Oliver Lee Ranch, White Sands and more mongollon art in New Mexico

As we were leaving UTEP in El Paso, one of the helpful docents who was explaining the connection between UTEP and Bhutan, commented on the weather. He said we had nice weather, but it was going to get bad over the week plus. I naively asked, "What constitutes "bad" weather? Was it cold temps, storms?" He shook his head and said, "Wind." I, still naive, thought to myself, wind? Surely wind alone is not enough to make the weather "bad". I had much to learn…

The state park was nestled in against the Sacramento mountains and I saw pictures of the area, especially the mountains, looking beautiful, but to be truthful, it really wasn't while we were there. It was windy, it was cloudy, it was cold (mostly in the 40s with a 15-20 mi/hr wind). There was a bit of sun, but not much. So we tried to make do. No biking, too windy. One hike up to a spring on the mountainside. Exploring the namesake ranch. Visiting Pistachioland, a pistachio orchard with the world's largest pistachio, (we don't need to do that again, it was school vacation for NM and was mobbed because there wasn't anything else to do!) a hike with more petroglyphs at Three Rivers SP and a big day at White Sands NP. Ooops, I forgot, we did bike at White Sands even though the wind was blowing so hard I thought it might knock us over 🙄 it didn't and it turned out to be one of the highlights of our stay.

As we travel we frequently listen to recorded books sometimes we listen in the evening as well. We were listening to "Don Quixote" while we were at Oliver Lee SP. Why am I bringing this up, you ask? It does seem random, but there is a connection, I promise. This SP was a ranch, one of the earliest in that area of NM and fairly successful for being in a desert. 🏜️ I don't understand how they even thought they could raise cattle in the desert??? That aside, at one point in the late 60s - early 70s Disney came along and wanted to use the property for a movie they were making. The movie was called "Scandalous John" and had, among other things, a loosely based Don Quixote theme. What kind of coincidence is that? Of course we watched it. It was pretty bad, but still fun under the circumstances.

On to pics.

We arrived at our new campground, Oliver Lee SP just in time for another beautiful sunset. Note the preponderance of clouds though …that was a portent of things to come …

The Sacramento mountains on a sunny afternoon.

The spring on the mountain.

We saw a gray fox on our hike to the spring. It went up the side of the wash and then dissolved into the desert scrub.

That was about it for blue skies at the campground…

Another day's late sunburst breaking through the clouds and hitting the mountains.

Myrtle's all tucked in.

Pistachio orchard

An old press, apparently they also make pistachio oil (?) 🤷

The remains of last year's harvest.

The world's largest pistachio.Note: it's not a real pistachio. 😂

Some of the remains from the ranch. The main ranch house itself has been restored, but I didn't take any pics of that (🙄).

They had a special event on Saturday, an open house with tours and activities planned, but it was pretty cold so it was sparsely attended.

Martin is trying some cowboy coffee. He said it was warm, which was good since it was a bit chilly and windy, but he wasn't going to be replacing his cappuccino with it anytime soon. 😂

Some birds in the area. Note how puffed up they are, have I mentioned it was cold and windy?

Spotted Towhee

The doves were extremely vocal …

Here's one perched on a banana yucca blossom

and speaking of banana yucca blossoms …

New cactus for us, a strawberry mound cactus

Looks like I'm going to get to see cacti in bloom soon 🤞

White Sands NP

We kept checking the weather forecast hoping for a nice day so we cou)ld go to White Sands and ride our bikes around the loop. We got one! Ok, it was a bit chilly still and again the wind (🙄) made the 16 mile loop feel more like a 46 mile loop (🌬️🚵😳) … but we made it, the wind did not knock us off our bikes and the pics look great!

It looked so much like snow with the drifting and patterning of the sand. I'd have to keep making mental adjustments that it was 50°F and not 20°F!

Martin and our bikes. Martin's on a snowbank, I mean sand dune. Haha

The picnic area where we had lunch. The shelters had this very atomic mod sort of vibe to them.

They literally plow the parking lot. Families come for the day with sleds and the kids slide down the banks.

After lunch we continued our tour, stopping at a couple of spots for some hikes.

And then we had to try out the sledding ourselves 😂

We went on a ranger led sunset walk that was really interesting and we learned a bunch. I'll only bore you with a few things (😁). The sands are white from the gypsum in the mountains on either side of the valley, the Sacramento and the San Andreas. And a point that I thought was really interesting, there is underground water in the White Sands area. The water table is quite high. You can dig down a few feet and hit water. There is a natural chemical attraction of the gypsum sand to the water. As long as the underground water remains, the "white sands'' will stay in that area, no matter the direction or strength of the wind. If something happens to that water … the White Sands of White Sands NP will blow away. Here's hoping that never happens!

Three Rivers SP

There were literally thousands of petroglyphs by the Jordana mongollon peoples. These are the same people that created those incredible pictogram masks at Hueco Tanks. Many of the petroglyphs demonstrate very sophisticated techniques and artistic style.