donna-sue and martin's amazing adventure (aka: ds & m see America)

We finished our nearly month-long exploration of Texas and headed over the border to spend some more time in New Mexico. Specifically we headed for the Las Cruces area and the Organ Mountains Desert Peaks National Monument but, true confession, also to electricity.  It had been a more than two weeks and we really needed to get everything recharged! The Organ Mountains are a beautiful mountain range north northeast of Las Cruces.  I was more than a little curious about the origin of their name and after pondering it,  my mind came up with several possibilities … none of which were the real story. Apparently, as a pioneer passed through the desert, he looked up and thought the peaks resemble organ pipes. The landmark mountains have been referred to as the Organ Mountains ever since. We hiked a couple of trails and enjoyed the beautiful vistas. From the back of the mountains you could just see White Sands NP, a glowing white area, far out, just as the horizon starts to tint ev

Big Bend, week 2 For our second week, we left the business of the Rio Grande Village area, drove across to a less populous part of the park and set up camp in the small remote campground of Cottonwood. Along the way, we stopped at the Fossil Discovery Exhibit. Most of Big Bend was under water in ancient times and many unexpected sea creatures, I might even go so far as to call them sea monsters, fossils have been found here. (see pic from previous blog.) As well as, horned dinosaurs, tyrannosaurus and flying dinosaur fossils.  As we have traveled around the country we have learned many new regional terms for geological phenomena. I thought maybe we'd covered most of them, but no, Big Bend and indeed southwest Texas, has a geological phenomena called a “pour-off”. It is the equivalent of a dry waterfall but it rarely sees any water, except, perhaps, during a summer monsoon. Big Bend has several and I can just imagine how stunning they would be if they were fu