NEW MEXICO STATE UNIVERSITY: ZUHL MUSEUM

Tuesday, January 24 cont. – After our great visit to the Las Cruces Railroad Museum, our next stop was pretty amazing! The Zuhl Museum on the campus of New Mexico State University.

The Zuhl Collection contains over 1,800 beautiful specimens of petrified wood, fossils and minerals. It is interesting to see petrified samples from different areas of the country and how they differ in color and mineral content. Most of these samples are polished to a very high degree of gloss and are absolutely beautiful.

One tiny corner of this awesome museum.

Each piece has a number so that we can easily identify it. We couldn’t get over how old these pieces are. This collection is considered the finest collection of petrified wood on display in the country.

This piece is from AZ dated back 251-199 million years ago.

This piece is from Nevada dated back 23-5.3 million years ago.

This piece is from AZ dated back 251-199 million years ago.

The collection also boasts many awe-inspiring fossils. Pieces from every time period from the stunning Banded Iron Formation (3 billion years old) to an entire nest of Oviraptor dinosaur eggs (65-70 million years old). Not to be left out are the breathtaking minerals in the collection.

Petrified Crab.

Trilobites were common invertebrate animals that lived in the Paleozoic seas. They were among the first animals to have legs and eyes.

One dinosaur vertebrae.

Clear Quartz found in Arkansas. Age: 180-200 million years old.

Amethyst.

What an awesome museum. Don’t miss this gem when visiting El Paso.

We are way behind in posting. We have been boondocking the last four days near Maricopa, AZ.  We are headed for Yuma on Wednesday.

Thanks for stopping by. Hope to see y’all back real soon. Have a great day.

LAS CRUCES RAILROAD MUSEUM

Tuesday, January 24 – We remain in Las Cruces, NM, at Coachlight RV. Another windy day here. We are going to start referring to this season of the year as Wind-ter! The weather again put a crimp on our sightseeing plans. We reverted to auto-touring rather than walking during our sightseeing.
(Click on any photo to enlarge it.)

Our first stop today was at the Las Cruces Railroad Museum.

It is housed in the historic 1910, Santa Fe Depot. There are dozens of historic photographs and 100's of exhibits.

The lobby with the original bench.

The ticket window with a very excited customer.

The Agent’s bay.

The Fred Harvey Newsstand.

Items associated with the railroad.

One of our most enjoyable displays was the model layouts. There is a huge RR layout of Las Cruces as it appeared in the early 1900's, and two other enjoyable RR layouts. These are “hands-on” layouts that visitors can control. Fun!

One of the interactive control panels.

Las Cruces in the early 1900’s.

There are 100’s of minute details included in the displays. We were able to control this dump truck. It was crazy.

Train coming through the mountain opening.

The train flying by.

What a great…did we mention…free museum. If you are visiting Las Cruces, don’t miss the Las Cruces Railroad Museum.

Just a reminder that we are a little behind in posting. We are currently in Casa Grande, AZ.

Thanks for stopping by. Hope to see y’all back real soon. Have a great day!

 

 

WHITE SANDS NATIONAL MONUMENT

Monday, January 23 – cont. We continue our blog of our stay in Las Cruces, NM.  (We have actually moved down the road to Casa Grande, AZ). 

After our super visit to the Missile Museum, our next stop was the White Sands National Monument.

 

Our Senior America the Beautiful pass awarded us free entry to the park. If you haven't heard, the pass for anyone 62 years of age cost $10, but an increase to $80 was recently approved and will take effect soon. So if you don't have a pass yet and you are 62 years old, better act now! We asked and the price today was still at the $10 level.

At the northern end of the Chihuahuan Desert lies a mountain ringed valley, the Tularosa Basin. Rising from the basin is one of the world's great natural wonders – the glistening white sands of New Mexico. Great wave-like dunes of gypsum sand cover 275 square miles of desert, the largest gypsum dune field in the world.

