If Texas exceeded stereotypes, then New Mexico lived up to them. To a tee. Barely a century into being, New Mexico is best defined simply by what it is, a desert willing itself into being by sheer persistence.
Best known for some of its most famous features - the junction of Route 66 and the Pan American Highway and that Bugs Bunny kept taking wrong turns at Albuquerque - there is little else going for this land-locked state.
At first glimpse there is little to distinguish it from north-west Texas - the area true, fiercely proud, Texans call the armpit of their state. Oil rigs dominate the desert, and near-abandoned towns selfishly cling to existence from out of the pale yellow sands and scrub. It is here that tumbleweed may just outnumber the cars that dodge the browning plant as it bounds across the roads, playing chicken with the fearless motorists, he'll bent on their destination.
But this is the land of the Pentecostal and the Episcopalian, where creationist roadsigns decrying Darwin almost outnumber fast food advertising. It is also, or perhaps fundamentally, Indian land. It is the land of the great spirit and the great Indian Reservation Casino - where the old, the feeble, the infirm and the poor can lose what little they have. Certainly give us your tired, your poor and your huddled masses and we will keep them entertained with blinking lights and the sound of the jackpot (pre-recorded because a good casino won't make a habit of paying out).
Just across the southern border, amid a return to Spanish signage, lies Carlsbad. Gateway to the Carlsbad Caverns National Park, the town is nothing more that a fuel and food stop.
The caverns, however, are different. The fence line of the park presents a portal to a different world as featureless desert gives over to rolling hills and picturesque valleys filled with pale green shrubbery. The Knights of Nee would be pleased.
Perched on a windswept hillside we huddle, chilled beyond the bone, as the visitor centre opens for warmth and coffee. We hear the tours of the world below are also good, so we pay our hard earned and descend to the cavern floor a way below.
The atrium to the caverns is surreal. It is dark and cool and humid. It may also be the only natural underground environment with a gift-shop, restaurant and clean restrooms. Where there is a buck to be made...
Beyond, however, is evidence of an active earth as evolved as any living species on this planet. Once hardened rock, then an underground lake and finally the expansive caverns that we are in, they are big enough to house Notre Dame cathedral and then some. Eons in the making and beautiful beyond words, it is difficult to believe that such awe could have been beneath the feet of ranchers for a century before discovery - and prompts thoughts about what else lies below us.
Back on the desert floor we make our way west again, to Alamogordo and the White Sands National Park. A tourist town as the gateway to the White Sands, Alamogordo is that in name alone. A strip of asphalt, with some side "roads" and the obligatory chain restaurants, the sole shining like is the bookstore/cafe that makes passable coffee.
Similarly the White Sands National Park is a conundrum. It has ecological value as the remanent of a great, ancient gypsum undersea mountain range. Now, it is sand dunes. In a desert. With nothing else around it... The irony is either deliberate or naive. Nevertheless, an hour of tobogganing on the dunes was fun and enough for us to have experienced the park and check another off our only partially adhered to list.
At night we find a campground at the mouth of Dog Canyon and are so pleasantly surprised at the find. Sitting slightly above the desert floor, the campground gives us the best view of the basin and, the following morning, a much needed walk up the canyon to some incredible landscapes. Unsung gem of New Mexico.
Onto Albuquerque and, ensuring that we turn left and not right, we stop for the night in the car park of an Indian Casino. Using their restrooms, we are depressed by the sheer magnitude of the pokies (slot machines) occupying the gambling floor. It is vibrant, offensive and depressing. But the bathrooms are clean, so we're happy.
At a movie (Date-night, NM) we are surprised by the level of security, but then remember past events...
The following morning we visit the university district and fall in love with this town. Once you look past the desert and into the lives of the people and where and how they live then the stark beauty of some of these "small" south-western towns comes sharply into focus, and perspective, and we find ourselves appreciating and loving their lifestyle. It proves that, if nothing else, that oases do exist.
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