3/22 Oliver Lee State Park - Ranch House Tour

I'll be posting photos of Oliver Lee SP tomorrow night, but tonight I want to catch up on a tour I took here on this past Saturday.  The ranch house is on state park property, but it is behind a gate that only rangers and camp hosts are allowed to go.  The tour is offered only on Saturdays, and I missed the first one of the two weeks I have been here, so i made sure to sign up for this one.  

We drove single file in our own vehicles through the gate which was unlocked for us and down a narrow road.  Big parking lot for my motorhome, at least.  

The camp host did an excellent job of being a tour guide and explaining the huge area that was originally a ranch in the late 1800s, and eventually became a state park in the 1950s.  The strange thing about the tour is that we were met by two, heavily armed state park rangers.  And by heavily armed, I mean with bulletproof jackets, guns, ammo belts, and all kinds of seriously looking stuff attached to their uniforms.  The camp host said they were there for our protection.  Basically, they looked ready for a major gunfight!  I know we are about 60 miles from the Mexican border, but it seemed a bit overkill, though I admit I don't know what kinds of problems they have been having in this area. 

This is a photo of the campground in the distance.   Notice that there is a canyon going off through the mountains behind the campground.  This long range of mountains has quite a few of these canyons that each had small streams in them, allowing ranching in good years. 

 

 

The ranch eventually included one million acres, so it included a lot of land, and the photo below shows a canyon directly behind the ranch house.  The white things in the far distance look like dams that were built to hold water for the ranch and cattle.  More history of the ranch and the state park can be found here.   

Basically, the history of this ranch and area includes Indian wars, cattle rustling, gun fights and killings, and a lot of rough characters. 

Now, this is the ranch house, but it is not the real ranch house that the Oliver Lee family lived in.  That house fell apart and was finished off when Disney reconstructed it to use in a movie and then asked the townspeople to shoot it up, so it looked like it been part of a real gunfight. 

It was reconstructed after archeological digs identified the old walls and where the old outbuildings such as the barn and butchering building was located.  It is still in the process of being reconstructed, but the project is on hold, we were told, because they need to remove the floors and fill the open spaces below the floors because that area has become a home for dozens and maybe hundreds of rattle snakes.  The plan is to fill the area with gravel and then build a snake impervious barrier around the edges!  Apparently, this is an interesting place in the evenings or early mornings when the snakes come out! 

 

 

This rooms was used as a school for the many Lee children.  The floor has been removed to start adding gravel.  

As you can see, there are informational displays which need to be added to the walls.  I took pictures of a few, even though they were covered with plastic.

This room is also a reconstruction, but it copies the original adobe walls.

Some photos of the outside and explanatory signs.

If you can imagine it, when Oliver Lee moved here in 1893, they had had several wet years in a row, so this normally very dry desert was said to be waist deep in grass.  However, after a few years, it was so heavily grazed that the grass disappeared and never came back.

And back we go!  Minus the impressing armed rangers, obviously. 

I'm heading to a different state park in NM tomorrow, and also have to stop along the way and pick up some packages I ordered, but hopefully I will post about the campground tomorrow.

3/20 The Museum of Space History, Alamogordo, NM

This museum and the town of Alamogordo, NM, is near one of my favorite state parks in New Mexico, which I will be writing about in a couple of days.  I have been to the campground several times over the years, but only once before to the museum--in 2015.  

The weather has been horrible the week with windy and cold conditions to the point where i have seldom been outside.  we also had two big dust storms that meant if you went outside you got dust on your clothing, your hair, and between your teeth, so I have been inside a lot.  I had to dump my tanks and pick up some prescriptions on this first really nice day, so while I was in town doing that, i decided to stop by here and see what was new.  And in fact, the museum has expanded substantially in the past 10 years, with lots of new space and exhibits.

Alamogordo is very close to White Sands National Park, which abuts the land where the first rockets were tested after WWII.   Many of the exhibits here came from those first years of testing the first atomic bombs and the early rocket testing. it is well worth spending an hour or two here. 

The museum is easy to find because it is just southeast of town, on the slope of the mountain range to the east. 

 

Not quite as many rockets and parts as the White Sands museum I posted previous to this, but it was worth walking through.

