We arrived at Carlsbad Caverns too late to make the ¾ mile steep windy descent into the natural cave entrance so we had to take the more leisurely 1 minute descent in the elevator. These caves are huge. I read somewhere that the main cave is big enough to fit the Golden Gate. You take a self guided tour through the cave with an audio option. It does a loop around the perimeter of the cave which takes 
about 1½ hours to stroll around. There are many limestone formations of all shapes and sizes which are amazing. One small part looks just like a scene out of the old TV program Stingray. Only thing missing was the water, Troy Tempest, and of course Marina swimming by.
The sun was starting to set as we returned to ground level. Walking back to the camper Marty started making as few muttering sounds and when he reached the trailer he gave the wheel a kick and said “I don’t bloody believe it”. The tyre gremlin hadn’t finished with us. Another tyre change was made in the fading light of day.
We spent the next morning searching for a tyre shop that had the necessary camper tyres. Success at the last one we tried in Carlsbad, so while the tyre replacing was going on I shot across the road to the launderette and did the weekly wash. I think it was more exciting than hanging around the tyre shop for an hour.
We made it to Roswell by 3pm so that gave us time to check out the UFO museum. Roswell was the scene of an alleged alien spacecraft crash landing in 1947. It was made especially notable because of the Air Forces extreme lengths to cover it up. The museum consists of mainly newspaper and eye witness reports of the event. You are left to decide for yourself. We both had our doubts but these were completely removed the next day when we saw an alien in Roswell. It was disguised as a woman on a bicycle but one look at her face and it was instantly recognizable as alien from the pictures taken of the 1947 crash. So Roswell does deserve its title as the Alien centre of the world because they are alive and well there today.
We headed west on Billy the Kid Scenic Byway. At times this looked very similar to the landscape in Otago. The camper was made to work hard in a few places as it was quite mountainous – and wet. We parked up in the Oliver Lee 
Memorial State Park which gave us awesome views over the Tularosa Basin and access to a hike into Dog Canyon over the trail used by 
people for thousands of years to get from the Tularosa basin into the Sacramento Mountains. It was also the site of several skirmishes between the US Calvary and the Apache Indians. We only did part of the trail but the views were spectacular. The next day we did another small hike to Oliver Lees’ ranch house. He owned over 1 million acres before going bankrupt in the great depression. . He was quite a legend in the area, even being tried for the murder of a political opponent and his young son. He was acquitted but the mystery remains……
From the lofty heights of Dog
Canyon we moved 
onto the White Sands Monument also in the Tularosa Basin. These are massive sand dunes covering about 275sq miles. The thing that makes them unique is that the sand is made of gypsum. They are quite a sight.
A little further up the road is the White Sands Missile Museum. As you would expect this is a museum dedicated to displaying the US’s missile history. There is an outside area filled with missiles dating back to the 50’s. This is the only area you can take photos and then only if you are facing the Organ Mountains. I didn’t bother. One building had a restored V 2 rocket in it from WW 2. The Americans took all the German V2 parts after the war as the rocket factory was in the Russian sector and the bits arrived in the US in record time. The main museum building had all sorts of missile info but also a section on the pioneer families that lived in the area before the government took the land for military purposes after WW2. That was much more interesting to me than a bunch of missiles that all looked pretty much the same.
We spent the next couple of days in the little town of La Mesilla, on the outskirts of Las Cruces 
with Dick and Linda Casey, friends we had met through the AJS and Matchless Club. Dick took us on a great ride around the local area. We went over the San Augustin Pass to Aguire Springs Reserve which gave us a view over the missile base we had visited the day before and an up close look at the Organ Mountains. It was a nice windy road into the park. We then rode through another canyon on the other side of the mountains to Dripping Water National Forest. The guy in the info centre told us the history of the area and of a couple of great hikes but unfortunately we didn’t have the time, nor did the guys have the inclination.
Silver City was our next port of call. Silver was discovered in the area in the 1870’s and thus the town was born. A devastating flood washed away the city’s main street in 1906. Only one building survived. What used to be Main Street is now known as the Big Ditch. It lies some 55 feet below street level. We spent a quiet afternoon browsing through the numerous second hand shops and numerous craft shops that now line the main shopping area. There are 31 small art galleries in town. According to the camp host where we were staying, San Francisco is moving here and did we see any of them. By that he meant artistic gays and lesbians now living in town and he wasn’t that happy about it.
