NM Day 7 - White Sands, Well-Hidden Cabinets, and the World's Largest Pistachio
Today was my traveling day as I bid farewell to New Mexico and made my way to Tucson, Arizona. It was always going to be a long drive, but I decided to make it a little longer by taking a few scenic stops along the way.
My first stop was Pistachioland, because when you see a 30 foot tall pistachio by the side of the road you know it’s gotta be good. Part of me was a teensy bit disappointed that the self proclaimed world’s largest Pistachio was a sculpture and not an actual giant pistachio, but the sculpture was still impressive in it sheer size and sort of pop-arty use of simple lines and color.
Besides the one Big Nut, Pistachioland unsurprisingly also had an absolute ton of normal sized pistachios. I loved it there. They had so many different flavors of pistachios available for free sampling (at least I hope it was free) in flavors I never would have imagined worked so well such as garlic and honey, lemon lime, and spicy BBQ. Okay, I guess besides the lemon lime those were maybe common nut flavors, but these were still the best seasoned pistachios I’d ever had. Pistachioland isn’t just content with just having straightforward pistachios though, and they really found a versatility that I didn’t know that little nut had. There were pistachio candies, pistachio ice cream, and even pistachio wine. The wine was the most surprising part but the tasting was free so I had to do it. The wines weren’t made entirely with pistachios, the property also had their own grapevines so everything was still totally homemade, but Pistachioandgrapeland doesn’t quite roll off the tongue. I tried a pistachio rosé, a pomegranate wine, a pre-mixed mango mimosa, and green chile wine. The mimosa was probably the tastiest, but the green chile was the most interesting. I was skeptical about it, but the cashier said it was very good and had more of a sweet chile flavor than any actual spiciness. It was very strange, but oddly refreshing. My favorite thing there though was definitely the homemade pistachio ice cream. I had a bad experience getting pistachio when I was expecting to get mint chip as a child, so I’ve avoided it ever since, and after tasting this glorious cone I have to say I’ve been a fool for letting this flavor go so unjustly forgotten. All in all, this whole excursion goes to show that trusting giant roadside nuts can really pay off.
After loading up on Pistachios, my next stop was White Sands National National Monument. The monument impressed me even before seeing any dunes, because the visitor center and restrooms are actually registered historic places in their own right because they were built out of adobe in 1938 by the Works Progress Administration so besides looking really cool, they’ve got some some cool ties to the New Deal and the history of National Parks in general. They also had probably the best bathroom sign I’ve ever seen that just said “We apologize for the inconvenience of a historic restroom”.
The drive up to the dunes was very deceptive with kind of scraggly sand and brush that made me start to question the whiteness of this sand I was led to believe would be contained in this national park. I had been told it was one of the most beautiful places in the country, but I was a tad skeptical. Then I saw the way those clouds looked in the distance, and I had good feeling about the place.
When I did get to the dunes proper, it was truly jaw dropping. I’ve never seen A) that much sand or B) sand that purely white before. It seemed to go out forever, covering 275 sq. miles and rolling up into different hills and valleys. The sand is also unique in that it is made almost entirely out of gypsum, which doesn’t usually occur as sand because it dissolves in water but the basin the monument is in doesn’t have any outlets to bodies of water so even if it rains and some of the sand dissolves it doesn’t get washed away. The gypsum was so much smoother and softer than average beach sand, and lying down on it, it gently supported and cushioned your body like a giant tempurpedic pillow. Some families brought sleds and slid down the dunes, but I was very content to just lie down on one, enjoy the views, and have one of the single most comfortable naps of my entire life.
There was something very zen-like and relaxing about watching your footprints become the only things in the sand and then gently get blown away by the wind.
I hadn’t planned on this, but I discovered that since I was wearing a white shirt and khaki pants that if I closed my eyes I could perfectly blend into my surroundings becoming functionally invisible.
After traipsing across the dunes, I drove to nearby Las Cruces to refuel my car and myself. First I got some coffee at a place called Spirit Winds Coffee Bar for some much needed caffeine. It was a nice place with good coffee, a fun staff willing to joke around, and a gift shop filled with funky local crafts and bric-a-brac.
