West across the New Mexico border is Hobbs, a bleak, sun-baked and windy town where Robbie’s family lived for a short time 55 years ago. With an address clue from brother Mike, we found the house – now of course worn out and much diminished, but still standing!
Continuing across a landscape so different from the piney woods… we knew our road trip was well and truly under way. Flat, dry and desolate – but rich in resources that provide energy – wind and solar the relative newcomers, but also densely dotted with pump jacks sucking up dribbles of oil as they have for many decades…. a pump on every 5 to 10 acres for as far as the eye can see.
This area’s hey-day followed World War II…. Oil and gas reserves exploited for the post-war boom; its extraordinary isolation and atmosphere brought pre-war missile testing and later scientists looking skyward… as at the Sunspot solar observatory….
and the Very Large Array Radio Astronomy Observatory.
Awareness of our perceived Cold War vulnerability is marked by such structures as the Abo Elementary School and Fallout Shelter in Artesia, NM.
The entire school was built underground, its playground a concrete slab that served as the roof….
Built in 1962, it also incorporates a facility for over 2,000 human souls to wait out a nuclear attack (including storage for supplies)! It was quite a different time, although one we Baby Boomers remember well.
Every landscape, no matter how severe, reveals its beauty to those who look…….
Next we will ascend to the mountains… and that first draught of really cool weather we crave.
Emerald Isle to the Norse Lands 