Ch 7 East New Mexico and West Texas

Travels with Jake – 2012

Chapter 7

East New Mexico and West Texas

Pine trees, Desert, Oil wells, Dust Feb 8 – 10

We made a rare early start after three nights at Alamagordo. Well, maybe on the road at 9:30 wasn't too bad! De-camping almost requires a checklist to keep from leaving chairs and table behind and driving away trailing hoses and cables. Stuff in the camper needs to be secured to keep it from flying about. Maps and guides, camera and GPS, sandwiches or treats and drinks for the road – all have to get into the truck. Has the dog been emptied? Is he on board? If we don't stay in one place very long, which is usually the case on this long tour of discovery, we do this packing up routine a lot. I'm starting to see why people stay in one place all season, but I reckon there will be plenty of time to camp that way when we're older. We usually plan a couple of accommodation options for the night, but you never know what might attract you before you get to one, or dissuade you from stopping at a planned destination. Being winter and off-season, once away from the major snowbird haunts we rarely have trouble finding a place for the night. So we finally start our ascent from Alamagordo, going up 4500' in 16 miles to Cloudcroft (elev. 9000') where we briefly pass through a new world of pine trees, ski fields, greenery and very cool weather. Patches of snow by the roadside, and it’s as if we are back in parts of BC - an amazing contrast from the arid high desert we just left behind. Very pretty scenery and a funky town with a kind of 60s feel to it, suitable for alternate people. The long gradual descent begins as we weave our way through farmland then ranching country, passing through the crossroads town of Artesia, with its many bronze sculptures in public areas. Soon the scrub takes over in the increasingly arid climate and then a new industry takes over. Approaching the New Mexico – Texas border we are soon surrounded by oil wells, their pump-jacks bobbing up and down. The air is filled with the unpleasant smell of crude, big dirty-white pickups pulling trailers filled with pipe hurry to the next drilling site, trash and litter everywhere. It’s really quite awful. As we pass into west Texas, it gets even worse. There are lots of people working supplying the needs of the industry but the public prosperity seems lacking. All that money is getting pumped out of the ground and the locals don't seem to be getting much of it. The wells are everywhere, and each 'nodding donkey' requires electricity, so there are power poles and small substations everywhere too. Some oil sites have gas flares burning, some new wells are still being drilled just a few hundred metres from existing pumps. Everything is dirty, there is trash everywhere, and it stinks. Meanwhile, the West Texans, who are fond of their big white muddy trucks, drive as fast as they can get away with. Nothing delicate or light-footed about these folks! We are coming to learn that eco appears to be an unrecognized term in these parts. In fairness, the land isn't much good for any agriculture, but it sure ain't pretty now. It became one of those days where we just kept driving past town after town hoping that we might find one at least partly pleasant before nightfall. In west Texas, that's a struggle, and we ended up in Big Spring where the truck-stop was dreadful, the State Park closed to campers, and the Walmart parking lot just tolerable. It certainly was a day of contrasts and we looked back fondly towards New Mexico.

The next morning, there being nothing to hold us there, we set off to the Southeast and before long found ourselves in San Angelo. The oil wells had diminished but the land was still not particularly scenic. A historic attraction in this town was the reconstructed Fort Concho which we toured. It was a typical US army fort built during the 1800s and had been manned by some of the troops of the Indian Wars of the 1880s. The fort is well preserved/restored and the staff, dressed in period costume, were knowledgeable, so we came away with a better understanding of that part of the Old West's history. After this midday cultural fix, we continued southeast to the town of Brady where our discount RV park book promised us a park right “in the heart of Texas”. This town must be in some kind of vortex, being in the geographical centre of the state with ranches and oil wells swirling all around and not much going on right there in the centre of it all. The RV park was typical of many we had seen driving down the secondary roads of Texas in that it housed full-time residents who were down on their luck. Whereas the Snowbird RV parks are populated with retired, generally prosperous folk, this one was populated by people of working age that weren’t. Everyone we met at the park was friendly and nobody objected to Jake having an off-leash frisbee game. The camp host told Heather that she needn’t worry about the woman next door. “She never comes out”, he said, which really got us wondering just what it was we shouldn’t be worried about! There were no Mexican gardeners and cleanup crews here, and the litter flying around in the wind under cloudy skies contributed to a somewhat depressing scene. We took Jake for a walk around the neighbourhood in the late afternoon and he caused quite a commotion. About every third house had a mix-breed dog behind a chain-link fence and Jake really got them revved up. Before long, the whole neighbourhood was a cacophony of barks and howls, and with a scattering of dead cars and refrigerators decorating the landscape, the poverty was palpable. No, if this is the heart of Texas, it might need surgery. Maybe it’s because the poorer parts of this country aren't hiding behind walls and therefore we see it more clearly, but it does seem to be the norm sometimes. I’m sorry to leave you on a negative note, but that’s the way west Texas was for us. This is a Reality Read, after all. Tune in next time and we can tell you about how quickly impressions can change, and for the better!