Desert Spoon
So today I leave one conference for another one. I hate traveling this much, especially doing two trips back to back, but I'm an officer in both organizations.
On the way from Ruidoso to Albuquerque, I stopped at the Valley of Fire Recreational Area in the Carrizozo Malpais, just west of the town of Carrizozo. Strix and I visited here last year on the way to White Sands, and since I had a little extra time today I didn't want to miss the chance to visit it again. The Carrizozo Malpais is an ancient lava flow.
I thought the plant above was an enormous yucca. It turns out it's a different species, called the desert spoon. The desert spoon is so called because the roots, when dried, harden into a spoon shape. For a long time, people dug the plants out for the "spoons" and sold them as tourist kitsch, even to the point that the plant became endangered. Making spoons from the plant is now illegal. Believe it, or not.
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