Roswell: Highway 285 to Berrendo Road - The Land

 Roswell is situated in the northern region of the Chihuahuan desert. Roswell is on the Great Plains. Roswell is grasslands. Roswell isn't obviously karst but it's karst nevertheless  Roswell is flat but not perfectly so. Roswell is dry but Roswell is an oasis.

Roswell is at 33° 23' 39" N 104° 31' 22" W. Selma, Alabama, where I used to live is at coordinates  32° 24' 59", about one degree latitude difference. So why is the environment so different. Selma is forested..... Roswell is desert. We'll get to that later.

The city is at 3,615 feet altitude. People are surprised by that after seeing how flat it is around here 

The Pecos River flows 7 miles to the east of the city. The highlands that rise to Sierra Blanca begins about 40 miles to the west. The Rockies are about 70 miles to the west. In Denver, I had the requisite photo of the Rockies in my blogs. Here, it will be Sierra Blanco. 

The city has an area of 29.776 square miles (according to the United States Census Bureau). Chaves County, of which Roswell is the largest city, has 6,075 square miles. 

There are actually natural streams in Roswell. Some are dry now because the springs that fed them have been repurposed for industry and agriculture, but Spring River in South Roswell still flows (I think. I haven't made it that far yet.)

The land between Berrendo Road and Pine Lodge is primarily landscaped by Berrendo Creek and the Pecos River.

Pine Lodge from my house

It's flat around here. On my 1.7 mile walk into town, I get an elevation gain of 13 feet (according to measurements made by my AllTrails app.)

There is a blog discussing Berrendo Creek and I'll be posting a blog about Bitter Lakes Wildlife Refuge soon. That park is nestled beneath the Comanche Bluffs in the flood plains of the Pecos River  Berrendo Creek meets the Pecos River a little south of this section.

I say that the land is flat here but there is a little topography 

A draw on highway 285 North truck route north of my house.

Road cut on highway 285

The largest incline I'm aware of is the ravine that Berrendo Creek has cut through town, now dry, something between 20 and 30 feet deep.

Berrendo Creek 

Like the Denver area, the Chihuahuan desert was once an inland sea and many layers of sand, lime, and gypsum have been laid down to make up the rock under my feet. The ground outside looks like ceramic but is actually soft.

Desert soil

It is limestone, or at least dust blown in from limestone. That's evident when it's mixed with vinegar.

If you want to know if a substance contains a carbonate, just add acid. Vinegar is a weak acid but it will make calcite (calcium carbonate) fizz quite nicely, giving off carbon dioxide and leaving calcium acetate behind in solution. Dolomite (magnesium carbonate) may need a little warming to effloresce.

The main bedrocks in the area are limestone and shale but there have been a lot of diverse layers laid down over a long time. My primary source is the strategraphic column provided by the Rockd geology app. (Childs, O.E. (1985) Correlation of strategraphic units of North America, COSUNA.AAPG Bulletin 69:173-180).

The top layer is very recent Ogallala formation deposited by area streams. It's mostly sandstone and gravel. Beneath that is a later of volcanic material from 63 to 19 million years ago. We're just east of the Rio Grande Rift where North America tried to pull itself apart. There has been a lot of recent (geologically speaking) vulcanism in the area. That big mountain on the horizon, Sierra Blanca, is an extinct stratovolcano.

About a thousand meters down is the Grayberg and San Andreas formation limestones overlaid by about 300 meters of impermeable sandstone and shale. The limestone layer is interlaced with cracks that allow storage of a lot of groundwater. The shale cap keeps the water under pressure so that when it finds a channel to the surface it forms the many artesian springs in the area. It also feeds the Roswell water wells.

The Ogallala formation is also an aquifer but, here, it's recharge rate is slow and it can be emptied quickly. Most of Roswell's water comes from the deep aquifer. According to the city website, there are 20 deep wells that draw water up, chlorinates it, and distributes it out to the city. 

Roswell takes samples of treated wastewater daily, 60 samples a month, to test for bacterial contaminants and tests drinking water quarterly for chemical contaminants.

I bought a test kit (H2O OK Plus) to check our tap water. Most of the tests are on three test strips although the coliform test requires a tube of water plus reagent to sit a while.

The tests were easy and I was very happy with the results  

The water is hard but 247 parts per million is far below EPA requirements.

