A Road, Trippy (Fort Davis NM, Guadalupe Mountains NP)

Wednesday, 2 November 2022, Carlsbad NM

Here comes the longest day in the car - three hundred miles. Luckily, the drive included a few stops, to break it up - including an unexpected attraction.

First up, the sole non-Park tour of this trip. Fort Davis NHS lays 25 miles northwest of Alpine, on my way to the other two parks, so I scheduled a stop. The government established this former army post in the 1850s to protect citizens traveling between San Antonio (400 miles to the east) and El Paso (200 miles west). When the Civil War broke out, the Union abandoned the post. The rebels used it for a short time, but Indian attacks drove them out also. In 1867 the army re-occupied it, and staffed it with black troops dubbed 'buffalo soldiers'.

The site is populated by many buildings (barracks, officer's row, hospital) and ruins. The surroundings look like a Western movie set,

with eroded buttes providing a backdrop. I took time in the cool, breezy morning to walk the grounds, trying to visualize the boredom and ennui the troops must have felt, stationed in such a remote spot. True, they did spend time fighting in the Indian Wars, but that only occupied a fraction of their time.

The park service had restored a few of the buildings, furnishing them with artifacts from the late 1800s. I peeked inside the enlisted men's barracks, and wandered into a couple of the officer's houses.

At one, a volunteer in period dress answered visitor's questions.

The camp hospital housed the most interesting display.

You could look through the window into the dispensary - no touching the drugs!

One room you could walk through featured a display case of tools used back in the late 19th century, along with stories of the patients. One trooper had fallen off his horse, leading to bleeding in his brain. The doctors performed trepination: cutting a hole in his skull to remove the blood and relieve the pressure.

For a man with a severe ear infection, the doctors brewed up a laudanum (opium), glycerin, and water solution and used an ear spoon to deliver the medicine.

It surprised me to read that this frontier post actually used cutting-edge technology (and employed top graduates of medical schools). The army posts used ether for anesthesia before it was common in cities. Amazingly, the hospital boasted a very low death rate - partly because if the troopers in their care did not heal quickly, the army would discharge them, removing them from the statistics.

After ninety minutes, I pulled out the directions I'd written. TX17 to TX166, then 'Ranch Rd 505' to its end. On 166 and the Ranch Rd, I didn't see another auto. Now go right on TX54 - wait, this is US90! Road 54, where are you?

Being desolate West Texas, this intersection had nothing and nobody to ask. {This stretch was so desolate, it didn't even have cattle or oil pumps.) US90 did head northwest - the direction of my next stop - so I took my chances and turned right. In another six or seven miles of nothingness, I reached Valentine. Judging on the view fronting the highway, if the village wasn't dead, it was certainly on life support. I saw no open business, so I kept cruising.

Two miles past town, I could see a small building on the left. Several cars had parked on the road shoulder, and I noticed people milling about. What's going on here? I wondered. As I sped by, I glanced over and saw -

OMG, it's the PRADA STORE!

I had heard about this (and seen pictures) online: a pair of artists from Marfa TX (37 miles southeast on US90) dreamed up a pop art project in 2005. On borrowed land, they built a stand-alone 'shop' in the desert. Nothing is for sale here - no door leads into the 'shop' - but a collection of shoes and purses donated by Miuccia Prada from their fall collection that year lines the shelves inside.

Prada also gave permission to use their logo, even though the art piece makes fun of commercialism. (Reading up on it online later, I discovered that Texas DOT thought about declaring it an illegal operation in 2014, but negotiations eventually established it as a single-site museum, which satisfied the bureaucrats.)

I'd heard about this, but never dreamed I'd actually see it. No question, I had to pull over, turn around, and take my own photos. The 'shop' is designed as a ruin in the making - no maintenance was ever intended. However, for safety issues (and to stave off an 'eyesore' label), people do come out regularly to paint over graffiti and pick up litter.

Okay, I enjoyed getting out to stretch my legs. But now I noticed a warning on my dashboard: I had only 85 miles to an empty tank. Would US90 deliver me from this vast wasteland in time? I considered using Google Maps on my phone - but that required a cell signal. With a twinge of concern, I pointed it to the northwest and crossed my fingers.

Five minutes later - still miles from town, but now driving by a large orchard - my phone rang. Cell signal! I dismissed the junk call, but got Google Maps up and running. Yep - I had omitted a 45-mile stretch on US90 to reach TX54. And that junction, in Van Horn, would have a gas station. Disaster averted!

For the second featured stop, I'd chosen Salt Basin on the west side of Guadalupe Mountains NP (GuMo, for short). There, granular gypsum had settled in the lee of the mountains, forming white sand dunes. To get there, I had to leave another Ranch Road and travel eight miles on a gravel road. I breezed down the first five miles, no problem. Then I hit two miles of the National Bobblehead Test Range, bouncing along at a whopping 10 mph. The last mile featured a two-track lane through park scrubland, inching along as the dunes slowly came into view.

The NPS brochures emphatically warns visitors to watch your trail: "Pay close attention to your route when leaving the dunes. Following the wrong road will lead you away from your vehicle and further into the desert." With that warning in my head, I looked back often as I headed out, looking for a milestone to insure I could get back. Within minutes, though, it all blended into desert scenery. The trail, though somewhat overgrown, was distinct, and I had confidence I could follow it back.

As for the dunes, I wasn't moved. Vegetation firmly anchored the sand I saw, and I declined to push too deeply into the dunes for fear of losing the trail.

The views lacked the grandeur of White Sands NP or Great Sand Dunes NP.

In the two hours I spent at Salt Basin, I had it to myself - not another soul in sight. As I drove out and finished the bobblehead section, one other car passed me on the way in to the dunes. Have fun! Now all I have left is the last hundred miles into Carlsbad NM, my home base for the next four days of exploring GuMo and Carlsbad Caverns.

Philosophical musing: on my drives, I often saw the 'deer crossing' signs - silhouettes of a deer gracefully leaping over the land.

That got me to thinking - for the 'open range' signs, why don't they feature a cow in an action pose? Maybe cattle need a better PR person.

(Hmmm... maybe Gary Larson would be available...) [and don't suggest rotating the existing sign 90° and say, "There! I tipped a cow!"]