Feckoff.net

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.

I’m still baking to death in the New Mexico sun. Went to Roswell over the weekend, what a weird place. I discovered totally by accident that the Blackwater Draw is only down the road from me, as it was on the way to Roswell.
Also, I consumed far too much alcohol and spent most of Sunday nursing a hangover, which I am not used to at all. I think the altitude here in the high plains doesn’t help much there either!

p.s. Wordpress’s recently added automatic upgrade option is awesome.

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I leave for deepest darkest New Mexico bright and early tomorrow morning. Work is sending me there for about 3 months. Got a visa and everything sorted out for me last month. That said, I only have a one-way flight ticket! Its going to take about 24 hours and 4 airports to get to my destination. There’ll be some jet lag into the mix on top of that (its 7 time zones away from home), with a net result of me being shattered for a week or so.

I am looking forward to the weather there (averaging 35 degrees celsius daily) after the last few weeks of miserable downpours and floods in Ireland. I hope to take a few photos and stuff to put up here when I’m over there. Roswell is apparently only about 100 miles away! Sadly, Vegas is a bit further away at 800 miles.

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