Hard water is water with high mineral content, usually calcium and magnesium carbonates. It happens when water is stored in a limestone or gypsum aquifer. Roswell's aquifer is mostly limestone but there is still plenty of gypsum and even some interesting evaporates.....minerals that form when landlocked lakes evaporate. They're touchy for mineral collectors because they tend to draw humidity out of the air and then dissolve in it.

Hard water might have some health benefits (except for kidney stones for people predisposed to it) but it can play havoc with pipes and laundry. Calcium carbonate tends to precipitate out in cakes. Also, the calcium ions will combine with the sodium stearate (soap) to firm an insoluble, slimy, scummy precipitate of calcium stearate. The best way to tell if the water from your tap is too hard is that you can't get soap to lather. We get scum but the soap will lather. And unlike some folks, I like the mouth feel of coffee creamer in hard water 

Roswell gets it's water from the deep aquifer but there are three major streams and a few intermittent tributaries that run through town. I explore Berrendo Creek in an earlier blog. Most of its length is usually dry but when it's wet, there's a flood.

I haven't seen the other two yet.....they are Spring River and Hondo Rio. All of these streams are tributaries of the Pacos River that flows 7 miles east of Main Street  I'll talk about the others when I get to explore them.

The Pacos River at Bitter Lakes 

Most of the natural water here is green. The green isn't pollution..... it's calcium. Here's another calcium loaded stream in Alabama 

Brushy Lake, Northwestern Alabama

The climate here is hot and dry with occasional cold (night and winter) and rare rain, which is sometimes devastatingly torrential.

My family moved down from Denver late in October of last year (2025). The days were warm and cool. It was a good time to move into the desert. The nights, as is normal year round, was cool. By December, the days were cooling down. The vegetation which plagued me on my trips to town for supplies was dying down to stubble. We had some cold days and one snow between January and March. I think it has rained three times since we moved, never hard. Wet ground evaporates quickly. The sunsets are always gorgeous given the capacity for the dry air to hold dust suspended and the frequent hard winds that whip it up. The skies are vast and blue.

The following is from the Wikipedia article about Roswell.

We have a cool, semi arid climate and four distinct seasons. Winter is cool and there is occasional snow that doesn't hang around long. Spring oscillates between warm and cool but there can be cold snaps.  There can be fierce winds. I clocked one gust last week at around 40 mph. I had to fight to walk against it. Summer is hot. Roswell experiences around 30 days out of the year above100° F. The North American monsoon season occurs during the summer and can bring torrential downpours and disastrous flash floods. The three streams that run through town can become raging rivers. The Berrendo ravine can fill up quickly.  Autumn brings relief. Things cool off although there can still be hot days, and snow is possible from October to March 

Since humidity is generally low and humidity causes changes to be more gradual, shade is considerably cooler than sun.

The record low: -24° F. (January 11, 1962, February 8, 1933)

The record high: 114°F. (June 27, 1994)

But the ground is that pretty cream color with glossy ground cover.....high albedo! This is a solar furnace. Hot anywhere else is HOT here.

So, the weather report for today (I'm taking a day off!):

Air Quality Index is fair at 45

No precipitation expected

Wind at 5.9 miles per hour from the west (prevailing winds here are mild breezes from the mountains (west) and brutal winds from the south in the leading edges of fronts and from the north after the front passes - beware the tumbleweeds. They're cute but vicious!

Ultraviolet index is high ( as usual, at altitude, there isn't a lot of filtering from the atmosphere)

Humidity is 17%

Barometric pressure is 30.17 inches of mercury. (About 1.02 bar, practically sea level.)

Why is Roswell so different from Selma? 

The strip of land bordering the Rocky Mountains to the east used to be a vast, shallow inland sea. Over millions of years, plankton died, sank to the bottom, and left a thick layer (several thick layers, actually, interspersed with mud) of their calcium carbonate skeletons and shells. That turned into limestone....highly reflective limestone that baked and efficiently reflected heat back up into the air when the sea dried up 

But more importantly, New Mexico is in the rain shadow of the Rocky Mountains. As humid air flows in from the Pacific Ocean, it rises up over the Cascades and the Sierra Nevada mountains and the Rockies into cooler heights where most of the humidity precipitates out. This is the air that Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, and Mexico gets. The eastern United States gets humidity pumped in constantly from the Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico. It's dry and there's nothing to buffer the heat 

So my journey to adapt to desert life continues. This Arctic wolf is going to have fun. It's not like I can lock myself in an air conditioned house and never come out. My heart condition requires real activity.

