Las Cruces

I can't say we're big fans of Las Cruces. The setting is wonderful with the backdrop of the Organ Mtns. in the background, but the city itself seems to struggle to be "a city." There is no real "downtown," but it doesn't really fit the "urban sprawl" description either.
We are staying at the Best Western Mission Inn, which is a pretty neat little place. It is not brand new and spiffy, but it is adobe and each room is uniquely decorated in the mission style with pretty tile accents and actual murals on the wall behind the bed. Even the front office sports a sweet little collection of pieces.
Yesterday we visited Mesilla, which as the capitol of NM back when it was first acquired from Mexico. It was pretty, but we were disappointed that the shops were a little too tourist-y. Great photo ops abounded, and I was happy regardless, and we found a lovely bench on the Plaza to sit and eat our lunch.
Today we drove to White Sands National Monument, which is adjacent to the White Sands Missile Range. As its name suggests, this is a place where sand dunes shift and move with wind and time. The dunes are composed of gypsum, and although a great stretch of it is pure white and seemingly without vegetation, a closer examination and walking through different parts of the area reveals an amazing array of wildflowers and plant life. The animal life, however, is largely nocturnal, so we did not see any of those creatures (not necessarily a bad thing since rattlesnakes love it here), but we did spot a fine looking desert lizard in a beautiful baby blue. He scurried away too quickly to photograph.
It was fortunate that the day was fairly overcast, which is not really normal, because the sun would have been blinding reflected off the sand. I used the "beach" setting on my great new camera, and it seems to have done the job.
I have uploaded a new album of photos to share, and they should be up there for you to enjoy. We actually got a man to take our pic together. I asked him to shave off a few pounds, but you can't count on people these days, can you? My favorite photo is the macro I shot of a dune up close and personal - you can see the ripples from the wind. We are off to Silver City for a couple of days. Silver City is supposedly the center of the "cowboy culture." Hmmm...