On the way out of Mexico we stopped in San Carlos to spend a few days with our good friends on Sea Tern. They were there getting their boat ready for a quick cruise. It was fun visiting with them and helping them where we could on their projects. We meet up with some other friends on Rose Bud too. They were busy putting their boat to sleep for the summer. We all went out to dinner together. We went to a restaurant with a view of Bahia San Carlos from the second floor seating area. We all had a great meals and a fun get together.

The next day we left for the states. It was an easy drive up highway 15 to the crossing point. We then had to wait an hour before having the privilege of having the border guards search through our car and ask us the normal questions. Once through the border dance we beat feet to Tucson.

We spent several days visiting of our boating friends. This included a couple up and back to Mesa Arizona. Next we headed to Benson Arizona to visit more friends, then onto toward Anna Texas to visit my daughter and her family.

When we reached Las Cruces, New Mexico we reevaluated our driving route and decided to divert north and see some sights. After some research we discovered that just north and a little east was the White Sands National Monument, White Sands Missile Range Museum, the New Mexico Museum of Space History and finally the Three River Petroglyphs site. Plus it meant a nights stay in Roswell (The UFO Capitol) New Mexico. It was an easy decision to take this detour!

The first place on the route was the White Sands Missile Range Museum which was on an Air Force base. This required our identies to be checked out and the car searched because we had to enter the air base to go to the museum. The museum was excellent. It covered the US history of the development testing of missiles both for war time and space exploration. It started at the end of the WW II and is still going on. There is even a full sized German U2 rocket in a building by itself.

Next we continued up the valley to the White Sands National Monument. The 275 square area is totally white except for the vegetation. It was surreal to drive into an area that has white sand dunes larger then a house. This also reminded me a lot of bring in Minnesota in the winter after a good snow. Some mounds were glistening in the bright sun light to the extent it hurt your eyes. There were folks sliding down the slopes, cycling and off on walking hikes into the dunes. It was 85, too hot for us to go anywhere except in the car.

We got our room in Alamogordo, NM and decided we had time to visit the New Mexico Museum of Space History. The Museum is located NE of town and up on the side of the hill. This was an interesting museum with exhibits on different floors covering the evolution of space exploration. Outside there were several rocket examples of this evolution.

We had a long day ahead of us so we left early and headed to the Three River Petroglyphs site. It was good that thing we did as the day turned out to be quite warm and the petroglyphs were up on a rugged ridge and represented a one mile round trip hike up and down the trail. A guide is provided at the visitor center after paying the admisions fee. The guide indicates signposts along the trail to key Petroglyphs.

New Mexico Detour Pictures

We headed out to Roswell, along the way we stopped in Fort Stanton and tour the forts meseum and watched a video. Also we stopped briefly in Lincoln, but it was more of a tourist trap then a historic site. We made it into Roswell late in the day. We had a early dinner and got inside before the UFO's came out!

We headed to Abilene, Texas spent the night and then hooked up with the interstate highway system and soon reached Anna, Texas. We plan to stay at my daughters for a month.

Thanks for visiting our blog. More to follow for sure!