Well, adventure might be painful, but it's fun. No pain.....no gain!

:)

So.....land, air, and water. It's where you live. How is your world? What kind of rock is under your feet? Is there plentiful water or is it dry? Are there caves near you? That's a part of karst geology. Do you have seasons or is it summer one day and.....suddenly winter! Have you tested the water from your tap? Water testing kits are easy to come by, usually from local hardware or home supply stores.

Roswell: Highway 285 to Berrendo Road - People

 Currently the population of Roswell, New Mexico is 48,186. 68.8% is above 18 years of age. 16.1% is over 65, so it's certainly not a retirement community. The median age is 32.

62.2% of the people here are white but, wandering around, I see "red and yellow, black and white"  Listening carefully, I pick up accents from all over the world. I'm sure the college and military institute draw a lot of people into the mix.

24.2% of the residents are below the poverty income, meaning that more than a third of their income goes to housing  New Mexico is a poor state but it makes up for that by, it seems, genuinely caring for its people. Services are accessible and effective. There is a significant homeless population. I don't know how many but in 2017, a point in time survey indicated that there were 106 homeless and unsheltered people.(reported in 2022 by RDR News). The median income of Roswellians is $43,481. The median income for the United States is $39,982.

81.3% of the population above the age of 25 are high school graduates. 19.6 % have a bachelor's degree or higher.

It's a small town. The average commute time to work is 18.4 minutes. People are connected. Within a month, associates in the places I shop regularly knew me by name and knew some of my preferences.

(Unless otherwise specified, the above information is derived from the Roswell City website, 4/1/26).

Now, my observations......

Roswellians move slowly. It's a desert town and people conserve energy without thinking. They also talk slowly and at a low volume. After moving from the Denver area, I have some trouble understanding what people are saying, especially given the way my auditory processing disorder is progressing.

Long ago (the 70s), I read papers on how the Southern drawl could be accounted for by the effects of Southern heat on people's thyroid glands. It looks as if that has been dissubstantiated (http://dialectblog.com/2011/05/31/climate-and-accent/) and I can no longer blame heat on slow talking......not directly anyway.

Everyone I have met over the last five months has been very friendly. I suspect the connectivity of the community has something to do with it. To risk a little hyperbole, everyone knows everyone else.

The desert takes something out of people so some people look chronically tired. Surprisingly, there are a substantial number of people that always seem very chipper  I'm trying to maintain an upbeat personality....... it's difficult for a 72 year old heat intolerant man.

Have you had the opportunity to observe people from different regions closely? What have you noticed?

Roswell: Highway 285 to Berrendo Road - History

 

Roswell. A street view

Eh, UFOs are an established part of our history. This stunning flying saucer is not part of my block but it typifies an outstanding part of Roswell's character. You could say that it's a sufficient part of Roswell's place in history, but not a necessary one.

Of course, there was habitation by indigenous people far back. The first settlers in the area arrived from Missouri in 1865, but water was scarce in the area so they didn't stay. John Chissum had what was, at the time, the largest ranch on the United States, the Jingle Bob Ranch, about five miles from modern Roswell  

Van C. Smith established a permanent settlement around a way station in 1871. He was the first post master in New Mexico. He named the settlement after his father Roswell Smith 

But there still wasn't a reliable water source until Bathan Jaffa drilled his well in 1890. That put Roswell on the map.

North Roswell, the Roswell North of the current city center at the intersection of Main Street and 2nd Street (US 380) didn't become a thing until the latter part of the 1960s. (That was seven years after I was born in southern Florida.) That would include the section I'm currently studying....my home range.

I'll delve more deeply into the establishment and development of Roswell as I explore more of the town.

The area called Pine Lodge is a stone's throw from my yard.

Pine Lodge

Activity along Pine Lodge Road is recorded as far back as the 1960s with the current properties constructed around 1980 or later. The area has been agricultural since the beginning and has produced crops like corn and sheep since the 1960s.

I can't find when the pecan orchard on Pine Lodge Road was established but pecan growing in the area dates back to the late 1970s and early 1980s.

