Back to Homepage
End of Page
Travel Journal
December 2005
Travel
Route:
(Day
trips in New Mexico and El Paso, Texas)
On December 1st,
our friend Dick Farmer from Las Cruces
came and spent the day with us. We had a
lot to talk about and had grilled steaks accompanied by a large amount of
king-sized shrimp that Dick had brought along for the occasion. It was a successful day of reminiscing. A few days later Dick went to Florida to spend the
holidays with his sister. We will no
doubt try to have a few repeat performances when he returns.
The first half of December
was spent on shopping trips to El Paso and Las Cruces, since Alamogordo
is quite limited in that respect. After
wrapping and shipping all necessary packages, we pulled out our few decorations
and small tree. We also received a
pleasant surprise in the form of a Christmas wreath from Helga in Colorado.
We indulged in several
short trips to such places as White Sands Missile
Range where we lived before buying a
house in Las Cruces
in 1979. We also took a bicycle trip
through the dunes of White
Sands National
Monument.
Whenever we try to ride our bikes with Lobo, he becomes so excited and
begins a nonstop barking and yelping session.
We have never been able to correct this problem so we have to confine
our bike trips to non-populated areas.
Just cleaning or working on the bikes will “push his button.” We are beginning to notice his age and the
walks and bike tours are becoming much shorter.
He seems to continue enjoying his life, but does tend to have a lot more
naps during the day.
Actually 11 years old
isn’t too old for a dog, but his Dad, Chino,
was only 12 when he left us. Chino was half coyote and
half Chow. The experts say that a
coyote’s normal life span is 3-10 years, and Chows don’t grow very old
either.
This is a subject that we
don’t even want to think about! 
.
Another trip we took was
to Timberon (çclick here), a community
that began in the late sixties. This was
one of the ventures that sent out invitations to visit with free gifts from the
real estate company. In the early
eighties we saw a lot of the back country by accepting these “invitations” and
the free gifts. At that time the road
was an unpaved two lane bulldozed path.
The “lots” were without utilities.
We wanted to see what improvements had been made over the last twenty
years. The road from the North is now
asphalt and the village itself has over 300 inhabitants. It is in the Sacramento Mountains, next to Lincoln National Forest (çclick here), with a few
very nice homes, but the majority is ramshackle huts or the like. Timberon is so far from “civilization” that
for the most part, only retirees or those willing to provide services such as
food or gas can survive. The closest town
is Cloudcroft (over 30 miles) and it doesn’t have enough employment
possibilities for its own inhabitants.
To the southwest is El Paso,
TX, 90 miles away, the first 25
miles over a rock road.
Timberon has a small
private airport for those that can afford such things and could use it to
commute if they have a landing place near their workplace. 
We took the southern route
(rock road) back to Alamogordo
and experienced the launch of two rockets/missiles/aircraft from somewhere on
the missile range. By the time we had
stopped and got the camera ready, all we could see was the vapor trails:
The panorama was also
worth capturing in a few pictures. Here
is a sample:
On most weekdays the
stealth bombers fly over us for most of the afternoon. Thank goodness they aren’t that loud. It is hard to get a good picture but here are
a couple that aren’t that bad:
The desert sunsets can
really be quite spectacular:
On December 21st
we were successful in renewing our campsite for another month, so we didn’t
have to pack up and move right before the holidays. Who knows, by the next renewal time, we might
be ready to change the scenery a bit.
On December 22nd
we took a trip to San
Antonio, New Mexico (çclick
here) (not TEXAS).
San Antonio, NM
is a small place that would be a ghost town were it not so near the Interstate
and the location of the “Owl Bar & Cafe” which claims to be the home of the
world’s best green Chile
cheeseburger.
