Rattlesnake, Bison, Pronghorns, Deer, Aliens and Snow!

Since it's been a while since I've "blogged", I thought I'd run some interesting things by you...all at once. A few weeks ago we were in Albuquerque (ABQ for short) and visited Bob Myers at his world famous American Rattlesnake museum. He has the largest collection of rattlesnakes from around the country and other snakes from around the world. What he doesn't have is enough room to show his amazing collection of snake-related art, history, knick-knacks and you-name-it!

While we were in Taos late last week, we met a really cool woman who is an eco-farmer during the growing season. She told us of a herd of Bison on the way to her house, up the mountain and off the paved road. Well, we have four wheel drive. What's a little ice and snow? So off we go. We found the bison and continued up the ever narrowing snow packed dirt road. We just wanted to see where it went and how far we could go. Finally I decided we'd gotten deep enough and far enough that I didn't want to a.) get stuck or b.) have to back out, so we turned the beast around (and in the process, flattened out quite a lot more of the road for the locals).

Then Saturday (two days ago) when we were coming down from Santa Fe to Roswell, Sawyer had to go potty. We pulled over on the side of the road, when what to our wondering eyes did we see... a herd of Pronghorn antelope just beyond the barbed wire! Our first antelope sighting, how cool!

After the antelope, we got to our campsite at the Bottomless Lakes State Park, outside of Roswell, New Mexico. On Sunday, we headed into town to see the International UFO Museum and Research Center and other Alien themed things around town. On the way home, just a few miles from our campground, we startled a small herd of mule deer right along the road. I was "exercising" our diesel engine when it downshifted and spooked the deer. They took off running along the fence right next to us (but we beat them easily...8 deer are no match for 360 horsepower)! We got the beast turned around and went back to take some pictures. There were four bucks and four does (double-double dating?).

And finally, last week while in Espanola, between Santa Fe and Taos, we had a snow fall that was absolutely silent and only lasted a few hours. But it was the heaviest and wettest snow we've encountered on the trip yet! It is simply amazing to us Southern Californians how beautiful a little snow can make things!