San Andres Mountains

The fabulous trout fishing only lasted a week and then they opened up the dam -- the river filled up and the trout moved on. So we headed out across the desert and up to the mountains for something to do. There is always good rockhounding somewhere in the desert and we found one place on the way that had lots of pieces of petrified wood. We went to the mountains to the east of us this time instead of west. These are the San Andres Mountains and we first went to the Gyp Hills in this mountain range and then the next day went to the Hardscrabble Mountains in this same mountain range. These mountains form the western border of the White Sands Missile range so you can only go so far into them and then you come to locked gates.

The pictures were taken up in the mountains. You can see part of the gravel road we traveled in one of the pictures. I think we did about 80 miles of gravel road altogether both days. You can see someone coming for miles because of the dust trail you make driving on these roads. The picture with the sign in it we took where the road ended. This ranch was at the end of the road way back in the mountains -- we didn't see any power lines so they must live off the grid. It sure was peaceful up there in the middle of nowhere. I can see why people would be willing to live that way.

Well its getting in the high 60's -low 70's now so we are hoping to be back on the lake trying our luck or at least working on our tans!

Rainbow Trout

They stock trout in the Rio Grande River below the dam that forms Elephant Butte Lake. One guy in camp who fishes the river all the time started to catch lots of trout so we thought we would give it a try. Wow! What a blast -- we've caught lots of beautiful rainbow trout between 12" and 15". They are really tasty just panfried.

There was an earthen dam in this part of the river that they just removed. You can't tell it was even there. This caused more current in the river which even though it is very low it must be what got the trout moving. We hear that when they open the headgates at the big dam at Elephant Butte than the walleye start swimming up this river. We've also heard that people fish shoulder to shoulder when the walleye are in here -- not sure we want to deal with that -- we might see what the increased current does to lake fishing.

The picture of the fish in the net was from our last fishing adventure on the lake. It's a catfish that Jim caught or Nebraskan Walleye as he called it. We have two couples from Nebraska as neighbors so Jim loves to give them grief. They came to fish also. He also caught a tumbleweed. I should have taken a picture of that in the net. Only in New Mexico can you set your hook and bag yourself a tumbleweed!!

No, it's NOT snow!

We took a little road trip over to the Alamogordo area of New Mexico. We stopped at White Sands National Monument. It's a small "National Park" that contains the largest gypsum sand dunes in the country. The sand looks and feels like the stuff found at the most beautiful beaches. You can play in the dunes -- bring or buy a saucer and sled down them. This park is wedged in between two military bases. The Army's White Sands Missile Range -- where the first atomic bomb was dropped and an AirForce base. The Airbase is a backup landing site for the space shuttle although its only been used once. There is also a NASA facility in the area.

We also checked out the Space Museum in Alamogordo. It has all the old stuff in it they used to help prepare astronauts for space flight for the Mercury up to the Apollo missions. Old space suits -- American and Soviet along with examples of the dehydrated food they ate -- even the "toilet" facitlities. The museum also has a collection of the different rockets that were tested as well as an incredible collection of satellite technology. We understand now why this area is crazy about space and willing to help fund a commercial "SpacePort". Where eventually anyone with the money can take a ride in space.

Looking for ET

We went to see the VLA -- Very Large Array-- about an hour from Socorro, New Mexico. The radio telescope array that was used in the film "Contact". It was awesome to see these huge telescopes. There are so many they take up 20 miles of a big open plain. It wasn't possible to get a picture that shows them all. We stood under the one where these people are and it moved while we were standing under it. These telescopes move all the time to stay on the area in space they are tracking. They weight a 1000 tons and yet you can't even hear them move. They are all on a railroad track system so they can move them around pretty easily. They are not actually used to listen for ET -they just used them in the film because they look cool. We had to watch the movie "Contact" again and yes we were exactly where they filmed -- same walkways -- view out the window of the building -- very cool.

We also finally got to change over to South Dakota license plates. We had changed to South Dakota residents last fall -- new address, drivers license but our license plates didn't need to change until February 09 so we waited. It only took a week after applying for them to actually get the new plates. They must not make many -- not that many people in South Dakota -- so it's very quick. We like being "residents" of South Dakota -- cheap licenses and no state income tax. Most of the full time RVer's we've met that no longer own a home somewhere have switched residency to a state with no income tax.