Leaving Las Cruces

We drove off this morning, but we could make a return visit on our way home. We really liked the hotel. Cool place.

Driving towards the City of Rocks State Park, we listened (as we have been) to the book on CD for Dress Your Family in Cordoroy and Denim. David Sedaris (the author) is also the narrator, which is as it should be, since all the stories are related to his life, his family, his experiences, and listening to his "voice" with his "voice" is a great experience. Of course, we sometimes fear we will get into an awful accident, since some of his stories are so funny, the tears nearly blind us. Other times the stories are so poignant, we achieve the same result. From this particular collection, our favorites are Us & Them and Six to Eight Black Men.

And so we laughed ourselves all the way to the park, which was amazing. Here we saw massive monoliths of volcanic rock sitting in an otherwise large flat prairie. The rocks themselves have been utilized for some 44 or more picnic shelters, all nestled among the huge boulders, and complete with picnic tables, etc. It was a great decision to stop at this place. They also have an absolutely astounding number of jackrabbits. So, for an animal lover like me, it was nirvana.

From there we continued to Silver City, where we contemplated staying in an old hotel on the town's main street, The Palace, but just the thought of hauling all our "stuff" up this winding staircase in the un-airconditioned environment put us off. So here we are at the Holiday Inn. Sorry folks, but this is as close to roughin it as I get. "Roughing it" being the fact that one of us (moi) has to drive us to dinner downtown and back. It's only a few miles, but it still needs to be done sans alcohol content in the blood. Ah well. Small price to pay for pristine white sheets, a spotless and large bathroom and a hot breakfast in the morning.

Since the room was not quite ready, we drove to the University of Western New Mexico (I think that's what it is called and forgive me if I'm wrong) and saw an incredible collection of pottery (Mimbres and Mogollan for those who know or care) that literally fell into their hands when a family found them packed away in boxes in a relative's garage after the man had died. The entire collection was purchased for $3,000. Unbelievable! Some of the best pieces we've seen.

We did take a little side trip up to Pinos Altos, which is a very old little mining town just up the road. It was interesting, but seemed a little too self-conscious. It could just have been we were not up for it. We may head back in the morning before driving to the Gila Cliff Dwellings about 2 hours north of here.


Time to head out to dinner downtown. I have changed the slideshow at the top. For those who don't know: you can click directly on the square picture, and it will take you to a larger slideshow. If that is still not large enough, there is a link to the right that allows you to "View as Slideshow" in full screen mode. Once again, the pictures are unedited and none have been eliminated, and not all are captioned. I just wanted to get them up and out to you all.

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...

The Drive Out

With some minor and other not so minor glitches, we have now made our way to Fort Stockton, Texas.

We are kind of hyper and exhausted at the same time, and half my brain is still somewhere on I-10, mindlessly driving through West Texas.

I did take a few pictures. Those of you who know me well will not be surprised to see that a couple are of animals we "met" along the way. Some others will recognize the Sky Watch photo op.

There were moments when I wished we could stop and pull over on the Interstate and take some pictures that I knew would interest one or another of the people I know. For example, I saw the most fascinating water towers, and I thought of Dot immediately.

Matt has informed us that he'll be joining Glen, Jenny and me in Albquerque for the weekend of the Fourth. We were very excited about that.

And hopefully I'll have time to copy here the songs Jenny chose and put on a Travel Musci CD for us to play on the road. It is an impressive collection, and we had a ball listening to it today. Everything from hiphop to the Brokeback soundtrack made the cut.

Tomorrow we will be in Las Cruces, and I hope we will have some time and energy left over for some actual sightseeing.