Leaving Alamagordo, I headed north and soon came to a giant pistachio on the side of the road. I was told by several people that a stop at McGinn's Pistachio Farm was a must. There was a very large building that housed an ice cream shop, a small wine tasting bar, a gift shop with all sorts of items, and shelves of pistachio products and roasted pistachios. There was a cart in the center of the room that had canisters of flavored pistachios for people to try before they bought a bag. Tickets could also be purchased for $3.00 for a golf cart tour of the orchard and vineyards surrounding the building. The ticket also allowed you to get a free cookie or ice cream cone at the end of the tour. The tour took about 1/2 hour and was fascinating. The first thing encountered was the vineyard with many different cultivars of grapes that are used to make the 12 types of wine that is sold in the gift shop. The pistachio orchard is in a horseshoe configuration around the outside of the vineyard. The pistachio trees are grafted onto a root stock because of a fungus in the soil that is deadly to them. They start producing pistachio nuts when they are about 7 years old and can live to be over 100 years old, producing nuts the whole of their lifetime. There are male and female trees (like pecans) and the male tree is planted upwind of the females in order to have the wind help in pollination.

Yes, such a fine story! The photos reenforced your story and made me feel as thou I were there. Thanks for your work!
Moving north from Alamagordo, I took Rt. 70 through the Mescalero Apache reservation in hopes of being able to purchase a handmade pot from any roadside vendors that might be around. I was very disappointed that there were no pull-offs that had any Native American craft vendors like on the Navajo reservation. I did spy a sign for Inn of the Mountain Gods resort and casino, and thought that might have something, so turned off the main road and headed up through the mountains. There was a big casino at the end of the road, lots of hotels, and a nice mountain lake, but no vendors. I continued through the reservation without finding any place to stop and buy a ceramic pot for my collection. There were, however, three other casinos I could have visited.

I soon was nearing Clovis, NM - where the finding of prehistoric projectile points was made famous. The actual archeological site where the points and other things, including the oldest hand dug water well in North America was found, is overseen by the University of New Mexico, and still has digs going on at this time. The site, called Blackwater Draw is half way up Rt. 467 between Rt. 70 and Rt. 60 west of Clovis. There is a building over the dig site (like at Waco Mammoth National Monument in Texas), but at this site, you can wander on your own. The site had been occupied since about 13,500 years ago, and Columbian Mammoth and Bison bones in great quantities have been found here.

Leaving Blackwater Draw, I continued up the road, noticing on my map that there were three 90 degree turns ahead, and wondered why that was. Then I came to Cannon Air Force Base and completely understood the road detouring around the perimeter. I shortly joined up with Rt. 60, and headed east to Clovis and then on to Roswell where I wanted to visit the Bitter Lake National Wildlife Refuge outside of town. The Refuge has a wonderful Visitor Center, but I had just missed the Sand Hill Cranes that had left a few days before on their flight north to nesting grounds. However, there was enough water in the Refuge to have lots of waterfowl in residence and the drive around the perimeter of the Refuge on the well-maintained gravel road had waterfowl all the way. I also passed a very large wind turbine farm and acres of solar panels outside the Refuge that were joined to a very large transmission facility. I was very happy to see the beginnings of renewable energy sources being placed in areas with large amounts of wind and sunshine.