DAY 3:

On every road trip, there must be a horrifying motel experience. We arrived late in the evening at the Tucson Econo-Lodge just in time for one. The stone-faced Indian proprietor conducted all motel business with us through a small opening in the reception door (he wouldn’t let us inside the lobby). A police helicopter with searchlight cruised overhead. A seedy-looking drunk Hispanic couple tottered by us on the way to Circle K. With false bravado, we crossed ourselves, bolted our motel room doors shut, and burned sage. No one was dead in the morning, so I guess it all worked out.

The nightmare soon faded as we made our way to the Kartchner Caverns an hour south into barren desert. A bouffant-haired Sedona resident I’d met in a pharmacy had pointed at me with a bony finger and insisted we come here; I was not about to disobey. Discovered under an innocuous hill back in 1974, the caves were kept a strict secret from the public until about 1990, when they were opened as an Arizona State Monument. We were not mentally prepared for the wondrous sites laying below the earth – the colorful, textured handiwork of millions of years of dripping water was absolutely mind-boggling!

We pressed on to Tombstone with visions of a cowboy shootout at the OK Corral dancing in our heads. Unfortunately, man’s cheesy recreation of the Old West stood in stark contrast to nature’s amazing handiwork back at Kartchner. Knut & Soenke cruised the main street looking for a gunfight, carefully avoiding horse poop generated by the stagecoach ride. We chowed down at an authentic Western joint, then got out of Dodge.

We wrapped up the day with a proper road-trip sunset on our bumper, and the mighty Rio Grande river at the fore. Our driving enthusiasm finally burned out at Los Cruces, New Mexico. Feeling princessy after last night’s Econo-Hell, I upgraded us to an $85 executive room at our luxurious-in-comparison Best Western. Heaven, I tell you, HEAVEN.

DAY 4:

Today we learned that New Mexico is 90% barren, except of course for all the top-secret fishy U.S. government stuff going on deep underground, under lands that America permanently “borrowed” from the Indians. We drove through nothingness into more nothingness, breaking up the barren desolation with an interesting stop at the White Sands Military Range. Being a military facility, our IDs were checked and we were strictly instructed as to photography privileges (“only take pictures facing the mountains, ma’am”) as we browsed the totally cool Military Missile Park, with heightened interest of course placed on anything that wasn’t facing the mountain. I didn’t see anything out there except a top secret tractor and a few top secret bugs, but I’m sure there was something going on out there. The missiles were colorful and interesting, but it seemed a little anti-cheerful to be checking out instruments of death and destruction.

A few miles onward, we arrived at the actual White Sands for which the area is named. It was like a gigantic truck had dumped about 5,000 tons of pristine, extra-fine, white white white sand out in the middle of the desert. In total solitude, we charged up & down sand dunes in our bare feet… kicked the sand, fluffed the sand, photographed the sand, laid in the sand, ate the sand. (ok, only Knut ate the sand). Nature had wowed us once again.

Newly filthy, we pressed on to Alamagordo. Nothing there.

Finally…. hours later….we made it….. tired…. smelly….sandy…. to the world famous ROSWELL, NEW MEXICO. HOME OF THE 1947 ALIEN SPACESHIP CRASH. Home of the International UFO Research Museum. Home to thousands of tacky alien t-shirts. On full UFO alert, we scanned the skies for spaceships. We set up our UFO headquarters at the ‘totally posh’ Fairfield Inn. With the hotel’s free, homemade blueberry white chocolate cookies and our cheap princess suite, I could almost forgive Roswell for not producing any real aliens during our visit. But I get ahead of myself… that’s a story for day 6 !

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Photos follow:

The warm reception at the mail slot of Tuscon’s Econo Lodge:

We don’t know why either…

A small view of the incredible Kartchner Caverns:

An educational book in the Kartchner Caverns gift shop:

Tombstone relives the Old West:

We smuggle ourselves into a top-secret restricted area:

Investigating classified flying saucers and missiles:

No explanation needed:

Off to conquer the White Sands:

Lounging about in the sand:

We didn’t stay here but I like the sign:

A road trip sunset concludes a successful day: