Three Rivers

This past weekend, our plans for meeting Mom and/or Michelle in Moab for a fall camping trip rained—or more appropriately, snowed—out, and Evan upset at getting a series of shots at his two-month checkup, the older kids and I set out Friday afternoon for a brief southern New Mexico camping trip. We drove south past Socorro, then east to Carrizozo and south towards Alamogordo. We stopped at a BLM campground 25 miles north of Alamogordo, Three Rivers (no affiliation with the former ballpark in Pittsburgh) Petroglyph Area.

The campground lies at the foot of the Sacramento Mountains overlooking the desolate Tularosa Basin, home of the White Sands Missile Range. The Trinity Site, where the first nuclear blast was set off, lies off the road to Carrizozo, about 35 miles from our tent site. Here are two views from the campground. First, looking east at the Sacramentos:

Next, sunset over the San Andres mountains:

After setting up camp, we set off on the signature hike, which rambles for a few miles (we went about halfway) over a series of smallish hills. The hills are home to over 2,000 assorted petroglyphs, all etched into the lava rock that makes up much of the terrain here. Here is a view of the campground from the first hill:

And here the kids pose by and on a set of rocks:

After eating, we set off on another hike. This trail leads southeast from the campground toward the river for which the area is named. Along the way, we passed through an area that has been variously inhabited for thousands of years; archeologists have unearthed and reconstructed a few examples of prehistoric habitations—pithouses and small above-ground structures. Here the kids stand outside one such reconstruction:

Saturday, after getting up and ready, we made a quick run down to Alamogordo. We made a trip to White Sands National Monument last year, so we decided to pay a visit to the New Mexico Space History Museum this time around. This modest museum covers topics as varied as the history of rocketry, meteorites, NASA projects, and the newfangled X Prize. But the kids loved it, and the boys both want to be astronauts when they grow up.
But their favorite discovery was something we almost overlooked. A museum employee pointed out a display on Ham, the first chimpanzee in space, who is buried on the museum grounds. Here the kids celebrate finding Ham’s marker: