Driving Through The Deserts by the Rio Grande

As we left Heuco Tanks it was like emerging from a mystic oasis as we had immersed ourselves in stories of ancient peoples, Pueblans, Indians, Stage coaches and wagon trains. We now drove hard across to El Paso, which was an interesting place.

It's image is well known in cowboy films and books, quintessentially portrayed in the Marty Robbins Song of 'El Paso', which is of a dusty main street with tumbleweed rolling, with gunmen and cowmen moving from Rosa's Cantina to the Saloon and back.
Unfortunately, what we saw burst the bubble; we saw it as the following. On a dead straight 10 mile road into El Paso we passed mile after mile of scrap/salvage yards full of cars. No idea why, but this must be the salvage car capital of U.S.A. (on reflection it is a good place to keep them as they never rust in this climate.) El Paso itself was much bigger than we thought as it sprawls over 30 miles of the Northern Bank Rio Grande Valley (the south is in Mexico). We had a good view of Mexico over the River Grande - that's as close as we wished to get as there are gun wars taking place between the drug cartels in this area.Fortunately Interstate 10 ran right through it, so we we able to move quite quickly. I 25 branched off to the North and we reached the other side, only to find that there was now mile after mile of cattle pens, with literally tens of thousands of cattle crammed into them. We figured at first that they had been rounded up for slaughter, but no these appeared to be dairy cattle, living their life in pens about 50 yards square, feeding from conveyor belts and when the pen was full of droppings the cows were rotated to another pen so that the dung could be removed. Frankly it was disgusting, as was the smell. It was factory farming on a huge scale, but outdoors.
Eventually we cleared El Paso altogether, frankly I would rather remember the song than the place.
We now travelled North on I25, parallel to The White Sands Missile Range, but this time to the West of it. We were travelling north up the Rio Grande Rift Valley - mile after mile of desert with huge mountain ranges on either side, with the Rio Grande first to the west then to the east of us. You could see it easily, not because it was large, but because wherever it was, people had used the water for irrigation and there was a strip of green perhaps a mile or two wide. As soon as the irrigation stopped the desert closed in.
About half an hour up the I25 the road was blocked ahead. All vehicles had to leave the road and pass through Border Control (even though we were 30 miles form the border). We stopped and chatted pleasantly to the guard, showed out passports and were just about to drive on when he beckoned for us to move to a side lane. While he was talking to us a sniffer dog had been round our trailer and had found something suspicious. No problem at this point as we knew that we were not carrying Mexicans. However it became more serious as they asked for the keys to the trailer, asking me to step away from the vehicle. By now there were half a dozen guards, a dog handler, someone in charge, a couple of people searching, someone guarding me, standing between me and the trailer, and a woman near watching Sally, who was still in the van. They then asked Sally to get out, asking if we were carrying any cash, on enquiry he meant anything over $10,000. We would have laughed, but now it was becoming serious. We were asked to wait in room nearby. After half an hour, during which we worried if someone had planted something on us, or if somehow we had something which we had forgotten about, the man who had guarded me came back with our keys and said OK we could go, as simple as that. On enquiry it seemed that the dog had smelled something in the rear of our trailer, but nothing could be identified. They were of course pleasant and polite at all times. However we went on out way slightly more stressed than before.
That evening we spent in one of those places that have no meaning whatsoever, but you just have to go there. The place is known locally (anywhere in New Mexico) as 'T or C', its original name was Palomas Springs, in 1914 it was changed to Hot Springs, but in 1950 it voted to change its name to Truth or Consequences, which was the name of a popular Radio Quiz of the time. The name has stuck ever since. Although it is also famous for its spas and hot springs, it was not a particularly attractive town. We stayed at Elephant Butte State Park which overlooks a large lake - with the water level well below normal due to the prolonged drought.
On Monday we moved on to Albuquerque, following the the Rio Grande Valley. To our right (East) we could see the San Andres Mountains, where ten days before we had stood on the site of the first atomic bomb. We had now come full circle in a trip round the southern half of New Mexico. We had our packed lunch in the old town of Socorro. After lunch, spotting a Thrift (Junk) Shop and wanting some new books, we had a bit of an explore only to find that Socorro had a small but fascinating town square which dates back to 1598 (now that is old, even to us Brits). Apparently when the Spanish had conquisterdored Mexico they started to migrate north along the Rio Grande Valley starting a large number of missions and communities, more or less running the locals simply because they were organised. Socorro was one of those villages. New Mexico was part of Mexico until 1846, when there was a revolt similar to Texas, but more of that in our visit to Albuquerque.
We eventually made it to Albuquerque and arrived at our chosen RV Park - Enchanted Trails. We were now back on to Route 66. This park had been one of the original trading posts when Route 66 first opened, changing later to an RV Park. It is full of Route 66 memorabilia, there are 1950's cars and trailers outside as well, quite interesting.
Asking where to eat we find that there is as casino 6 miles down the road which has a buffet dinner special at $7.99 and it was very good. As we came back we could see the city of Albuquerque laid out below in the Rio Grand Valley.