From Silver City it was a 2hr ride up to the Gila Cliff Dwellings so we packed lunch and set off. The first part of the road was quite slippery with ice, loose 
gravel and clumps of damp pine needles. A couple of times I 
thought we were going to be horizontal again. Marty said that he could feel me trying to steer the bike from the pillion seat but I have to disagree. I was just bracing myself in case. Not necessary as we made it to the car park without incident.
There is a half mile hike
up to the caves which we managed without any effort at all. Views for Africa. The caves were built by the Mogollon’s (Moggy-on) around 1276. By luck we timed our arrival at the caves in time to go on a ranger guided tour. It was excellent. Very informative and interesting. We walked down with the ranger and he introduced us to Sam the local lizard and continued to tell us interesting facts about the area. We stopped at another site on the road out and hiked into a smaller cave dwelling and onto see some rock paintings. We also got to see two more lizards happily sunning themselves and more than happy to be observed until Marty let rip and they scurried for cover. We also got to see a tarantula on the path.
We took a slightly different route home at the suggestion of our camp hosts. She had said it wasn’t any further and we would get to see Lake Roberts and the copper mine at Santa Clara. The copper mine was huge and has been in operation since the 1800’s. It is over a mile wide and just as deep. We didn’t linger too long here as the sun was setting and the temperature dropping. 
It turned out that it was an extra 42 miles coming back the way we did but the scenery was great and the road a little better than the morning’s route.
Since we had become such enthusiastic hikers our next stop, after leaving Silver City, was The Catwalk. This is a 3 mile round trip following the old pipeline route built in the late 1890’s to bring water from 3 miles up in the canyon down to the silver mill at Whitewater. There were remnants of the old pipeline still visible along the way from steel bars in the cliffs to broken pipe in the riverbed. It was a picturesque walk and despite the information board saying it was a moderately difficult trail with some steep inclines we found it a piece of cake. Are we getting fit?? Somehow I don’t think so.
From here we pressed on towards Arizona. It wasn’t a quick trip as the last 40 odd miles seemed to be all uphill. The highest altitude we reached was 8500 feet.
By the time we reached Arizona it was raining and cold. Maybe this was the start of the storm we had been warned about. Looks like the thermals we had bought a few days ago are going to be handy after all.
about 1½ hours to stroll around. There are many limestone formations of all shapes and sizes which are amazing. One small part looks just like a scene out of the old TV program Stingray. Only thing missing was the water, Troy Tempest, and of course Marina swimming by.The sun was starting to set as we returned to ground level. Walking back to the camper Marty started making as few muttering sounds and when he reached the trailer he gave the wheel a kick and said “I don’t bloody believe it”. The tyre gremlin hadn’t finished with us. Another tyre change was made in the fading light of day.
We spent the next morning searching for a tyre shop that had the necessary camper tyres. Success at the last one we tried in Carlsbad, so while the tyre replacing was going on I shot across the road to the launderette and did the weekly wash. I think it was more exciting than hanging around the tyre shop for an hour.
We made it to Roswell by 3pm so that gave us time to check out the UFO museum. Roswell was the scene of an alleged alien spacecraft crash landing in 1947. It was made especially notable because of the Air Forces extreme lengths to cover it up. The museum consists of mainly newspaper and eye witness reports of the event. You are left to decide for yourself. We both had our doubts but these were completely removed the next day when we saw an alien in Roswell. It was disguised as a woman on a bicycle but one look at her face and it was instantly recognizable as alien from the pictures taken of the 1947 crash. So Roswell does deserve its title as the Alien centre of the world because they are alive and well there today.
