| Rock City State Park, New Mexico. |
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| These rocks were originally part of the lava that erupted
from an ancient volcano.
From a distance, the area looks like a city. The state allows camping among the rocks. |
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| Weather eroded cracks of the erupted lava, leaving ever smaller rocks over millions of years. |
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| That hill was probably the center of the ancient volcano, as one can see
in this hill straight, hexagonal "pole" rocks that form when lava is
extruded through the opening of a volcano.
Anytime one sees hexagonal, upright pole rocks, that was the extruded lava that cooled in the volcano core. Devil's Tower is an excellent example. |
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| Looking at Rock City from the top of a nearby hill. |
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| Pancho Villa State Park. This is part of the large US
army area set up to chase Pancho Villa after he and his army attacked Columbus, NM,
on March 9, 1916. Columbus, NM, is halfway between El Paso, TX and the Arizona border, and about a mile from the Mexico border. |
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| HQ building for US Army. |
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| Ramp used to service US Army vehicles. |
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| It's good to see these relic buildings preserved. |
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| The former US customs house is now a museum for Pancho Villa State
Park. The vehicle was one of the experimental "tanks" or cars to chase Pancho Villa. |
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| This car, bullet riddled during Pancho Villa's raid, was turned over to the museum. |
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| The effort to find and defeat Pancho Villa and his army turned out to be an experimental ground for developing new equipment, logistics, and tactics for WWI. Fortunately, the many errors were corrected before the Big War, and the US was in far better shape to fight a war in Europe as a result of Pancho's raid. |
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| One of the staff cars for the Army and its efforts to capture Pancho Villa. |
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| Trucks and planes acquired for chasing Pancho. Again, these provided great experience for going into WWI. |
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| More bullet holes from the raid. |
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| There was a second museum across the street in an old train depot. This link tells all about the train depot museum at Columbus |
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| This was Pancho Villa's hat. |
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| I asked the museum curator if there were any bullet holes left over from the raid anywhere in town. He directed me here. |
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| These appear to be bullet holes. At the time, the gunfire was so heavy that there were few areas in town that escaped bullet holes. One bullet went through the depot clock. That clock is in the Sante Fe museum. |
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| Betty is looking for treasures. Didn't find any. And the adobe brick was too loose and fragile. |
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| We went through a Border Patrol security check point traveling north from Columbus, which is close to the Mexico border. They asked what sounded like "Do you have proof of citizenship?" Having gone through Canadian customs, I knew that a drivers license was not proof of citizenship, and I began wondering if I was going to be detained for lack of a birth certificate or passport. What he asked was "What is your citizenship?" "US." And we went on our way. |
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| We (I) stopped at Roswell's UFO museum. (Betty rolled
her eyes and stayed in the car.) I read one newspaper article from that era where a farmer threw the "UFO" in the back of a pickup, and waited three days to contact the sheriff. That tends to cast doubt on the whole UFO incident. This is a pop machine in the museum. |
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| Window exhibit at the Roswell UFO museum. |
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| Main part of the Roswell UFO museum. |
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| Looking from opposite side of the room. |
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| Light in the parking lot outside the museum. |
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| I expected the whole town to be converted to a tourist mecca for UFO buffs, but it was mostly limited to the museum. However, a McDonalds looked like a UFO airport. |
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| And we made it home that evening. A fine road trip. |
And to see the pictures in large |