A lot has happened in this area including the opening of a shopping mall, many restaurants and motels, the establishment of the Bitter Lakes National Wildlife Refuge (in 1937), and the beginning of plans for big solar farms to provide electricity for the city.

And (hrmph) I moved here in October of 2025.

Do you know the history of your home territory? Finding out can be a fascinating adventure. And how does your home town fit into the rest of the world. If you look, it might surprise you.

Roswell: Highway 285 to Berrendo Road

 This is my home territory now 

All that sky! All that land!

Roswell, New Mexico is situated in the northern Chihuahuan desert.

I make a couple of supply runs to the Walmart 1.7 miles away down a rural desert road. It's a new experience. 

I occasionally walk north on Main Street to the Tractor Supply Company (they stock good candy) and the Allsup's convenience store near highway 285.

Everyone I have known before moving here that has been here has only been to Allsup's. They're all truck drivers.

And on my recent 15 mile hike following Berrendo Creek, I covered the eastern part of this section of town. 

The main geological feature of this area is Berrendo Creek, which is dry for a long stretch.

The ground here is hardpan, alluvial deposits baked hard by the sun.

The vegetation is tough.... tumbleweeds and cactus. These gourds are common:

And, of course, the New Mexico state plant, of which I was surprised to find several species here ....yucca.

This is my home territory. 

I'll take this opportunity to talk about what I've learned about it to date. There will be several blogs in the series.

Bitter Lakes National Wildlife Refuge, 7 miles from Main Street is in this slice of town but I'll save it for it's own blog.

I've met two of my neighbors. Walking into town before a predicted wind storm, I saw her clearing tumbleweeds from her fence (I'll have to address tumbleweeds in a later blog). Later I met her husband on a tractor clearing the margin of the road. Friendly folks, like most of the people I've encountered here.

I've mentioned my enjoyment of diversity and this place is satisfyingly different from other places I have lived. I've experienced the desert winter and spring, wind storms, dust storms, a very little rain, and, now, a heat wave.

Anyone in the desert out there reading my blog? You're welcome, you're all welcome, to accompany me on this new journey.

The desert is blooming

 A special blog to dispell the idea that the desert is a dead place.

Berrendo Creek

 My first long hike in my new home followed Berrendo Creek through East Roswell, New Mexico. It begins South of my home. A mile south, it looks like a dry drainage ditch....a small, dry drainage ditch. Last year it flooded and took out a lot of property in Roswell 

You can tell where these desert streams sometimes are by the line of trees on a satellite image. 

These signs are no joke.

Here is Berrendo about a mile away as the meander runs.

Here, it has widened out into a broad flood plain. The same signs are on the road.

Less than a mile away.....

These 20-30 foot deep ravines, meanders, and oxbows were created by a powerful river, so where is it?

UFOs didn't put Roswell on the map.

Remember the Rule of Five. An average human can live five minutes without oxygen, five days without water, and five weeks without food  Communities are the same, five days without water, and the few little creeks in Roswell wouldn't bring nearly enough water to support a community. There were several settlers that tried.

Then, in 1899, Nathan Jaffa, a resident of Richardson Avenue drilled a well in his yard and hit the deep aquifer. Roswell had plenty of water from then on. The Pecos Valley Railroad came in 1892.

The Roswell basin actually has two aquifers  One is close to the surface but it's not very productive and has to be pumped. Then there's a deep layer of jointed limestone that's fed by the Pecos River and occasional rain runoff. This deep aquifer is capped by nonpermeable shale so it's under pressure and, when holes are punched through the shale, shoots water to the surface as artesian springs and wells. In other words, it pumps itself.

Normally, Berrendo Creek is fed by these artesian springs but all the farms and ranches in the area have these:

It's an artesian well. So much water is drawn from the deep aquifer for agricultural and industrial purposes (and to a lesser extent, household water) that it doesn't get to the creek 

On January 11, I set out to follow Berrendo Creek from North Roswell to the public fishing spot near 19th Avenue and Red Bridge Road.

I couldn't actually follow the creek without tromping through private properties, which I don't do without permission  I followed Pine Lodge Road through town, stopped at the Walmart for supplies and McDonalds for coffee, and continued east across the rural desert to Atkinson Avenue, where I turned South.

The desert along Pine Lodge Road 

Berrendo runs through a deep valley to the west of Atkinson. There's still no water.

