Las Cruces and Mesilla

The third day of our holiday weekend was a rainy overcast day where we visited a couple of towns on the leisurely drive from Alamogordo to El Paso. We had to pass by White Sands National Park again, so we stopped by the visitor's center. It's a nice little center, but is not equipped to handle national park level crowds. White Sands was formerly a national monument, and became an official national park in 2019. Yearly visitor numbers increased greatly, with record numbers in 2021 and 2022. Even early on a Sunday morning it was very quickly swamped, with long lines in the gift shop, and the video was standing room only. But great to see so many people enjoying our national parks! We also were really glad we made the decision the day before to see the dunes at sunset, since it was a dreary morning.

The sign still says "monument."

Next we drove to Las Cruces, which was less than an hour away. We started on Main street in downtown, which is a cute little strip with some shops and restaurants. It was a little rainy and most shops didn't open until noon, so we sat for a bit at Ice Box Brewing Boneyard Cantina and had a little snack and drink. Shortly after noon we walked to Zia Comics, a huge comic, video game, and fantasy store. David picked up a couple of Final Fantasy items. Our next stop was a block down main street: the COAS Bookstore, a giant local bookstore. After getting our fill of the small downtown, we made a quick trip to a video game store in the mall, and then a stop by the world's largest chili pepper, which is in front of a run down hotel. It is indeed a large pepper!

Welcome to Las Cruces!

It was a little quiet because it was a rainy Sunday morning, but downtown had some cute spaces.

A lil rabbit and cactus mural.

Breakfast beer?

Flasher gremlin in Zia Comics.

Downtown Las Cruces.

Giant chili pepper!

Next we went to Mesilla Plaza, about three miles away from downtown Las Cruces. Mesilla was a Mexican town founded in the 1850s, and the small downtown is now a national historic landmark. It has a cute little square surrounded by buildings with a couple of shops and restaurants, and the Basilica of San Albino dominating one end. An older woman gave us a long rambling history of the church, which may or may not have been factual. 

Lots of cure historic architecture in Mesilla.

Cactus and angel.

The basilica.

Inside the basilica.

Mesilla is like a very small version of Santa Fe. It's cute and worth a quick visit. Next stop - El Paso!

Caves, E.T., and Sand Dunes in Southern New Mexico

The second day of our Texas / New Mexico road trip was jam-packed with sight seeing, and was our longest driving day. We woke up early on Saturday morning (which was easy, thanks to the time change) and drove to Carlsbad Caverns National Park for our 8:30am time slot. We took the natural entrance path, which is a 1.25 mile path that winds down into the cave, descending 750 feet. We highly recommend taking this route instead of the elevator down, as there are some really fascinating views as you enter and descend into the cave. We also recommend doing the first time slot if you can - it was not crowded yet that early in the morning, so it was a quiet and appropriately eerie walk. At several points we couldn't see any people in either direction. Arriving at the main level of the cave, there's a loop trail that circles the "big room," which is about 4,000 feet long, 635 feet wide, and 255 feet deep. "Big" is an accurate name! The cavern is full of interesting formations, many of which are still active. We've been to a lot of caves, and this is one of the more impressive ones. After finishing the trail, we took the elevator up. It was very busy in the visitor's center by the time we were exiting, with long lines of people waiting for the elevator down.

Rainy morning in the desert.

David heading down the natural entrance.

It's a long way down!

Looking back up shortly after entering the cave.

The path just keeps winding down deeper into the earth.

David with some formations.

The "lion's tail" formation.

Some of the formations are huge, and hard to capture in a photo.

A shelf of formations indicating an old water level.

It's a giraffe! 

Paul looooooves caves.

Leaving the caverns, it was a little less than a two hour drive to Roswell. Alien theming hits you right in the face when you arrive - there are alien billboards, statues, and even the streetlights have little alien eyes. I guess they know how to make that tourist money! We started at the visitor's center and walked to the Roswell Spacewalk. What is the spacewalk? Well, the website describes it this way:

"Step into the temporal vortex field of the Paisley-Horvak TVG9000. See into Roswell's past. when the future was beginning; then watch the future unfold, becoming a spectacular panorama of outer space viewed from the deck of an alien starship."

So, yeah, we don't know what it is either. 😅  Essentially it was a black light walk through photo op with aliens. Kind of short, but kitschy and fun. Our next stop was the International UFO museum just down the street. This was a large and updated "museum." Essentially, it's a tourist trap that has some museum-like exhibits explaining the history and cultural significance of aliens and UFOs. Mostly it was pretty well done, but it's really kitschy. 

Lunch was at La Escondida Cafe on the way out of Roswell. This place was just ok, but had cute old-school diner vibes with lots of random folks enjoying a late lunch.

Downtown Roswell needs a road diet, but there are a couple of cute blocks.

Does Paul believe though?

Happy Valentine's Month from Roswell!

Even the street lights are aliens!

Alien ATM.

David and E.T. phoning home.

Step into the temporal vortex field of the Paisley-Horvak TVG9000!

