we met in Oregon.  Sadly Baby has dropped her burger.

The A&W Burger Family and friends

Uncle Sam likes things spicy!

WATCH OUT BEHIND YOU BIG BOY!!!

As we finished our walking tour of Hatch a dust storm was building.  We stopped into the Hatch Chile Express to buy some peppers then hit the road.  Visibility never got bad enough that we had to stop, but there was sand in everything when we got to Alamogordo. 

Big windmill blade.  Maybe 200 ft long?

Leaving Hatch in a dust storm

Las Cruces in a dust storm

San Augustin Peak, east of Las Cruces, in a dust storm

City of Rocks, New Mexico

Just like City of Rocks in Utah, City of Rocks in New Mexico is the top of a magma chamber that solidified underground.  When the rock that the magma intruded into eroded away, the rock structures visible today were exposed.

Today it is a NM State Park where we spent the night on our way east.

Tucson

San Javier del Bac Mission

San Javier del Bac Mission

 

If you are Wil-E-Coyote then this is a door

We took the tram up Sabino Canyon then walked out.  We followed the road until it parted from Sabino Creek, then we followed the trail through the wash.

Sabino Canyon wall

At the bottom of the canyon there are exposures of Gneiss.  This is a metamorphic rock.  It started life as sedimentary rock, then was buried under millions of years of sediment and heated by an intrusive magmatic chamber, causing it to recrystallize.  Then the canyon eroded to expose the rock you see here.

Gneiss rocks (pronounced nice)

Parent rocks of the Gneiss

"Shade" in the wash

If a bridge has no space under it is it still a bridge?

Saguaro National Park (West)

A Saguaro "forest"

Petroglyphs

An old Saguaro with 24 branches.  That was the most we counted.

A friendly Saguaro want to give you a hug

Careful where you sit!

Spikey Boy

Prickly Pear

Barrel Cactus Flower

Cholla Cactus

Once again we found some local food specialties.  The bread is called popovers by the Navajo and is typically served with stewed meat.  Add lettuce, cheese and tomato and you have a Navajo taco.

Navajo Popovers

A Sonoran hot dog is a hot dog wrapped in bacon and served with pinto bean, jalapeno salsa and some other condiments.

Sonoran Hot Dog