A little further, Atkinson joins and becomes Berrendo Road. The bridge across the creek bed is interesting 

I don't see this conglomerate in the geological papers of the area. But it's outstanding. The cobbles are around tennis ball sized and seem to be solid, waterworn quartz.

The creek bed looks like it would form a nice waterfall here (about six feet) when there is water.

I stopped here for lunch.

A little further down Berrendo Road was an interesting ranch with a construction called "The Henge" that is mentioned as a significant example of modern architecture on the Internet 

The Henge was created by Roswell resident Herb Goldman and includes a gallery with mural painted by Willard Midgette. It is recognized on the State and National Register of Historic Places.

My hike from Berrendo to Red Bridge Road was through ranch lands. The sky is open, the land is flat, and it's a great place to spot raptors. It's not that great for taking photos of them with a phone.

Heh. You have to expand the photo to see it.

I joined Red Bridge Road at Bitter Lakes Farm which advertised Pistachios. This area has several tree nut farms including the pecan farm next to my home 

The house is an Adobe style ranch home.

New Mexico is famous for its nut crops.....piñon, pecan, pistachios, and peanuts.....and the piñon pine is the state tree. 

The hot, arid climate and long growing season that allows the nuts to mature are good for nut trees. Despite being in the desert, the Pecos River and it's tributaries have laid down some nicely fertile souls in some areas around Roswell.

Somewhere out among the ranches, an artesian spring feeds Berrendo Creek.

Just in time to fill the public fishing spot, which was well attended on the day of my hike. I was able to talk to some of the fishers who reported good catches. Catfish and bass are resident there and the creek is stocked with trout.

The water isn't green from pollution. It's calcium. I saw the same green water back East in the karst regions of Alabama, Tennessee, and Kentucky. This water certainly comes from that deep, limestone aquifer.

The ducks seem to like it, too 

But I was hiking and, with miles to go yet, I started out toward town.

 

 
The "Red Bridge" of Red Bridge Road

The first two miles into town is along ranchlands. Soon after entering town proper, there was an old cemetery that has plans to renovate (it currently looks a lot like pictures I've seen of boot hills from the 1800s.)

About a mile further brought me to Goddard High School. As memorial to the inventor of the liquid fuel rocket which developed to carry people to the moon, there are rockets out front (I will have to revisit this place some time in future explorations of Roswell )

Finally, reaching Main Street about five miles from home, I was ready to find supper. By the time I reached the home stretch, the 1.7 mile rural desert road to home, it was very dark and surprisingly cold (out came my headband flashlight, flannel shirt, and leather jacket.)

Some people talk bad about Roswell. I suppose it isn't a major party place but for people like me who values adventure and diversity, it offers plenty. 

And so does your home. Go find the hidden treasures around you.

Where does your city water come from and how is it treated? Is your home range famous for any particular crops? If so, why are they grown there and not somewhere else?

 

Another moving experience!

This is now our front yard because we have relocated to the Chihuahuan desert....a town called Roswell, New Mexico. Yep, aliens and yucca. It's an adventurous move and it'll take a few blogs to catch up to my biology studies. 

This is a small town similar in size to Selma, Alabama where I once lived. I generally hate "flat" but this area reminds me so much of South Georgia, where my relatives used to live that it hits a comfortable nostalgic note. The people here are generally friendly and quite spoken compared to what I'm used to. In fact, I have a little trouble hearing them.

The elevation is 3,570 feet so it's certainly on the slope of the Great Plains but the topography is just flat 

This mountain....

 

Sierra Blanca, is the only bump on the horizon but it's a stratovolcano over a hundred miles to the west. We passed through two road cuts through cinder cones on the way south. I'll have much more to say about the geology here and the Rio Grande rift to the west.

There are the usual businesses plus farm supply stores (another memory from the southern United States). There's a library and several museums (not all about aliens and UFOs.

Although people often think of Area 51 and the UFO conspiracy theories associated with it when they think of Roswell but Area 51 is far to the west in Nevada. I guess I'll be talking about UFOs later. I'm reading a friend's book (the friend being Dr. Gregory Reece.....the book being UFO Religion) to catch up on it. It's one of the least interesting things about Roswell to me but I'm sorta an outlier about that. Frankly I like the Roswell Sonic's root beer blended floats (best I've ever had!) better 

So, it'll be Roswell for awhile (eh, but I'm keeping "Bear Creek Commentaries" for the blog title.....