February 20-25, 2023
We headed farther south and east for a week's stay in Las Cruces, New Mexico. We found much more than we thought we would, and we had a great time. We stayed at the KOA, and faced a wall that looked over the city in the valley below us. That wall meant we could leave the front window's shade up the entire time because no one would be able to walk by and see in. The views during the day were spectacular, but we may have enjoyed the night views even more.
One day, we watched out the window as a huge wall of dust and dirt came at us from across the valley. It was a windy day, but we could always see blue sky directly above us.
Las Cruces is a pretty cool town. We went to eat at great restaurants (including one of our favorite, local chains, D.H. Lescombes Winery and Bistro) and explored the town. There is a lot of history. A lot of the country's pecans come from here, too, and we bought a lot of them. Delicious!
One of our days was spent south of Las Cruces in El Paso, Texas -- yes, there is a tiny part of Texas that is south of New Mexico. We went to the Chamizal National Memorial and learned a lot about the history of the border with Mexico, there. It really felt like our relationship with the country was so much better before, and we were bummed out to look at the big border wall across the street from the memorial.
Everyone at the memorial was really nice, and we got a lot of information from the people working there. It was a nice day, so we also got to take Lacey for a long walk around the grounds. We could see the highway traffic at the border with Mexico (it looked like it took a while to get through security), and we were right next to the border wall. It was interesting to see it in person (at least that section at El Paso).
We managed to find what we both thought was the best Mexican restaurant we'd ever been to, Victoria's Mexican Grill. We ordered way too much food, and we were deliriously happy. Life was good.
We headed north to return to Las Cruces. When we left town a few days later, we were very sad to go. We'll definitely spend time in Las Cruces again. This was a wonderful week before things turned much less than wonderful...
