A Sampler of New Mexico

I have a lot of pictures but these are some from just the past few days. 

Here are some from the old Mesilla area with its old church and adobe buildings with pretty gates and doorways, to the colorful pots for sale and striking Mexican tiles in a restaurant bathroom.

  

These are pictures of a gorgeous sunset from a highpoint just west of town. The colors involved the whole sky eventually, starting in the sky over the Organ mountains to the east then overhead and finally off in the horizon to the west.

There are photos from a hike in the Aguirre Springs campground area on the far side of the Organ Mountains. We hiked up from a couple hours reaching a high ridge line before turning back as it would take several more hours to complete the whole loop.

 I put in this picture that became the norm in the evenings and mornings which was lighting the pellet stove which gives the living room a very cozy feel for reading and watching TV. All we ever watched was the Olympics, the news from El Paso, or Downton Abbey on Sunday evening.

There are also some pictures from our day trip to Emory Pass which is an hour and a half or so to the NW of Las Cruces and is the site of some old gold mining towns. The pass is at 8,228 feet and looks to have had forest fires as recently as last year in parts. One can see far out to the Rio Grande valley in the distance, where dams and reservoirs save and store all the water for irrigation and drinking, there is not a drop of water as you drive on a bridge crossing the “river” anymore. Well this has taken way too long to upload this pictures (an hour and a half)so that will be it until we get home next week. We are not ready!!!
 

New Mexico Digs.

This vacation house belongs to a brother and sister who inherited it from their parents. It has been loved. There are some photos and items around that reveal that this is a place they enjoyed. I believe the original owners were from Wisconsin. Everything is decorated in southwestern style with the bright colored rugs and pottery and old wood trunks and well used probably antique tables. It is not elegant but very comfortable and sits on a wooded lot up against a hillside.

The trees are tall so the house must date to the 1980s or so. There are tall bushes lining the driveway and patio that are oleanders. I looked them up and they apparently bloom all summer long. Someone lovingly planted all those bushes and trees because no other yard around the neighborhood has them.

Penelope loves the large yard which is all fenced and surrounds the ranch style house on three sides.

The kitchen is a bit dated but fully stocked with everything a cook needs and there is a nice grill just off the dining room too. There were tons of brochures about attractions and maps out in the kitchen for us to look over when we arrived.

There is a pellet stove that we use on cold mornings and evenings rather than just cranking up the furnace. The flame is like a fireplace. The bathrooms are small but not bad, just not the big spa like bathrooms that people demand today. The house is semi-rural so we get to drive by orchards and fields and irrigation trenches on our way into town. It is great!

Here are some photos from our first day.

Outings with Grandson

When we babysat our oldest grandson for a few days while his parents celebrated their fifth wedding anniversary and a birthday, we took him on an outing each day. Here are just a few pictures from those outings.

Day number one when we picked him up and took him to the local Children’s Museum. He got in the tornado tube with grandfather. The wind gradually increases to hurricane force. There all sorts of displays about sound and waves and vibration to play around with there too.

Day two was to the construction site at the park. They have temporarily drained the lake where the ducks live and are digging it deeper and installing an aeration system to keep it cleaner. It was actually a fairly mild day but very windy to we kept our hoods on. He got to watch a dump truck being filled with the dirt. 

I don’t have any pictures from the third day but we visited the old train depot and the train museum. He liked the wooden train table for the kids the best and spent time playing with the trains there. We also visited the model train set-up in the attic of the building and got a demonstration there. Grandfather has a small model train track in our basement that they play with and a variety of engines and cars to use.