New Mexico

So, what can you say about New Mexico? Mountains, windy, dry, windy, hilly, dry, mountainous, windy and high altitude – did I mention windy and dry? On the dry part – we decided to take the car through Big Daddy’s car wash in Las Cruces yesterday, this morning it rained!!!

Having said all that there are some really amazing sights and places to visit in New Mexico. Albuquerque was our home for a week at the High Desert RV park, Amy the owner keeps this place ‘sparkling’ clean and organized, the landscaping is amazing – true desert landscape.

Our first trip out was to the Jemez Pueblo and Mountains, we thought we were fairly high at over 5,200 feet (Albuquerque is at a greater altitude than Denver – the mile high city) but the road through Jemez went up to over 7,000 feet – ears popping. We’d bought some sandwiches and had a picnic by a stream near to the Battleship rock, then were amazed by the sight of the Jemez River rushing through the Soda Dam, formations created by the minerals in the river. The trip ended by going back to Albuquerque via Santa Fe, the state capital.

Albuquerque Old Town, founded in 1706, has a wonderful, tree shaded plaza facing the old San Felipe church. Lunch was in a small Mexican restaurant just off the plaza, not mentioning the name as it wasn’t that great – they nearly forgot the beers. Then we took an 80 minute tour on an old renovated trolley bus around the town, including a detour around a film crew. Apparently Albuquerque has been home to filming a number of movies due to the 330 days of sun and 25% tax break. Later we took a drive to look at the petroglyphs just north of the town, Indian paintings on rock, interesting but nothing to write home about – oh – I am!!!

That brings us to Sunny Acres in Las Cruces, on a damp Sunday morning, who said they’re in the middle of a drought. The drive south was HAIRY, gusting winds blowing in from the west that at one point literally moved Junior (RV) halfway into the next lane, from that point there was a tighter grip on the steering wheel. On that drive we were amazed to see the number of huge Pecan tree farms and then learned that some are Pistachio trees, literally thousands of trees. As we are only here for 2 days we decided to fill the first day with sightseeing and do nothing the next day. Hatch is just 35 miles away from Las Cruces – self-proclaimed Chili Capital of the World for the Chilies they produce each year, so that was a must – complete with lunch at a small café where the salsa removed the lining of my mouth – or so it felt. We visited an old adobe fort on the way – not too much to say about that, then off to White Sands National Monument, passing the Missile Range on the way which had been closed until a week ago due to testing!!! If ever anyone reading this is in this area that is a must do, a huge area of pure white gypsum sand dunes – words are not really enough so enjoy the pictures.

We leave for Tucson in the morning.

 

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