Las Cruces and New Mexico
White Sands National Park
On March 31, 2022, we left Marathon and headed west on US 90. We went back through Alpine and Marfa, and passed Prada again. Around Van Horn, our tire monitor turned red.
We limped into El Paso and were able to get a new tire. The repair shop found a nail in it. We were thankful that it had held up for five days, since we must have picked up the nail in Marfa. Due to the delay, we arrived in Las Cruces, New Mexico, where we would stay for two nights, a bit later than expected.
Las Cruces is the second largest city in New Mexico, and home to New Mexico State University which has several museums. Las Cruces is the economic center of the Mesilla Valley (aka Tularosa Basin), which is an agricultural floodplain of the Rio Grande. Wine, pecans and pistachios are major products. Other large employers include the federal government’s White Sands installations. At only a half hour or so from El Paso, Las Cruses and El Paso form one greater metropolitan area.
We only really had time today to visit one of the many museums, and we chose the interesting New Mexico Farm and Ranch Heritage Museum. In addition to the farm and heritage exhibits, it had one about governmental tests in the Tularosa Basin. It was also the third museum we visited that had an exhibit dedicated to Billy the Kid! There are farm animal exhibits and a historic metal bridge in the outdoor portions of the Museum.
After our visit to the nice museum, we went to the nearby town of Mesilla, which is where our Airbnb was located. We liked Mesilla, which has many adobe style buildings, wineries and farms right in town and a lovely historic center. Sort of a very mini Santa Fe with fewer tourists. After we settled into our lodging, we walked about three blocks to the historic square to check it out.
We had dinner at a nearby winery.
April 1, 2022
We left Mesilla and drove towards Alamogordo on US 70, about an hour, and went to White Sands National Park (it was re-designated from a Monument to a park in 2019 apparently, during a period of American government best forgotten). We visited the nice Visitor’s Center and then drove out the Dune Loop Drive, 8 miles each way, about half on firm white sand. We took two short walks (one on a board walk) in the Park. We noticed that the park allowed sledding on the sand. The park was nice, but after a short while, all white sands look the same. After a couple hours, we retraced our route and returned to Mesilla.
Note the Visitor Center Building still says “National Monument”
We had lunch at another winery restaurant, and took a rest for a bit before heading out again. Close to three weeks of travel had started to wear us out. After our nap, we visited two small city museums (Nature and Science and Art). We thought the Nature and Science museum was a bit more interesting, especially the exhibits about Permian Trackways and fossils. After that, we toured downtown Las Cruces and the historic Mesquite District which has some nice historic buildings, and managed to do our laundry before dinner.
We enjoyed our time in Las Cruces/Mesilla which was coming to an end. There were other areas nearby we would have liked to visit such as Organ Mountains Desert Peaks NM, but we ran out of time. Unfortunately, we also failed to get a close look while in Las Cruces at the famous Roadrunner statue (which we saw only from afar).
April 2, 2022
We left Las Cruces and drove north through the Rio Grande Valley on I–25. We stopped at a small farm ranch near Las Lunas for lunch. We then took SR6 to avoid going to Albuquerque and reached I–40 going west. We exited the Highway just after the Acoma Pueblo (which we had visited in 1996) to go to the El Malpais National Monument. After stopping at the visitor center, we took the Sandstone Bluffs drive that went to a couple of great view points and saw the massive lava fields. Then we took a short walk to a very nice natural rock arch. Here are some pictures from El Malpais:
There is much more to see in this beautiful monument, but we needed to move on. We retraced our steps to I–40 and drove west to Gallup for the night. We drove about 400 miles today.
Tomorrow we head to Arizona and back to our home time zone.
