Today we ventured out to the Petroglyph site about 40 miles north of Alamogordo (which means Fat Cottonwood, FYI).
The park was desolate, a few hills in the desert, but we parked and found the park volunteer who directed us up a dirt path, onto hills of what looked like volcanic rocks.
Since we had climbed down into Carlsbad Cavern the day before, our climbing muscles were starting to feel over-worked. We whined, but managed to climb to the top of
the hill and discovered many examples of the native carvings. There were pictures of rattlesnakes, big horn sheep , masks, hunters and Thunderbirds.After the petroglyph site, we headed north for Capitan and the Smokey Bear Historic Park. Smokey was found in the Lincoln National Forest and is buried in Capitan. We walked through the visitor center and saw his gravesite and then drove to Ruidoso where we walked the streets and visited some of the quaint shops. Lots of Republican commentary in the windows so I felt safe in this town.
We drove down the mountain and on the way home stopped at a Pistachio farm. Not only do they grow pistachios, but also make their own wine. We tasted some of the wine and found it to be excellent so bought bottles of Merlot and Chardonnay (Heart of the Dessert Wine) and
some pistachios.
It was surprising to see pistachio orchards in the dessert, but apparently the pistachio is native to New Mexico. A surprise to us. Tomorrow we are going to visit the Space Museum and White Sands Monument.
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