Alamogordo NM to Willcox AZ

Although the expression 'pre-dawn' is not usually something I'd talk about, I just have to use it about this morning: I was at the Bosque del Apache Wildlife Refuge before 6:30 am. Now that's pre-dawn!

The Sand-Cranes, like many other water birds, head for water to sleep then head out to the fields to eat during the day. Yesterday we stuck around at sunset to see them congregate in the marshes. This morning, I wanted to see them heading off to the fields. Here's the group I was watching, pre-dawn! Most are hard at sleep, on one leg! Now here's a question for the Grandkids: How many ducks are there hiding among the Sand-Hill Cranes? [double click on the picture to see it larger if that helps]

These next guys are awake and walking around, limbering up before taking off. Another question for the Grandkids: What's strange about the big guy looking left? Have you noticed that he's standing on top of the water? I guess you can too when it's frozen, like this water was. It was funny to see some of the other cranes try to walk on the ice but most of them broke through with a splash! What fun!

Looking to the East, the skies were full of ducks, geese and cranes; I can still almost hear them; they sure are noisy!

Here's a group of cranes going off to breakfast, probably grain.

After about 7:30, I was frozen, and so were the camera batteries, so I drove back to the motel for breakfast and a shower, still shivering.

After about 10 am, we chose to drive State roads instead of the Interstate Highways, first because the Interstate had us going back East to Las Cruces NM, and secondly because these were 'starred driving routes' according to Rand McNally. The scenery was spectacular mountain ranges, very flat mesas, and lots of snow!

One of the notables of the day was crossing the Continental Watershed. In theory, that means we should be going downhill to California, but we climbed up to 8000, then 9000, and finally over 10,000 feet! Our ears were popping in and out for quite a while.

Mid-day, we drove through a ski area and the lady at the gas station said that this year's snow is very unusual because there's very little of it! We saw quite a few signs that stated that our road [St 191] was not patrolled or plowed at night, on weekends, or during storms. At first I suggested budget cuts, but as the day unfolded, I now suggest that it would have just been too dangerous! But i digress. Here's a little adobe church surrounded by day-old snow. I thought the cultural contrasts were interesting: the adobe church does belong in NM, by I didn't think that the snow did.

For a large part of the afternoon, the speed limit was 30 MPH or less! We even had miles at 20 MPH and it was a tough speed to maintain. We were climbing or going down very high mountains on a twisty road that seemed to be hooked to the side of the mountain! There were no additional warning signs for sharper corners, blind spots, or very steep grades. There was snow on both sides of the road, and in some shady spots, ice or packed snow on the road. I guess that at 20 MPH you're not likely to get into serious trouble, unless you blink! Just beside where this picture was made, the drop-off had to be hundreds of feet, and as everywhere else, no guard rail! Like I said, don't blink. [or look down for that matter!]

When we got near Morency AZ, we encountered steeper hills, we stopped to make a few pictures of a gold and copper mine that seemed to stretch for miles. This seemed to be strip mining and it made the landscape look pretty bad [oxymoron?]. However I thought this part abandoned for a few decades, had some very nice patterns made by chemical leaching. This was a very small area of a very large and ugly site.

This a view of the far wall of part of the mine. The squared off parts were strip-mined quite a while back. The smooth areas, are where huge dump trucks [probably 75 to 100 ton mine trucks] dumped the tailings to re-fill the huge scar left by the mining. It is kind on interesting to see how the dumping is making its own patterns.

Now we're in Wilcox AZ which is on Interstate 10, the right road west... There will be more big hills, but these have speed limits of 70 mph, not 20! So why does one feel more comfortable blinking at the higher speed?

Fudge time!