Visiting Friends, Good Food, Sightseeing

When we moved from Weatherford, Texas to Alamogordo, New Mexico, we told just about anybody who would listen to come see us. Finally, someone took us up on our request. Jeannine Colley and Barbara Farley are good friends and sister Red Hatters who drove over 500 miles to visit us and to celebrate my 74th birthday. We all belonged to Wild West Women of Weatherford Red Hat chapter until I moved away.

On Friday morning, August 10, 2012, my birthday, Barbara and Jeannine came to our home to visit and see our new living quarters here. After visiting for an hour or so, we drove to White Sands National Monument. I don't believe anyone comes to Alamogordo who doesn't visit this beautiful site. It is like no other place in the country. 

Barbara, Jeannine & Carla; The Three Misketeers

A body could go snow blind out here

Here we three are again with a different sand dune behind us

This raised walkway allows one to explore further into the dunes safely

Carla checking out some of the desert plants

This is actually a bacterial area that holds water and nutrients for desert plants

A shot of some of the native grasses that thrive in the sand

This small hill is actually a holder for a tree that grows underground

Another tree, but this one is thriving

As they say in Kansas City, "We've gone about as fer as we can go"

Where is our partner in crime hiding?  (teehee, in the shade)

Yucca, State Flower of New Mexico and there are millions of them

There are signs posted all along the raised walkway describing plants and different areas of the sands. We returned to Alamogordo and went to the New Mexico Museum of Space History. It is built in what looks like a space ship and one takes the elevator to the top floor and makes their way down to the bottom while looking at all the artifacts and reports of our space history. There are photos and names of everyone involved in space exploration from the very beginning. It is a fascinating exhibit of what man has accomplished thus far in space.

This is the first sign we noticed as we entered the space museum!

High in the museum looking out over the grounds with Alamogordo in the distance

Barbara and Carla enjoying the info on Ham, the first space chimp

This cotton tail jackrabbit just happened to run across the parking lot

I'm asking Jeannine what happened to Barbara. It seems she was distracted by a dog in a doggie carriage.

We drove to White Sands Shopping Mall because Barbara was interested in getting her hair cut like mine. Unfortunately, my hair stylist was off so Barbara made an appointment for 4:30 the next afternoon. We then went to Tropical Sno, a store that makes unusual snow cones in that the ice is shaved very finely. I had a piña colada flavored one and it was delicious. Doug talked us into getting these and we were glad he did because they really hit the spot.

It was time to go to our respective abodes, take a nap and dress for dinner. We were all definitely ready for a rest of some kind. We had reservations at the lovely Stella Vita Restaurant in downtown Alamogordo and I was really looking forward to dining there. As we are pulling out of the garage, Doug hits the button on the car mirror to close the garage door. It comes about a third of the way down and quits and all lights go off in the garage. He went inside and manually closed the garage door and we went to pick up the girls. On arriving , it is obvious the hotel has no electricity either. Doug receives a call from the girl at Stella Vita's and they have no power either. We made an instant decision to drive to Tularosa to dine at Casa de Sueños and it's surely a good thing we did. By the time we ate and started to leave, the place was wall to wall people and the parking lot was jammed. It seems the power outage continued and most of Alamogordo who wanted to eat came to Casa de Sueños which is about 13 miles away.

By this time, we are eating sopaipillas with honey drizzled on them

The girls surprised me with a delicious birthday cake.

It was a wonderful birthday made even more so by the presence of my friends Jeannine and Barbara and, of course, my darling husband, Doug whom I must thank for taking all these pictures for my blog.

This is all I have to say for now.

Red Hat Society Meet & Greet

Now that the travelogue is completed, I can return to writing about life in general around here. After moving to Alamogordo, New Mexico, I discovered they have no Red Hat Chapters so I determined to reintroduce Red Hatting to the area. First, I registered my new Red Hat Chapter with Hatquarters in California, "New Mexico Roadrunner Chapter," and my royal name which is Queen Ladybird.

My first event was a Meet and Greet held at White Sands Shopping Mall. I posted the event on the Community Calendar in the newspaper that ran for several days. On Thursday before the event I received a call from Sunny Arias resulting in my being invited to co-host her radio show, "47JFF" that when broken down means New Mexico is the 47th state to join the union and JFF is "Just For Fun". Sunny talks about all the events going on not only in Alamogordo, but across the state as well. She saw my event posted in the newspaper and called me. It was wonderful to have this opportunity to let people know about the Red Hat Society. A huge thanks to Sunny and radio station KRSY 1230 AM.

Carla at KRSY 1230 AM

Mall Manager Bob Evans was so kind to arrange for tables and chairs set-up for the Meet and Greet. Not much happened for an hour and they all came at once. It was exciting to meet these women and tell them all about the Red Hat Society. Some were familiar while others had no information at all about us. My husband, Doug, was a great help in getting women to stop to talk to me. He was talking to women as they walked by and he had a line that went something like this, "Hello. Are you a Red Hatter?" They, of course, answered with a no and he would say, "Well, you sure look like a Red Hatter. Come and meet my wife and she'll tell you all about it." I got two new members that day through his help.