 

The V2 rocket engine just below this plaque has certain been through a lot!

  

 

  

You enter on the first or ground floor and take this elevator to the 5th floor.  Then you go through the museum from the top down, stopping at half-floors as you walk on gently sloped ramps to the bottom.  

 

 The doors open, and it looks like you are in the cockpit of a rocket.  There are also realistic sound effects.  Disney, here we come!  

 

I could not possibly take photographs of everything in the museum, but this shows you how they start with the history of people exploring the stars.   

 

I thought this exhibit of the chimp that tested many of the rockets was interesting.  He spent his retirement at the National Zoo but was buried in front of the museum.

This was Ham;s specially made space suit.  Notice that he was also strapped into a plastic pod of sorts and had handles he had to push on command.  He got treats and water when he followed directions. 

 

 

His plastic containment pod.  Looks like a really tight fit.

Following are some random photos of engines and controller modules.  

The interesting thing is how every one of these is full of wire.  Must have taken forever to get it all fit in.  No chips or computer modules.

They had a couple of cameras that were focused on you as you walked past.  This one is ultraviolet light and is labeled "How a Mosquito Sees You."  Obviously, we should not be wearing white, according to this.

 

 

A weather satellite. 

 

 

I took this photo as I was headed down one of the ramps.  The sign on this building says Daisy Track Exhibit.  Here is a link I found that describes it:  https://nmspacemuseum.org/exhibits/daisy-track-x-37/

This was an interesting space food exhibit.  Frankly, nothing in this package looked like fruit cocktail, sausage patties, or toasted bread!!  Yuck.

This stuff looks a lot more edible.  Not sure how the Coke and Pepsi worked.

They had a lot of space suits on display.  The first two are real.

 

 

 

 

This one is obviously a couple of costumes from a movie.

I could have spent more time here, but I had been here before, and it was getting time to head back to my campground. 

3/13 White Sands Missile Range Museum

I had a terrible drive to my next stop in Alamogordo, NM,  Winds were bad and hitting my motorhome from the side.  In high winds, driving a motorhome is a lot like driving a billboard--a gust of wind can hit you and move you over a couple of feet, so you have to keep a tight grip on the steering wheel and be ready to react.  I knew that the winds were expected to get worse and that they were a little less as you headed north, which is the way I was headed, so I got an early start.  Or at least an early start for me.  

After a stressful couple of hours, I was ready for a stop but could not find any rest areas.  However, I saw a sign for the White Sands Missile Range Museum, about 60 miles south of my destination, so I pulled over and took the exit. 

I almost turned around because there were so many warning signs about entering a secured military base.  It was a bit scary, so I pulled over and made a phone call to the museum to make sure it was open and also open to the public.  They gave me instructions to park in the dirt lot just before the visitor's check-in lot, and then walk to the security building to show ID and get a visitor pass.  That only took a couple of minutes, but then I had to walk back to my rig to get my camera as I had not realized I would be leaving my motorhome there and walking across the street to the museum.  

Below is the security gate to the military base.  The arched thing to the right is a device that can x-ray vehicles if needed.   

 

It was quite a hike for my old body, but I made it.  Walked through the outdoor display before finding the museum itself a little farther away.  They seemed to have one of everything, but I stopped and read the signs on only the more interesting ones.  Below are some photos of this display. 

 

 

This is one of the rocket sleds they used to test rocket components and eventually even astronauts.  

 

 

This sign pertains to the tall rocket below it. 

The museum itself was just past the field of rockets!

 

 

The museum started off with some of the history of this area.  

 

 

 Just a reminder that Mexico once owned much of the United States!!

The rest of the museum was a large collection of the history of the missile range.

First nuclear bomb dropped here. 

Some drones.

An analog control panel!!  (Not a real person, by the way.)

They have saved the podium used by JFK during a visit to the missile range. 

In a separate building, across the parking lot, is one of the original V10 missiles developed by the Germans and modified by Werner Braun and the U.S. military as part of the space program. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This turned out to be an interesting and worthwhile stop.  You do need to know, however, that you have to have either a passport or a "Real ID" driver's license to enter.  Children under a certain age do not need ID.