We headed west on Billy the Kid Scenic Byway. At times this looked very similar to the landscape in Otago. The camper was made to work hard in a few places as it was quite mountainous – and wet. We parked up in the Oliver Lee 
Memorial State Park which gave us awesome views over the Tularosa Basin and access to a hike into Dog Canyon over the trail used by 
people for thousands of years to get from the Tularosa basin into the Sacramento Mountains. It was also the site of several skirmishes between the US Calvary and the Apache Indians. We only did part of the trail but the views were spectacular. The next day we did another small hike to Oliver Lees’ ranch house. He owned over 1 million acres before going bankrupt in the great depression. . He was quite a legend in the area, even being tried for the murder of a political opponent and his young son. He was acquitted but the mystery remains……From the lofty heights of Dog
Canyon we moved 
onto the White Sands Monument also in the Tularosa Basin. These are massive sand dunes covering about 275sq miles. The thing that makes them unique is that the sand is made of gypsum. They are quite a sight.A little further up the road is the White Sands Missile Museum. As you would expect this is a museum dedicated to displaying the US’s missile history. There is an outside area filled with missiles dating back to the 50’s. This is the only area you can take photos and then only if you are facing the Organ Mountains. I didn’t bother. One building had a restored V 2 rocket in it from WW 2. The Americans took all the German V2 parts after the war as the rocket factory was in the Russian sector and the bits arrived in the US in record time. The main museum building had all sorts of missile info but also a section on the pioneer families that lived in the area before the government took the land for military purposes after WW2. That was much more interesting to me than a bunch of missiles that all looked pretty much the same.
We spent the next couple of days in the little town of La Mesilla, on the outskirts of Las Cruces 
with Dick and Linda Casey, friends we had met through the AJS and Matchless Club. Dick took us on a great ride around the local area. We went over the San Augustin Pass to Aguire Springs Reserve which gave us a view over the missile base we had visited the day before and an up close look at the Organ Mountains. It was a nice windy road into the park. We then rode through another canyon on the other side of the mountains to Dripping Water National Forest. The guy in the info centre told us the history of the area and of a couple of great hikes but unfortunately we didn’t have the time, nor did the guys have the inclination.
Silver City was our next port of call. Silver was discovered in the area in the 1870’s and thus the town was born. A devastating flood washed away the city’s main street in 1906. Only one building survived. What used to be Main Street is now known as the Big Ditch. It lies some 55 feet below street level. We spent a quiet afternoon browsing through the numerous second hand shops and numerous craft shops that now line the main shopping area. There are 31 small art galleries in town. According to the camp host where we were staying, San Francisco is moving here and did we see any of them. By that he meant artistic gays and lesbians now living in town and he wasn’t that happy about it.
From Silver City it was a 2hr ride up to the Gila Cliff Dwellings so we packed lunch and set off. The first part of the road was quite slippery with ice, loose 
gravel and clumps of damp pine needles. A couple of times I 
thought we were going to be horizontal again. Marty said that he could feel me trying to steer the bike from the pillion seat but I have to disagree. I was just bracing myself in case. Not necessary as we made it to the car park without incident.There is a half mile hike
up to the caves which we managed without any effort at all. Views for Africa. The caves were built by the Mogollon’s (Moggy-on) around 1276. By luck we timed our arrival at the caves in time to go on a ranger guided tour. It was excellent. Very informative and interesting. We walked down with the ranger and he introduced us to Sam the local lizard and continued to tell us interesting facts about the area. We stopped at another site on the road out and hiked into a smaller cave dwelling and onto see some rock paintings. We also got to see two more lizards happily sunning themselves and more than happy to be observed until Marty let rip and they scurried for cover. We also got to see a tarantula on the path.
We took a slightly different route home at the suggestion of our camp hosts. She had said it wasn’t any further and we would get to see Lake Roberts and the copper mine at Santa Clara. The copper mine was huge and has been in operation since the 1800’s. It is over a mile wide and just as deep. We didn’t linger too long here as the sun was setting and the temperature dropping. 
It turned out that it was an extra 42 miles coming back the way we did but the scenery was great and the road a little better than the morning’s route.Since we had become such enthusiastic hikers our next stop, after leaving Silver City, was The Catwalk. This is a 3 mile round trip following the old pipeline route built in the late 1890’s to bring water from 3 miles up in the canyon down to the silver mill at Whitewater. There were remnants of the old pipeline still visible along the way from steel bars in the cliffs to broken pipe in the riverbed. It was a picturesque walk and despite the information board saying it was a moderately difficult trail with some steep inclines we found it a piece of cake. Are we getting fit?? Somehow I don’t think so.
From here we pressed on towards Arizona. It wasn’t a quick trip as the last 40 odd miles seemed to be all uphill. The highest altitude we reached was 8500 feet.
By the time we reached Arizona it was raining and cold. Maybe this was the start of the storm we had been warned about. Looks like the thermals we had bought a few days ago are going to be handy after all.
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