Can you even with this place?

Just hanging out with some friends at the UFO museum.

You know it's a museum because it's full of facts!

We liked the fashion accessories best.

We don't even know what this was about...but it lasted 3 minutes.

Lunch at Escondida Cafe was just ok...

From Roswell we drove west on Hwy 380/70 to Alamogordo. It's about a 2 hour drive up and over the mountains, passing through the Lincoln National Forest and the Mescalero Reservation. This time of year, the mountains near the town of Ruidoso are snowy and very lovely. Ruidoso has some skiing areas and was a tourist trap type city on top of the mountain...there was even a race track. Who knew?

Shortly before reaching Alamogordo, we stopped at McGinn's Pistachioland, which has billboards all over New Mexico. It's a delightfully tacky tourist trap with the world's largest pistachio. Of course Paul got some pistachio ice cream!

Ice cream and the world's largest pistachio.

Very "New Mexico" looking!

A field of pistachio trees.

By now it was late afternoon, and the weather was great, so instead of going straight to our hotel we decided to go to White Sands National Park for sunset, since it was open until 7pm. It was a great decision - we were treated to a dazzling sunset across the sands and behind the mountains. It was pretty crowded, probably a lot of locals who came specifically for the sunset on this lovely Saturday.

Welcome to White Sands National Park!

Paul's digging the views.

They don't call it "white sands" for nothing!

The view toward the mountains we drove through earlier in the day.

Sunlight on the dunes.

David at sunset. Majestic!

Shadows on the sand.

Our accidental rental car.

Sunset money shot!

Sand all around.

David enjoying twilight.

We dumped all of the sand out of our shoes and ended the day at our hotel in Alamogordo. Due to a late lunch we didn't make a specific dinner plan...and instead just got some takeout from Chili's (gross) which was the only thing in walking distance to our hotel. We didn't end up spending much time in Alamogordo, but there's a small space museum and some information sites/tourist traps focusing on the nearby missile range and the city's contribution to space exploration. Unfortunately, these were all closed while we were in town due to it being Saturday night and Sunday morning. Maybe next time!

Two national parks in one day is an accomplishment! Looking forward to wrapping up our last couple days exploring southern New Mexico and El Paso.

Guadalupe Mountains National Park - Hike to the Highest Point in Texas

Over the President's Day holiday we decided to take a long weekend and visit a few National Parks in Texas and New Mexico. We flew from Atlanta to El Paso on a Thursday evening. We took off on time, but we had to take a long route over the Gulf of Mexico to avoid storms, so we didn't land until after 11pm. By this time, the rental car company didn't have the "Toyota Prius or similar" that we had booked, and instead gave us a Ford Mustang. Not exactly the gas mileage we prefer, but hey, I guess it looks cool? 😆 We stayed in a hotel next to the airport so we could set off early for our first national park.

Friday morning we drove 1 hour 45 minutes east to the Pine Springs area of Guadalupe Mountains National Park. This part of Texas is quite desolate. We were mostly driving through Hudspeth County, which despite being huge (4,572 square miles) only has 3,202 people. There's a 111 mile stretch with no services! The scenery picked up as we got closer to the national park, with views of salt flats and mountains. 

Guadalupe Mountains is one of the least visited National Parks, coming in 49th place out of 62 parks, with around 180,000 visitors each year. We parked and set off on the Guadalupe Peak Trail at 10:40am. It's an 8.4 mile round trip trail that rises 2,952 feet, finishing at the tallest point in Texas at 8,751 feet above sea level. It was a sunny day with a brilliant blue sky, but it was quite cold, and dipped below freezing as we climbed, with shaded sections of the trail still covered with snow and ice. The way up was pretty challenging, especially for Paul. Climbing almost 3,000 feet when you're starting at a high altitude and there are icy portions on the trail is not easy! We made it to the top and sat and had a snack while enjoying the sweeping views. The way down was much easier and took less than half as much time as going up. The whole thing was about five hours round trip.

Welcome to Guadalupe Mountains National Park on a chilly but brilliantly sunny day!

Not really our style, but... uhh... it's shiny?

Sunny and desert-like on the way up.

David part way up the trail.

A snowy portion - the top third or so had snowy and icy parts.

A view of the cute little peak next door, with Texas spreading out in the background.

Panorama from the top!

David at the top of Guadalupe Mountain.

Proof we were here! The monument was placed here by the USPS...why?

After getting back to the car, we briefly stopped in to the visitor's center since it was open for another 30 minutes, then drove the 50 minutes to Carlsbad, New Mexico. We were very hungry from the hike, so we went straight to dinner at Carniceria San Juan De Los Lagos, a Mexican grocery store and restaurant. The space was atmospheric, and the food was hit or miss - the pozole and house salsa were phenomenal, while the tacos and nachos were lackluster. We also picked up a couple of yummy pan dulces from their bakery for dessert and breakfast. One national Park down, two to go!

Watermelon agua fresca!

The pozole was *chef's kiss*