We stopped first at the Visitor's Center where we viewed a short video about the sand dunes. We then drove into the dune field to the Interdune Boardwalk. This handicap accessible walk took us several hundred feet out into the dunes. Nice opportunity for those unable to climb in the sand dunes.

Our next stop was at the Heart of the Sands backcountry hiking trail. We were surprised to find the sand easier to hike in then we expected. It is very well packed and only on the downwind hillsides was it soft, and we sunk in. We hiked out into the dunes for a couple hours. Someone could sure get lost out there. No landmarks to guide us, but the trail was marked with orange posts to get us safely back to the parking lot. Of course we needed to know which direction to go on the trail.

Those are the Sacramento Mountains.

Huge walls of white sand.

These are not ski tracks. They are tracks made in the sand by the wind.

The wind makes some beautiful designs in the sand.

Paul will never grow up.

Nature at its finest.


Marsha made an attempt of sliding down one of the dunes on a piece of cardboard, but it wasn't slippery enough. They sell plastic saucers in the Visitor's Center that the kids love to use to “sled” on the dunes.

We enjoyed our visit to the Dunes, and think it is definitely worth the stop. A one of a kind place to see. We enjoyed the feeling of being totally isolated out there in the middle of 275 square miles of sand. Pretty unique!

That was it for today. We returned to Las Cruces to visit with friends, Pam and John, who happen to be staying at the same campground as us. We have more adventures coming up, so stop back!

Thanks for stopping by. Hope to see y’all back real soon. Have a great day!

WHITE SANDS MISSILE RANGE MUSEUM

Monday, January 23 – We headed out of the Coachlight Hotel & RV campground in Las Cruses, NM, and picked-up NM-70 to travel up and over the San Augustin Mountains. Our first destination was the White Sands Missile Range Museum (WSMR). Paul visited this site over 50 years ago and was interested to see how it changed. At that time, back in 1964, it wasn't much more that a half dozen missiles displayed at the side of the road.

In 1994, the WSMR was established as a place to collect, preserve and exhibit artifacts and other materials relating to the history of White Sands Missile Range. The White Sands Missile Range is an active Army installation. Security measures are in place requiring a valid photo Identification for one to walk through the gate to the museum. We waited in line 45 minutes to get approved along with maintenance workers, truck delivery people, traveling nurses, and even enlisted men.

The museum complex includes a building housing a restored V-2 German rocket and displays relating to early work with missile development and research.

V-2 Rocket.

WAC Corporal Rocket was the first rocket fired at White Sands in Oct. 1945 from a tower at Launch Complex 33. The rocket was designed to carry a 25-pound package of meteorological instruments to an altitude of 25 miles.

One-third scale model Model of the first atomic bomb detonated at the Trinity Site.

There is even a tribute to the dogs that helped locate fallen missile parts.

There are tons of displays in the Museum. All are very well described and nicely displayed.

The outdoor missile park contains examples of the rockets and missiles tested on the range. There are nearly 100 rockets and missiles in the park including Pershing II, Patriot, and many nuclear payload rockets. You can read all about them here. Here are just a few.

Pershing II is a two-stage, surface-to-surface missile sometimes credited with helping to win the Cold War.

The Patriot was designed to defend against high performance air-breathing targets. Each launcher can carry four missiles which are protected in their shipping containers. The missiles are launched out of their containers.

The Army Tactical Missile System (Army TACMS) was designed for deep attack. When reaching the target area the missile would dispense its submuntions. 

The Patriot is the front, brown rocket. TACMS is red-tipped rocket.

Athena is a multi-stage research missile was used to simulate the trajectories of intercontinental missiles. Paul looks like a midget next to it.

Mace is large missile about the same size and weight of a small jet fighter. It was capable of carrying a conventional or nuclear warhead.

We had a wonderful time at the Museum and wondering around the missile park. Paul even thinks he found the missile he photographed over 50 years ago. Another interesting stop we would recommend to those traveling to the White Sands National Monument.

This was just our first stop for the day. Tell you about the rest in the next post.

Thanks for stopping by. Hope to see y’all back real soon. Have a great day!