Prowl'n America: Oasis State Park, Portales NM

4/7/207

When planning our next stop we looked to the New Mexico State Park system. There was one just across the state line near Portales - Oasis SP. We went on line and saw there were only 2 sites available for the time we wanted so we made reservations. We later found out most of the campsites in New Mexico state parks are first-come-first-serve. In the future we'll call the park to make sure there are sites available and avoid the rigid "have to be some place" requirement and the increasingly excessive ReserveAmerica.com fees. The $12 reservation fee for 3 nights adds up to almost a night's camping, $14.

Our original plan, after leaving Muleshoe TX, was to head to Clovis, NM assuming there'd be a museum with something related to the spear point that shares the towns name. I Googled “what to do in Clovis, NM” and found nothing relating to the Clovis Point.

There’s a shortcut between Muleshoe and Oasis SP (just outside of Portales, NM) so with no apparent reason to go to Clovis we decided to save some miles. This made another 30 mile day and we arrived shortly after 1:00pm.

Asking the ranger what there was to do in and around Portales, he mentioned Blackwater Draw National Archeological Site, just a mile north of the park. He went on the say it was the site where the famous “Clovis Point” was found back in the 30's. I later asked why the spear point was named after Clovis and not Portales? Here's one answer I was given "Portales was a dry county back then and the archaeologists liked to drink beer so they were staying in Clovis". Clovis is only about 20 miles from the site and Portales was probably a dusty little town back in the 30's.

Blackwater Draw, Wikipedia

In a round-a-bout way, we were where we wanted to be and planned to visit the site the next day.

I guess the moral of the story is you have the ask the right question to get right answer!

4/8/2017

We arrived at the Blackwater Draw site on a clear, warm but windy day. Heck, almost every day in this part of the country is windy!

The site itself isn't much to see. Basically just a large depression in the surrounding flat land. That depression isn't natural. There has been gravel mining, off and on, over the past 90 years. In fact the mining unearthed the original artifacts that brought the attention of the archaeologists.

There's a trail (road) that leads around the site with signs that describe different aspects of the artifacts, animals and people that inhabited the area over the last 11,000 years.

About 1/3 of the way around the site, there's a building enclosing one of the more recent dig sites.

The jaw bone clearly seen here is Bison.

The Llano Estacado (which includes Blackwater Draw) is the flattest place on earth, according to the graduate student manning the small Blackwater Draw visitors center.