Our USA Adventure - Days 4 to 7 - Cedar Grove, Quarai, Truth or Consequences, Elephant Butte and Spaceport America

The team in Cedar Grove, New Mexico. LtoR: John, Fred, Dan, Maggie and Jackie (plus me behind the camera

So did I get the £250 insurance money? I did indeed, well done LV.

We did have a lovely time with Fred and Maggie, Brian went out to lunch with the men’s walking group, for John’s birthday, while Maggie and I were in the dentist. Dan, whose wife was away, came for dinner. Very nice guy, we appreciate his sense of humour and the fact that Fred has volunteered him to take us to Albuquerque to get our flight home when we drop the car off at the end of the trip! As I said, he’s a good guy.

There are a lot of deer roaming around near Fred's house, we just came across these on the way out one day

We took F and M to lunch in Madrid, an arty place. We had the green chilli cheeseburgers, as recommended, and a small pint (all the pints, and gallons are small) but just as well 7% at lunchtime? It was very nice though. The day out also encompassed driving through Cerrillos, a small place that has been used in many movies and driving past Jeffrey Epstein’s ridiculous house on the hill.

Lunch with Maggie and Fred in the quirky town of Madrid (emphasis on the 'Ma', not like the capital of Spain). That beer, incidentally is 7% proof. They don't know what weak beer is over here!

Then finally I suppose we’d better leave, wonderful to have had the opportunity to stay with F&M, meet their friends, get my tooth sorted and get over jet lag. We are very lucky. So Friday we set off, out into the world to Truth or Consequences, partly because it has such a ridiculous name, and partly because it’s the nearest place to Spaceport America, where Richard Branson has set up Virgin Galactic for flights into space. Three hours journey direct but we stopped at Walmart for a few things, and then at Quarai, one of the Salinas Pueblo Missions. The Pueblo Indians left the area in the 1670’s, having been there either as the Anasazi or the Mogollon, for 7000 years. The Spaniards, led by Juan de Onate arrived just before 1600 to plant a permanent colony. Salt, “one of the four riches of New Mexico” was in abundance, but the others, and agriculture weren’t. The colony was maintained as a mission so a large church and convent were built. These were abandoned during the 1670’s though following cultural conflict (raids by the Apaches) and natural disasters (epidemics and drought).

A nice post lunch walk through Madrid

Truth or Consequences (T or C) got its name from the challenge set by a quiz show, of the same name in the ‘50’s. The first town to rename itself would get an annual fiesta, introduced by Ralph Edwards the host of T or C. This continued till he died in 1999, so Hot Springs is no more. The hot springs however are still there, but despite having free use with our hotel room, we weren’t bothered enough to queue! Our quirky room was fine, though I didn’t use the outside shower (Brian did) as I’d already been eaten alive by mosquitoes!

We came across this park with lots of these. We had to try out the Led Zeppelin one, particularly as we could tell them they were a local band to us in Birmingham UK

Saturday morning was ours, till 12.30 when we had to assemble for our bus ride to Spaceport America, so we made good use of it. Firstly going to the local farmers market, not that we bought anything. We did chat to a lovely lady with her two dogs, there to feed the ducks. We were talking to her about rattlesnakes, and how we’d love to see one, from a safe distance. We may never see one now as she gave us some weird seed, or something, from Colorado, that in theory keeps them away! How kind. We then thought we’d go and look at Elephant Butte dam and lake, New Mexico’s largest body of water. We couldn’t really see

And these two are the people who took the photo above. We got talking to them in the park and they were really nice people. And the motorbike? It's a Harley Davidson of course!

an elephant in the shape of the rock, and the reservoir is only between 5 and 11% full depending on who you talk to. There was a charge to enter the park which we didn’t want to pay as we didn’t have much time. We explained this to the guy at the entrance, so we’d just drive round him and leave, till a voice in the background said “but you might be potential visitors?” “Of course” and with that we got a ticket and map! More very friendly people. We had a little look around, but without an RV and or a boat, there wasn’t a lot for us.

This is the town of Cerrillos, it's been used as a backdrop for several films

Quick lunch before going to the meeting place for our trip, happens to be in the same building as the library, so help yourself to these free books, there’s two I’ll read and one I’ll take to swop at the motel book exchange, fabulous. Our guide was half an hour late bringing back his previous tour, which when he started talking, was no great surprise. 40 minutes, with a couple of videos to the middle of nowhere. There wasn’t that much to see, a couple of buildings, the 2+ mile long runway, some very nice firemen who let us sit in their very expensive fire truck. Chris however made it all very interesting. He walked us up the ramp to some impressive looking closed doors, told us what the astronauts would see through there, after they have paid their $450000, but that seemed to be it, till he rattled on one door which creaked open, what a ham, but he did it very well. We could just see VSS Unity, the actual spaceship. It’s not very big! The opportunity then to go in the G shock, use for G force training. Brian and I only got up to about 2.5 G, not as much as the weight mismatched father and son, or the lone woman, or some roller coasters, that hit 3G, but it was quite enough for us. Brian will no doubt add more information with the pictures he hasn’t gone through yet

And that mansion on the hill there used to be owned by Jeffrey Epstein. It's been for sale for sometime apparently and hasn't sold. I wonder why

Back to T or C where strangely on a Saturday night dinner was hard to find. We finally got a pizza, at the weirdest restaurant ever. Two tables in the street, though I think he does delivery. We only managed half, so we have lunch and couldn’t eat there as I was being bitten. Having gone to the room to eat, we couldn’t be bothered to go out again for a $7 7% pint, though we had enjoyed it on Friday night.