We went from a chapter of one (me) to six and are looking forward to adding many more. If you are reading this blog and you live anywhere near Alamogordo, New Mexico please email me: cckerr@att.net and I'll be happy to give you all the information on the Red Hat Society.

Carla Kerr all set up for the RHS Meet & Greet

This is Penny, the first founding member of my chapter

Meet Winnie, a new founding member from La Luz

Carla telling the "Herstory" of the Red Hat Society

Winnie, Penny, Nancy (undecided) and Dorothy registering

Rosa and Ann learning about the RHS from Carla. Rosa is a new member.

There is also another member, Linda, who slipped in and out before we could get a picture. We now have plans to visit the new historical museum in Tularosa and to dine at Casa de Sueños that day. Next is the Balloon, Wine and Music Festival. The end of September we are going to the White Oaks Ghost Town and visit their museum in the old school house and have lunch at the No Scum Allowed Saloon. In October we are planning to visit the Trinity Site which is only open to the public twice yearly. Then later in October we are joining the Tulie Roses Red Hat Chapter for a Halloween Costume Party and pot luck dinner. This is just a sampling of things to come because Red Hatting is all about having FUN.

Thanks to Doug for the photography.

This is all I have to say for now.

Petrified Forest, Painted Desert & Carrizozo Malpais

Driving home from Las Vegas, we visited several sites of which these are the last three. If you are ever traveling through Arizona on Historic Route 66, make an opportunity to stop at the Painted Desert and the Petrified Forest.

The area of the Petrified Forest was a vast floodplain many eons ago. Tall conifer trees grew along the banks. Crocodile-like reptiles, giant amphibians, and small dinosaurs lived among a variety of ferns, cycads and other plants and animals that we know today as fossils. As time wore on and climate change occurred, trees fell and swollen streams washed them into adjacent floodplains. A mix of silt, mud and volcanic ash buried the logs and replaced the original wood tissues with silica deposits. Eventually the silica crystallized into quartz and the logs were preserved as petrified wood.

Carla is standing near a huge petrified tree

These stumps are huge and guessing their weight would be difficult

The park has a walkway which they suggest you stay on

Since petrified logs are composed of quartz, they are hard and brittle, breaking easily when subjected to stress. The logs are surrounded by softer sedimentary layers. As the sediments shifted and settled, as well as tectonic movement, stress on the rigid logs caused fractures. Some believe these were caused by earthquakes or the gradual lifting of the Colorado Plateau. Crushing and decay sometimes left cracks in the logs. Here the growth of quartz crystals was not limited and larger crystals of clear quartz, purple amethyst, yellow citrine and smoky quartz formed. Once discovered, humans literally raped the area of a huge amount of these crystals to sell to makers of jewelry and such.

This is Stephen Tyng Mather who laid the foundation of the National Park Service, defining and establishing the policies under which its areas shall be developed and conserved unimpaired for future generations. 

This put an end to all the digging and taking of crystals and petrified wood from this area. It is said that tons of petrified wood was removed over the years only to be sold as souvenirs or kept as personal keepsakes.

"This is my petrified log!"

This is a sample of one of the critters who roamed the area eons ago

This creature is a Placerius hesternus (pla-sair-ee-us hes-tern-us) and was a dicynodont therapsid. Therapsids were large "reptiles" that possessed any mammalian characters including a "cheek" bone, enlarged canine teeth, and a specialized attachment of the skull to the spine. This massive plant-eater was up to 9 feet long and might have weighed as much as two tons. It is captioned as "Not Quite a Mammal."

Our first view of the Painted Desert - a continuation of the Petrified Forest

Nature has painted with a wide brush of many hues

It is indeed breath-taking scenery

A natural bridge across an arroyo made by a petrified log

A portion of that arroyo just too beautiful to pass up

Opportunities for photography abound

Notice the colors in layers like a cake

A shot of the river bed that probably helped create all this

This is known as the "Tepee" area of the park

A sample of the petroglyphs at Newspaper Rock near Puerco Pueblo

It is known that Puerco Pueblo was occupied twice, from 1100-1200 and 1300-1400, but Spanish explorers found no one here in 1540. Note: You can always click on the photo to enlarge it, as you might want to do with the petroglyphs for sure.

Are you beginning to understand why they call this "Newspaper Rock"?

"All the news that fits we print"

Looks like a party's going on!

They keep one well informed of different areas of the park

Just had to include this beautifully painted area

It is an ever changing scene around every curve

As we entered Otero County, New Mexico, we noticed what looked like a lava field such as we'd seen in Hawaii. Sure enough it is what is called the Carrizozo Malpais area of New Mexico and it is fascinating.

Carla gingerly inspecting a huge crevasse in the lava

"I don't see any critters, but it's deep!"

You can see by the photo that it goes on for miles

It looks like pudding frozen in time

Not much lives here but rabbits, snakes, scorpions and such

The National Park Department has built a raised trail above the lava flow which loops around and they have a brochure that points out areas of interest. Taking this trail is on my bucket list. We were just too tired from driving to do it this day. It is only about 60 miles from Alamogordo. This finishes our road trip!

Thanks to Doug for all the great photography!

This is all I have to say for now.