14 DAYS / 14 STATES / 4000 MILES

The above photo is only one example of places that made us wonder how many of our friends and family are perhaps leading a double life. More examples in the days to come!


Congrats to Mike for correctly guessing yesterday’s photo: JFKs assassination site. Sorry, Pete, you were second……..you weren’t up as early as Mike!


Uh-oh! There was a glitch with Marilyn this morning. After a drive through the cute ski resort town of Ruidoso NM and a stop at Starbuck’s (the first one we’ve seen since San Antonio), we started to drive up a very windy, steep road with no guard rails, to the Apache Ski Area, owned and operated by the Mescalero Tribe, to get a vista of the surroundings from 12,000 feet. At 7000 feet Marilyn seized up…………..interesting, that’s the highest we’ve been! Maybe she’s afraid of heights. After trying all our tricks, we turned her off to give her a rest. No snow on the way up but people were skiing on man-made snow on a few of the trails……….it’s apparently been a bad ski season. The vista was spectacular with mountains, valleys and canyons; now we were looking forested mountains again and golden meadows above the tree line.

It was short distance to White Sands National Monument near Alamogordo. Along the road, NM 70W, we continued driving through the Mescalero Reservation. There were, of course, a couple of casinos, but most of the area along the way was a collection of run-down trailers and houses and one or two very nice houses on the mountainside (Peter thinks these must belong to the tribal elders who control the casino revenues). At one point, as we started down into the valley, with still 50 miles to go to White Sands, we could actually see the white sand in the distance. We also saw more pecan groves and also some pistachio farms.

At White Sands, we followed our usual routine: stopped at the Visitor Center, bought water, put the top down and ate our lunch watching F-117 Stealth Fighters fly overhead preparing to land at Holloman A.F.B. After lunch, Peter found a small reset button (not mentioned in the manual) that brought Marilyn out of her coma….it was good to have her back! It was another perfect day……..80 degrees, constant velvety breeze and hot sun. AND, we got in free again! The drive into the dunes was a scene again impossible to describe. Think of Race Point Beach with no water! White Sands is 275 square miles of glistening white sand dunes with arid mountains in the distance. We parked and took a one mile hike into the dunes. We found ourselves completely alone and Connie took off her sandals and walked barefoot. Eleven though there was a blistering sun, the sand was cool Another entry into the “Can’t Miss” list!

Leaving White Sands we continued on 70 W through a pass in the Organ Mountains, surrounded by jagged, rugged peaks. Nearing Las Cruces there were miles of sprawling housing developments on both sides of the road. The houses are new and very nice, built close together with flat rooflines, reddish-brown stucco walls and not a tree in sight. Las Cruces looks like a boom town! Because of its proximity to Mexico, we’re guessing that this is one of the places in the country where NAFTA is a success.

We finished our day driving north on I 25 to Albuquerque. On several occasions we crossed the Rio Grande River and most of the scenery was more of the same: arid, brown with rugged mountains in the distance and still at 4000-5000 feet. Even though the highway is straight, wide and flat for hundreds of miles, we also noticed many make-shift roadside memorials, more than you usually see, and wondered if this was a particularly dangerous road. The closer we got to Albuquerque, the more prosperous the area seemed and we ended up just north of Albuquerque in Bernalillo. Tomorrow we head to Colorado.