Today we are en route to Roswell, via Lincoln, but I think that might be another blog!

After a final goodbye to Fred, Maggie and their pussy cats we were off...

First stop, Quarai and this is the ruined church built by the Spanish. The other foundations are some of the original structures that pre-dated the Spanish. We got here by travelling south from Fred and Maggies and through Moriarty. It's just a normal town, but to us we couldn't stop thinking about Sherlock Holmes' arch enemy

And so to Truth or Consequences and this was our very quirky room in town. It had an outside shower! The white car is Fred's and he's lent it to us for the duration. What nice people! Notice there's no front number plate. Not needed for New Mexico registered vehicles

This seems to be a symbol of the town, presumably a reflection of it's past as a ranching wild west town. People flocked here to both get a bath and to use its healing spa waters that bubble up from thermal springs just below the surface 

Only in the USA - drive through ATM machines

The Ralph Edwards Park in TorC

A short drive from TorC took us to the Elephant Butte dam. This is the dam on the Rio Grande river that created the largest lake in New Mexico in 1912 and revolutionised agriculture in the State as well as generating lots of hydro-electricity. At the moment, though, it's only about 11% full due to several years drought. You can see two distinct levels on the hillside opposite, the upper, faint one, being the 100% mark, last achieved in 2004 according to someone we spoke to. This lake gives the State some of its main leisure activities, watersports of all kinds

Apparently, so we were told, that rock is what gave Elephant Butte it's name. We were told the trunk is on the left, the vertical darker area is the start of its ear with another darker bit marking the back of the ear. The curving top to the right is its back. Vivid imagination these people!

Here we are on our trip to Spaceport America and this is the half moon sculpture at the entrance

And this is Chris, our guide for the day. What a character he is, he really made the day

The Virgin Galactic spaceship. Except it isn't! It's just an empty shell, but it is full size

This is the SOC building (Space Operations Centre)

And this is Mission Control. Don't touch that button Jackie!! It really is a proper Mission Control. It's so small for two reasons: 1 is that modern technology is so small things are mostly done by computer and, 2 it's situated next to the White Sands Missile Range, the vast military area where most US rockets and missiles are developed. Most NASA developments have occurred here and, just north Trinity, the site of the first atomic bomb was set off. It has a vast no fly zone all around it, so there's no need for any air traffic control as there isn't any. Apparently there are only two areas in the USA with permanent no fly zones, one is here and the other is over the White House

And that there is what they call the Spaceway (aka runway). It's more than 2 miles long, 200 feet wide and has a base of 43 inches deep. Richard Branson became the first commercial astronaut flying from here in July last year

And here we are in a Ford minibus driven by Chris down the main spaceway! How exciting is this!

Here we are in  front of the GTS building (Gateway To Space). The front, glass part you can see is not very deep and houses on three floors, lounge and preparation areas for those aspiring commercial astronauts who are prepared to pay £450,000 for a few minutes in space. They are apparently sold out for the next few years! The vast area behind is a giant hangar, able to accommodate to mother ships and five spacecrafts. There was one spacecraft in there at the time but we weren't allowed to photograph it. It was the only thing we weren't allowed to photograph

This was around the other side of the GTS building and is the way aspiring astronauts will enter in a special vehicle, up to those doors ahead

And this is looking the other way. In the distance is the half moon sculpture we saw on entry, the road leading to here is called the Half Moon Way and the road the goes across in front of those gates is called the Asteroid Belt

So here we are at what we thought was as far as we could go. Chris told us the doors in front are only opened for future astronauts and they enter an amazing area, walking over a see through walkway over the hangar where they will see their spaceship below them. However Chris pushed open the doors to the left and in we went...

To this room and the G Shock G force training machine. This one is for us visitors only and can only go to 3G. The one used to train astronauts can go up to 6G. We had a go and got to 2G apparently - that was enough, particularly after a spell of being spun through 360 degrees and feeling the blood rush to our heads

I took these photos from a video monitor showing Richard Bransons flight to space last year. The space vehicle is in the centre with the twin hulled mother ship surrounding it. I'm not sure if I should have taken them, so don't tell anyone!

There it goes

And this is at 50,000ft, just before the spaceship was released

There it is just after release

It's engine fires up

And it blasts towards space. Apparently 50 miles high is considered by NASA to be the start of space, so Richard Branson went to 52 miles high to earn his astronaut wings

So here we are getting strapped into the G Shock machine. I asked one of the others to video us in motion, but he didn't do it properly so we have no record. He spent a long time videoing us being strapped in and then it stopped filming just as it started. However, I took a bit of video of the lady after us just to give you an idea...

Here it is

This is the amazing fire engine that, along with several other units there will be used to attend to any emergencies at the base. The runway (sorry, spaceway) is also an emergency landing strip for the missile test facility just over the hill, so they have to know how to deal not only with spacecraft, but also the many military aircraft too

So that's it for now, we've left Truth or Consequences and are now in Roswell, having travelled through Lincoln, site of Billy the Kid and the Lincoln State War. Another very exciting day, but too late to talk about that now, more on that in the next blog!