The drive from Alamogordo
to San Antonio goes through a very interesting landscape called “Valley
of Fires“ or “Malpais“ (çclick
here) that is a lava flow about 1000-1500 years old:
Otherwise the landscape
doesn’t change from the Yucca plants, knobby conifers and small hills. Shortly before San
Antonio, we crossed the Rio
Grande and drove by an old cemetery and ghost town
called San
Pedro(çclick
here). In the “Owl Bar and Cafe” we
ordered the world famous green Chile
cheeseburgers. They tasted the same as
they did twenty years ago. After eating
we sat out to find the house where Conrad Hilton was born on Christmas day in
1887. His father had a small hotel and
store in San Antonio.
At age 32, Conrad Hilton bought his first hotel near Dallas, TX,
beginning his chain of hotels. Here is a
picture of the Hilton house remains in San
Antonio:
Not very
impressive! When we lived in Las Cruces, we often drove to San Antonio, and at that time a small sign
was in front of the ruins, explaining its significance. Since we couldn’t find the sign, we thought
we might have been mistaken about its location and began asking the
locals. It appeared they either had no
knowledge about the ruins or were reluctant to discuss it. Finally we found someone who would discuss it
and subsequently we verified it in articles on the Internet. It is still puzzling why they were
ignorant/secretive about something historic in their small town.
On the
return route we drove through the Bosque del Apache, a paradise for birdwatchers, past Elephant Butte Lake and through Las Cruces, back to Alamogordo, where we arrived quite late
and very tired.
On
Christmas Eve we observed a custom from Michael’s childhood and drove to Old
Mesilla to see the Luminarias
(ç
click here). Old Mesilla is on the
outskirts of Las Cruces. When Michael was small, we always went to see
the Luminarias and other lights before the traditional exchanging of gifts on
Christmas Eve. When we arrived back
home, we always found that the gifts had been delivered while we were
gone. We have always followed the German
tradition of gift-giving on Christmas Eve and Michael now follows it also with
Keith and Katja.
Christmas
Eve 2005:
We had
reserved a table at the “Double Eagle“
(ç
click here), direct on the plaza near the old church in Mesilla. We had dinner there before returning to Alamogordo and a peaceful
Christmas Eve in our little home. It was
the first time we had spent this time of the year alone on the road.
We had
to do without the traditional Christmas goose this year. We forgot to search for a goose in El Paso and Las
Cruces. They
were not available in Alamogordo. So we had a small turkey on Christmas day
with stuffing, potato dumplings, red cabbage, cranberry sauce, etc. It was quite good and a surprising success in
the small oven that we have.
With one
exception we stayed in Alamogordo
between Christmas and New Years. Chuck worked
on getting our old skis ready in the event it should snow in the
mountains. We can see Sierra Blanca (ç click here) from the
campground. We are approximately 1 to 1½
hours from the ski slopes.
The one trip we made was to use our Christmas present
from Michael, a gift certificate from Outback Steakhouse. Our last experience at Outback was in Virginia when everyone
got sick from the excessive grease in the food.
This time it was a little different, but nevertheless an adventure. As we ordered our meal (ribeye, medium rare)
the waiter advised us that the steaks would actually be rare and he recommended
that instead we order “medium.” When the
drinks were brought to us, the glasses had been so frozen that the beer
actually froze in the mugs. This is not
an exaggeration. It actually froze! When the steaks were brought to us, they were
cooked well done. The waiter took them
back and then when they were again brought to us, the potatoes were so overly
salted that they could not be eaten. The
waiter was so nice and apologetic that he removed the cost of one of the steaks
from the bill and offered us a free dessert of cheese cake to take home with
us. The following day we had a nice meal
of salad with cold meat slices (from the steaks) and cheesecake for dessert.
On December 28th Renée fell over her own
foot (as she explains), scraped her elbow, bloodied her knee and somehow
cracked her ribs on the right side.
Anyone who has cracked a rib knows that laughing, sneezing, and coughing
are very painful. Nights are also very
painful until the body realizes it shouldn’t move around in bed.
And that is how the year ended for us.
Please note that a guestbook is available on our home
page if you would like to comment on our travel journal in the future, or you
can try it out right here.
To be continued next month …………………..
Go to beginning of travel journal
Go to chronological journal entries
Go to top of page
Go to home page