After coffee, I got some dinner at a place called Spotted Dog Brewery, a neat little microbrewery known for having house food that was as good as their house brews. I got a great fried chicken sandwich with a side of show-stopping beer-battered fries. For beers, I got a flight of their 80 Shilling Scotch Ale, a dunkelweizen, a dry Irish stout, and a brown ale. The stout was probably my favorite because it just perfectly hit my sweet spot, but the 80 Shilling was a pleasant surprise packing in a nice amount of smoky scotch flavor.
After dinner, I made one last stop before Tucson. I had read on the Atlas Obscura that somewhere in the middle of the barren dessert near a town called Deming there was a single filing cabinet that is part public art piece and part experimental library. It’s called Cabinetlandia, and it’s hell to get to it, but pretty whimsical once you’re there. The project was conceived of by some artists who were big fans of the New York-based arts and culture magazine Cabinet. They brought a small half-acre of land in the desert to house the National Cabinet Library, which they felt should be in an actual cabinet that they hoped would look like it was just naturally growing out of the ground. In the cabinet, the top drawer has a guest book and library cards, the middle drawer has every issue of the magazine Cabinet starting with issue 10, and the bottom drawer has a “snack bar” with a chips, water, warm beer, a pillow to sit on while you read, and some large men’s boots you can put on as a protection from rattlesnakes. I didn’t stay long, because I still had quite a bit of driving to do, but based on what I’ve read from their website the magazine is almost as cool as the library housing it so I could easily have stayed their and read for a while.
Besides the main cabinet, Cabinetlandia also had graveyard just in case and a “biodegradable toilet” which was a bunch of rocks in the shape of a toilet.
The most impressive thing about the place though was just how secluded it really was.
With that I made my way to Tucson, but as fate would have it I had one more little misadventure in store for me. When I was about 12 minutes away from my night’s air bnb, two cars in front of me started going bananas passing each other at increasing speeds. One car apparently got sick of this and when the other guy tried to pass him, he swerved intentionally into the other car causing it to spin out and hit the guard rail, and then he drove off like it was nothing. It was really scary, but nobody was hurt. I stuck around to talk to the police as a witness. I’m not sure if I was particularly helpful, but it felt like the right thing to do. It’s always alarming to realize that you could be the best driver in the world, but it only takes one person being a maniac to ruin everything. On the bright side, my host was obsessed with the newest season of Twin Peaks so I got to geek out about that for a bit, and I got a slightly less jarring welcome to Arizona.
Favorite Random Sightings: A big billboard saying “Milk makes superheroes”; Largest Selection of Bear Carvings; Gusty Winds May Exist (a very noncommittal warning); Someone cheerfully asking “Are you here for the death march?” (I happened to be visiting White Sands when they do their annual walk to memorialize the Bataan Death March, but I didn’t know that when the question was posed)
Regional Observations: Road runners actually do run across roads, and it made me incredibly happy.
Albums Listened To: Roxy and Elsewhere by Frank Zappa; RTJ3 by Run the Jewels; Rubber Soul by the Beatles; Rum, Sodomy, & the Lash by the Pogues (an all time favorite for me); Rumpshaker by Suburban Legends; Run the Jewels by Run the Jewels; Run the Jewels 2 by Run the Jewels (probably my favorite of three); Run While you Can! by Chupaskabra
People’s Favorite Jokes:
What’s the difference between Trump and an artichoke? Artichokes have hearts
How many tickles does it take to make an octopus laugh? Ten tickles
New Mexico Superlatives
Favorite Coffee: Satellite Coffee in Albuquerque
Favorite Restaurant: Golden Crown Bakery in Albuquerque
Favorite Bar: Milton’s Brewing in Carlsbad
Favorite Beer: Bellydragger Brown Ale from Milton’s Brewing
Favorite Not-Technically Beer: Pepe the Mule from Broken Trail Brewery and Distillery
Favorite Attraction: Natural- Carlsbad Caverns Manmade- Meow Wolf in Santa Fe
General Impression of New Mexico Comedy Scene: Albuquerque was one of the strongest, friendliest, and most diverse scenes I’ve gotten to visit. Can’t recommend enough.
Songs of the day: