Deep Southwest

Roll up, roll up, for the next episode of our continuing adventures circumnavigating the United States of America. In this instalment we head west through Arizona and New Mexico, with a little toe-dip into Texas:

What did you call me?

• Tucson seems like a pretty cool town. It’s the second biggest city in Arizona, after Phoenix, which based on the hour of concrete blandness it took to drive through, does not seem like a pretty cool town. Tucson is only about 60 miles north of the border, and hence has a strong Mexican feel.

• The main reason for visiting Tucson was Saguaro National Park, a cactus wonderland in two parts on either part of the city. We visited the smaller western unit, and enjoyed a couple of short hikes while hoping every rustle in the undergrowth wasn’t a rattlesnake. I knew you’d ask which cactus was our favourite: three-way tie between the park’s namesake Saguaro, the purple-flowering Prickly Pear, and the wacky-looking Chain-Fruit Cholla.

View from Casa Javelina

• There’s loads of good activities and day-trips in Tucson: we could have done with a couple of extra days. We unfortunately didn’t get to see the real-life science experiment Biosphere II, or the OK Corral at Tombstone, but did make it to the Desert Museum, a zoo on the outskirts of town featuring coyotes and the rather choice javelina.

• Tucson also featured a Kitty milestone: her first unassisted steps. The glorious event happened on a practice putting green at a campground, and anyone with Arizona in the sweepstake can contact the editor to redeem their prize.

Tastes about 72 times better than it looks

• Tucson’s claim to culinary fame is the Sonoran Dog, a sausage wrapped in bacon with beans, tomatoes and chile. We hit up the most famous vendor in town, El Guero Canelo, and wished we’d ordered two each.

• We crossed the border into New Mexico and headed for Alamogordo, past the marvelously named town of Truth or Consequences. Alamogordo is the biggest town near White Sands National Monument. We visited White Sands in 2005 on the Route 66 roadie, and had always wanted to see it again. The sands are gypsum, and finer, harder-packed, and much whiter and brighter than normal sand. Mo enjoyed having a go at sledding down the dunes (our campground had sleds to borrow), and playing nature detective with the various lizard, bird and rodent tracks on the sand.

Sisters are dune it for themselves

• The White Sands day started well, but then turned to custard with a sub-optimal Champions League final, a truly awful fast food meal (Long John Silver’s, who admittedly did have excellent paper pirate hats), and then mucking up the timing of trying to go back to White Sands for a sunset walk just as the park closed.

• We got the truck serviced in Alamogordo. We’ve only had it for about 8 weeks, but have done close to 10,000kms, and towing the trailer is a pretty hard life. We needed new rear shocks and a few other minor fixes, and we’ll probably book in another service at the 2/3rds point of the trip.

• New Mexico burger chain Blake’s Lotaburger is famous for their green chile cheeseburger, which is pretty tasty. Plucky up-and-coming competitor McDonald’s offers a knock-off version in NM too.

• Next stop was Carlsbad, NM, the closest major town to two National Parks: Carlsbad Caverns, and Guadalupe Mountains, the latter just over the border into Texas.

• Carlsbad is also close to the town of Roswell, location of an alleged UFO crash and government cover-up in the 50s. We came this way on the Route 66 trip, and were tempted to go back and revisit the museum, but its centrepiece, a recreated alien autopsy scene, is not especially family-friendly.

CKANP form

• Guadalupe Mountains is one of the least visited parks, but it has some great hiking. We did some solid CKANP action with our longest hike of the trip so far. We saw a few lizards, a hawk, and a toad, and were glad we just spotted mountain lion poo rather than where it originated.

• The Carlsbad Caverns themselves are fantastic. An elevator takes you down the equivalent of 75 stories to some kitschy 50s concession stands, and then into a 90 minute trail round the Big Room, the Northern Hemisphere’s biggest limestone cave. Whether you’re fond of stalagmites, stalactites, or columns, you’re in luck, with cracking examples of every type of speleothem abounding. The Big Room has lovely cathedral acoustics, with a calming quiet only broken by the odd drop of water forming another –mite or –tite. Oh yeah, and by Kitty screeching like a banshee: sorry about that, other cavern visitors.

Cavern Club

• There’s some weird weather in the States at the moment. We’re glad we’re well away from the tornadoes that have hit the Midwest (fingers crossed); the worst we’ve had are some meaty electrical storms (toes crossed). The pattern in Carlsbad has been the same for three days: hot, sunny, clear days, and then mucho thunder, lightning and the odd bit of hail at 7pm sharp.

• Unfortunately this scuppered our plans for Carlsbad Caverns’ second attraction. An adjoining cave is home in summer to 300,000 Mexican bats, and every evening they fly out of the cave entrance in a ‘bat tornado’ in search of a tasty moth dinner. Neither the bats nor us are partial to lightning storms, so we’ll have to put this one on the ‘next time’ list.

Ranger ranger! High voltage!

• For the record, New Mexico has comfortably the nation’s best state flag, and the two coolest numberplate designs in the country: a lovely yellow logo on turquoise number, and a cracking alternate boasting about their excellent chiles.

• Stats fans, you’ll be pleased to know we’ve clocked up 17 National Parks so far (and a National Monument for good measure), and Mo just landed her 6th Junior Ranger badge at Carlsbad Caverns.

• Join us for the next exciting instalment from Texas, which will include some kooky desert art installations and most likely a whole lot of Bar-B-Q.

BEERWATCH: The Colorado craft scene’s enthusiasm for Belgian and German styles has pleasingly continued in AZ and NM. Tucson’s Borderlands pick up a bronze for their very moreish “Citrana” gose, which has a good dose of salt and lime for a southwestern spin. Silver heads to Albuquerque, NM’s Marble Brewery for their double white ale, whose higher ABV gives the classic orange and coriander notes a hint of the Dubbel. This week’s gold medalist is Mother Road Brewing in Flagstaff, AZ for “Lost Highway” double black IPA, a super tasty drop that was a bit like eating a chocolate pinecone.

Yeee-hah!

MO’S PLAYGROUND REVIEWS: The Lordsburg and Alamogordo KoA’s both get commendations for having pools with big shallow ends built for kids. Alamogordo wins for having a load of pool noodles and inflatable rings, one of which got blown out of the pool and came flying past our trailer in the weird and unexpected dust storm that may or may not have broken out in meteorological protest against overly officious handball judgments in major football games. Merit badge to the Carlsbad KoA for this rather choice horsey tyre swing.

SUPERMARKET SWEEP: Safeway tends to have an excellent beer section. One nice feature in a couple of stores we’ve visited has been the opportunity to make up your own reusable mixed six-pack for $10 from a range of twenty or thirty local cans or bottles. It’s a great way to try a range of new things, especially for a beer-curious traveler. Trader Joe’s and a few other stores allow you to break down multipacks and buy individual units, another good way to sample a bunch of things.

I'd love to stay in touch, I just don't want to leave my car. Wait a minute...

ONLY IN AMERICA CORNER: I am very much an Americanophile (if you hadn’t already guessed from our decision to spend six months and lots of the bank’s money on this trip), but there are lots of things that are very wrong, and lots more that are very silly about this place. In the latter camp, we thought that drive-thru ATMs were a little unnecessary, and then we came across our first drive-thru mailbox…