Road Trip
by Steve on Sep.09, 2009, under Photos, Real Life™, Travel
I’m still in America, and this weekend just past was their Labor Day holiday, which meant a 3-day weekend for me. I ended up going on a nice road trip with a few other Irish ex-pats here, it was fantastic. We went from Clovis to Ruidoso, where we stopped off for some food and watched a few horse races. After a couple of hours there we went on to the White Sands National Monument (and, er, missile range). This is the single most surreal place I have ever seen in my life. The white sand in question is not actually sand, but fine gypsum powder. It is unique to New Mexico. Here’s a photo:
And another for good measure:
We then spent the night in Las Cruces, New Mexico where some drinking was done. The following morning we continued south to El Paso, Texas, which is right on the Mexican border. From there we stopped by Fort Hancock, Texas – the place where Andy Dufresne sent his postcard back to prison before crossing the border after he escaped in The Shawshank Redemption. Despite not crossing the border, we got stopped by the US Border Patrol about 20 miles north of the border as we were heading back towards New Mexico. If we hadn’t got our passports with us that would have resulted in hours of waiting around while they verified that we are allowed to be in the country.
A few hours later we arrived in Carlsbad, New Mexico, but by then it was too late to go into the famous caverns. We did get to watch about half a million Mexican free-tailed bats exiting the cave for the evening though, which was pretty spectacular. We spent the night in Carlsbad and returned to the Caverns in the morning. It took a few hours to tour the caverns but was well worth it. The caverns are both a US national park and a UNESCO world heritage site.
Next stop was the Bottomless Lakes state park outside Roswell. Another beautiful spot, and the closest thing to the seaside you’ll find in landlocked New Mexico.
After that it was finally time to head home, after 3 days and approximately 850 miles. Good times! Lots more pictures on flickr.
September 10th, 2009 on 16:13
Well aren’t you deadly your “America” (actually I’m just jealous), Ireland just plain sucks at the moment, fucking politicians are a bunch of expense grabbing whores, I hate FF with a fucking passion and the same with those Green gobshites. Carbon Tax! Sure how about you put a decent fucking transport system in place first and give people an alternative! Fucking assholes, I’m hoping for a french revolution style up rising where we all run Biffo out on his arse and out of our fucking life! Anyway I digress, just wish I was out of this country at the moment.
September 10th, 2009 on 16:18
You’re preaching to the choir here my friend.
I hope the current state of play annihilates FF for at least a generation or two, but to be honest I haven’t got that much faith in the Irish people who constantly re-elect the fuckers.
September 10th, 2009 on 16:20
Well voting No to Lisbon will really fuck them up! Not that that’s the reason I’ll be voting no, but it’s good that it fucks things up for them too
September 10th, 2009 on 16:21
Unfortunately I’ll still be over here when the referendum is held. Not a hope of them giving me a postal vote either.