Hello New Mexico!

5 Feb 2013

We should be further east than we are right now, but Kaleb informed us today that we are following along a path (in reverse), that’s written about in one of his favorite book series by Rick Riordan.  When he looked out the window this morning and saw we were on Interstate 10, he got all excited.  Then he asked if we would be going through Las Cruses and White Sands National Monument.  We had planned to stop in Las Cruses for gas, but we hadn’t planned to go north to White Sands, until he started getting all animated about visiting the places mentioned in this one book.  So, we changed our plans.  It’s rare he gets excited about anything.

A friend of a friend had told me when we stop in Las Cruses we should go to La Posta for lunch, as it’s the original building where Billy the Kid and other famous western figures hung out.  Then Kaleb told me in this book he had mentioned, the characters in “Red Pyramid” ate a tortilla in a place called Mesilla, so he wanted to do the same.  So I let go of my plans and we set the GPS for Mesilla.  Turns out that’s exactly where La Posta is located, too, so we both got what we wanted today.  Funny.  We also learned today that this older part of Las Cruces was the last part of the contiguous United States to be “annexed” in to America. It belonged to Mexico and Spain before that but really was Indian land. 

We ate tortillas for lunch at LaPosta then headed to our next stop.  Those two “book tour” visitations  took much more time out of the day than I’d planned, so we are now running nearly a full day behind schedule, but we still have plenty of time to make it up.

It was gorgeous sunny and warm day and I was in shorts and a sleeveless shirt all day.  So decadent.

Kaleb’s next stop on his book re-creation tour, was White Sands National Monument, less than an hour north of Las Cruces and almost to Alamogordo in New Mexico.  We stopped at the visitor’s center first to understand why there are even white sands in the middle of the desert, and we found out it was because of the gypsum in the soil up in the mountains.  It gets washed down in the rains and when the waters dry up, the winds whip it around and wa-la – sand dunes of white.

I bought Kaleb a plastic disc so he could go sledding down the sand dunes, since we might not see much snow this winter.  It was kinda funny watching him slip sliding away.  Visually it just looks like snow, but feeling it is a different story.  Kory even joined in on the action but all I could think about was sand in my underwear, so I opted out and just documented the whole event.  It was a worthwhile stop.

We got into Alamogordo just as the sun was setting so we made ourselves right at home in the Walmart parking lot.  I was running low on cash, too and all be darned if a Washington Federal Savings bank wasn’t right nextdoor.  Who knew our little local bank was all the way down here in New Mexico?  I appreciated that it was.  And that the McDonald’s inside the Walmart had free wi-fi so we are all set for a great night.

I was able to do a little shopping at Walmart as I wanted to get some locally produced foods for gifts - and the prices are about half of what I saw in other stores we visited today.  I’m always in the market for a bargain.  Especially the kind that provide free overnighting in their secure parking lot.  Woo hoo for that.

We’ve had to deal with a few problems at our apartment building in Seattle.  If we didn’t have such an incredible manager, we’d either NOT be on this trip or NOT owning that building.  There was a huge leak in one of the bathtubs, which wrecked the unit below and she had to get the plumber in there and tear up the ceiling to find the problem.  I hate stuff like that, but she’s on top of it and here we are.  Kory will have much to do when he gets home, however, and in just a two-week window before we take off again.  Joy.