Showtime!

It has come time to write about bats. Yes bats. We have our very own bat crack! Who needs Carlesbad Caverns to see bats? There is a colony that returns every spring to inhabit a slender crack between two old buildings here. The dusk brings them out to look for bugs and they come out in droves. It is the sound you hear first. The high pitched chirps as they begin to stir, then the rustling as they make their way to the dying light. Just before nightfall they begin, only a few at first, then they begin to spill from the crack and fill the sky. Last summer it began to attract a following and many people gathered to sit on their tailgates to watch the show or photograph the hundreds of bats that appear nightly.

Spirit Gates

In New Mexico you will see a lot of gates that are painted blue-or more precisely, turquoise. The belief is that the blue gates keep the evil spirits out.

Nuckleweed

I found my self alone for the whole day today! I rarely have a free day, so I called my sister and we decided to drive up Laborcita Canyon. Up past Burro Flats we encountered a sign that intrigued us.

A bit further we saw the second sign. On a whim we stopped and discovered a great new little place! They had just opened last weekend. Luckily for us we had not had breakfast. It is VERY off the beaten path. They explained that they opened to serve the canyon residents and were going to put in a small store also. We were treated to gourmet coffee ( a rare find indeed in these parts) and a plate of fresh fruit while we examined the menu. After deciding upon a veggie omelet and biscuits with gravy, we took a look around..

What strikes you first in the small mobile home turned restaurant is the amazing tables!

(see Jennifer at one) The owner told us that they had discovered them in a shop in Hondo. The man made them from teak trees that had been blown over from the Tsunami in Indonesia. They are beautiful thick slices of a rich red. The staff was wonderful and while were there, the small dining area was full. The owners told us that it was their second weekend open and they had not advertized yet . Word is echoing down the canyon and more people came in for lunch. They grilled the burgers out on the porch and it smelled wonderful. It was fun to discover and we will definitely be back!

Rock Fountain

This is an old rock fountain on the main road through town, Hwy 54/70. It worked when I was a kid-Ok I admit the late 60's? Anyway, it stands, mostly ignored. If you take a closer look...

There is a myriad of wonderful stones imbedded in the old fountain. Petrified wood, chunks of green that may be Trinitite, geodes and brilliantly colored rocks of all sorts. If you are driving through Alamogordo, take a look. The building where it is located was an old motel in the 1930's I am told. It morphed into several businesses and parts of it were torn down. My earliest memory of it was a bunch of shops, one a hippie sandal store. More of it was torn down until only one side of the u U-shaped building remained. It was a post office, a leather store and yes, a rock shop. It currently houses a real estate company and alteration shop.

Stealth Rock Art

Since I mentioned the Air Force and our planes yesterday, today you get to see a left over tribute to the Stealth fighters. If you look around you do see traces of the past.. This rock art would not make any sense if you did not know about the Stealth. They were beautiful in the sky and I miss their distinctive shape. They always seemed so cutting edge that it was hard to believe the planes were 25 years old when retired.

View over Alamogordo

I took this picture this morning from the Space Hall looking over Alamogordo towards the southwest. It looks peaceful. We have about 40,000 people here including Holloman AFB. We are a military town. Along with Holloman we have White Sands Missle Range, HELSTF and a bit of army lurking from Ft. Bliss. We are isolated somewhat, with the nearest airport being in El Paso about 90 miles away. We were home to the Stealth fighters before they retired and now they are in the process of bring in the Predators and the Raptors.

The Ink Well

An Alamogordo institution has gone the way of the dinosaur. We will miss it. The Ink Well has been in business here for 53 years. A true family owned small town store where you could buy one envelope, one sheet of pink paper, and any color of pen you desired. They sold all office supplies and fixed machines. They were great to their employees and had several that had been there 30 and 40 years! I guess I am also at the end of a generation that would even have an inkling of what an ink well was. Good Luck and Farewell.