The first three didn't even add up to 1000 residents and the fourth town is just 4-miles from where we are camped. At least they have a population of 996 all by themselves.
Just 4-miles after passing through the town of Carrizozo we arrived at our destination, the Valley of Fires Recreation Area. It's a $9 a night BLM campground with hot showers, water & electric hookups, plus a dump station. The park sent me a reservation cancellation notice back on October 2nd, but thankfully I called last week and found out they would be open until the end of October, even if the government shutdown is still in effect.
Zooming in on the right side photo shows we are on a low ridge surrounded by the lava field.
Now you know where the name "Valley of Fires" comes from!
One is another BLM site, located 35-miles south of here, where you can hike and see petroglyphs. The other is a National Wildlife Refuge run by the Department of Fish and Wildlife. They have a scenic drive where you can see waterfowl as they migrate south for the winter, but they don't usually arrive until the first week of December.
With both locations being operated by Federal agencies and not answering their phones, I'm going to asume neither location is open to the public while the goverment is shutdown.
I suspect the only reason the Valley of Fires location is open is because they have a popular campground that generates enough funds to at least pay the bills and keep the lights on, so to speak.
That leaves us with three hiking opportunites right here in the campground.
The first is the most popular, it's a 3/4-mile wheelchair accessible paved trail that travels out through the lava field.
We can see most of it right from the back of our campsite.
THE MALPAIS NATURE TRAIL
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The trail starts and ends at this large shade shelter high up over the lava field.
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From the shelter you get an overview of the entire trail below.
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From the shelter you can also see THE POD relaxing in Campsite #9.
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In the center of the photo is Little Black Peak.It's believed to be the final location where the lava vented to create the Valley of Fires lava field.
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Another zoomed in photo of THE POD from lower down in the field.
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It's interesting to see how the lava formed "ripples" while it was still in a liquid state.
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We're down at the bottom of the trail on top of the lava field.
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That isn't hail damage on the side of THE POD, it's the rivets that hold it all together.
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Opuntia, commonly called prickly pear cactus, can be found growing out of the lava field.
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The terrain out here in the lava field is very rugged and the rock is sharp.
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This Sotol plant may look all soft and fuzzy...
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...but if you look close enough you'll see it's anything but.
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These look like a location where a "bubble" formed in the lava and then eventually burst.
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This spot looks like it created a jam in the flow and just kept accumulating.
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We are at the very back of the trail here, time to start heading back.
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This Juniper tree is looking pretty knarly.
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We found this prickly pear cactus with some older faded orange blooms.
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We're getting close to the switchbacks that will take us back up to the campground level.
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Sometimes the lava just piles up in large chunks.
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This Fourwing Saltbush plant is showing off it's yellow flowers.
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Does anybody know what this species is?
We did go into the town of Carrizozo on Wednesday morning to have breakfast and fill ROVER up with $2.75 gasoline, but other than that, we didn't do much of anything blog worthy.
Then late this morning we got a surprise phone call from Winston and VerJean, inquiring where we were currently camped. They have finished with their family visit down in Las Cruces and are beginning their long trip back to Michigan.
When they found out we were just 128-miles north of where they were, they asked if we could save them a campsite and they'd be here in a couple of hours.
There are only 19-sites here at Valley of Fires Rec Area and the 10 reservable sites are all booked for tonight. That leaves just 9 possible sites to choose from and most of them are currently occupied. Luckily just two sites down from us is open and I quickly went and parked ROVER on the FCFS site, then filled out the payment envelope and clipped the receipt to the post.
We called them back at 11:00AM with the good news and then awaited their arrival. They told us they'd be here "in a couple of hours" so around 3:00PM we called them back to check on their progress.
They were a little bit late getting on the road and informed us they were currently still a hour away. They had stopped for a very important potty break and would be back on the road as soon as they finished eating their hand-made Pishtachio Ice Cream they bought at McGinn's PistachioLand in Alamagordo, NM.
Not only does PistachioLand have some of the freshest and best tasting pistachio products in the United States, they also have the World's Largest Pistachio out in front of their store.
They finally arrived around 4:00PM and it was easy to forgive them for being late, becasue they also purchased some hand-made Pistachio Nut Fudge for us to enjoy. YUMMY!
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