A bonus of our side trip to Carlsbad Caverns is that we got to pass through Pecos, Texas, where my cousin Anna lives. She generously offered to make us dinner. She has 4 girls and combined with our 5 kids it was a lot of kids. It was great to catch up with Anna and meet her girls.
This morning we were up early to head to Carlsbad Caverns National Park. We took two trips down to the caves. First we took the elevator down and walked around the Big Room. Then we went back up to the surface for lunch and hiked down the natural entrance. Neat.
Today after work we made the 3 hour drive from Las Cruces to Whites City, right by the entrance to Carlsbad Caverns National Park. We packed up in the rain and arrived in Whites City to get set up and go for a walk before the rain started here.
Las Cruces is close to White Sands National Monument, a huge dune field made of gypsum, which when it is bright and sunny is nearly as white as snow. Earlier in the week we made plans with Jon and Linda to meet them there after work and then we were going to go back to their place for dinner. Jon was my mentor when I started working at Xavier as a student and Linda worked in the cubicle right next to me. They moved to New Mexico a few years ago, so we don’t cross paths very often.
It was a good plan, but then I got sick. I ended up skating through work on Thursday and we had already made plans to leave Las Cruces after work on Friday, but we still wanted to see them and the dunes. I was functional enough after work to stumble my way to through the dunes and Jon and Linda met us there to hang out. Afterward we just went back to our respective houses, rather than to theirs.
Our visit to the dunes was nice. It was a cloudy, rainy day, so the dunes were hard and not as white. It actually made it easier to walk on and the kids still found plenty to do. It was great to see Jon and Linda and I am very glad that I was able to make it and that they were willing to risk exposure.
This is from an email I sent to Erin & Nate:
I thought you guys might think this is interesting. We went out to eat yesterday at a popular/historic Mexican restaurant here in Las Cruces. We had a ton of food and I tried to limit my intake, but afterward I just did not feel well.
It turns out that I have the stomach bug that is sweeping the family. Hopefully I am the last, since everyone else seems to have have it in some form. At 1:30 I woke up not feeling well. We live in an RV, so I raced outside. I threw up over the wall around our campsite, into some landscaping. I was not feeling well so I remember laying my head on the wall, like a school desk.
A few minutes later I woke up on the ground. I had peed in my pants and there was gravel dust, from the campsite, in my mouth, nose, and eyes. I have two small scrapes on my nose and when I blow my nose this morning gravel dust still comes out.
Susan came out to help me and I stripped down to my underwear before going back in the RV and getting cleaned up. I felt lousy all night, but I am beginning to function again. This sickness comes in waves, but hopefully I am through the worst of it.
We have a long-standing tradition in our family: we always go to Panera on Valentine’s Day. It started either right before or after Andrew was born and we don’t usually miss.
Well, there is no Panera in Las Cruces, so we went to La Posta de Mesilla. Mesilla is an historic part of las Cruces that dates back to the Wild West. The restaurant is famous for its history and its food.
This evening it was back to Dripping Springs for the main hike. It was about a 3 mile roundtrip hike out to a small canyon in the mountains where there was once a sanatorium and hotel.
This afternoon we headed to Dripping Springs for a hike. I think that Dripping Springs is a sort of recreation area near the Organ Mountains, just outside of Las Cruces. We were short on time so we were not able to do the main hike. We plan on going back tomorrow. Instead we did a couple of short hikes and some climbing.
Today we left Green Valley and headed to Las Cruces, NM. We are here for the week, on our way to Austin, TX. We plan to check out some of the local culture and visit White Sands National Monument while we are here. The biggest change for us in Las Cruces is that it feels a lot colder here than it did in Green Valley. We went from shorts and t-shirts to pants and jackets.
After lunch today we went to Saguaro National Park. We have seen a lot of desert on our trip, but the saguaros here were very dense. They had one of the most interesting films of any of the national parks we have been to. After stopping by the visitor’s center for our traditional sticker and t-shirt, we went for two short hikes – one through the desert and one up Signal Hill, to see some petroglyphs.
