We have a foot of new snow outside. I have a cold and am stuck inside. So I thought this might be a good time to look at pictures from the desert and think of warmer days.
This is the desert just below the Elephant Butte Dam. The runoff stream is behind me. I thought that little building was maybe a pump house or transformer station built to look like an old jail, but it really is an old jail. The Camino Real runs along the ridge just behind it. Back in the 1800s cattle thieves and highway robbers plied their trades along here. Military police were sent in to bring the area under control. When they made arrests, they would use small lock-ups like this one to hold prisoners temporarily while the police rode on in pursuit of others. We weren't told how many prisoners died in the heat before the police came to collect them on their way back to the fort.
