"The City of the Crosses"

Departed Albuqerque late sunday morning on I-25 South, following the historic Camino Real through the valley of the Rio Grande. It’s been a beautiful drive of almost 300 mi. to Las Cruces, with two stops en route: At the El Camino Real Historic Trail Site, south of Socorro, a modern museum (see pic) in a gorgeous location, offering great views of the Jornada del Muerte, the former land of the Apache Indians, in the Chihuahuan Desert, surrounded by mountains. The famous Camino Real cut through after 1598, when the Spanish began to colonize the NM area coming up from Mexico City.

Fort Selden Historic Site (see pics below), our next stop, was a military fort founded 1865 and in operation until 1891. What’s left today is only ruins. (and a museum). It was established to protect settlers and the railroad from indian raids. The unit being in charge was the 125th Infantry - so-called "Buffalo Soldiers" (an afro-american unit).


Las Cruces – with a little more than 100,000 inhabitants is the economic and geographic center of the fertile Mesilla Valley, where we were surprised to see pecans and cotton (known to us only from the U.S. South) being grown. Also, pistachios, chilis and onions are locally produced. The city also is home of New Mexico State University (NMSU), which occupies a large campus south of town.

We arrived to Las Cruces in the late afternoon, and after we had checked into our Ramada Hotel, we left again to explore old town, called „Mesilla“, founded in 1848 after the Mexican-American War. Today it’s a suburb of Las Cruces and still has its pitoresque historic downtown plaza, dominated by the Basilica of San Albino (see pic). There are some historic buidings around the plaza, occupied by some shops and restaurants, none of them really „touristy“. In general, tourism doesn’t seem to be a big deal in town, same for the rest of New Mexico, with the exception of Santa Fe. Because we are always interested in breweries and good brews, we had a beer at Spotted Brewing – great beers, but, unfortunately, no food besides buckets of peanuts on each table – before we drove back to the hotel.

This morning we started with a visit to the world-renowned Chile Pepper Institute at NM State University, which was somewhat disappointing, at least in winter, when no tours are being offered; just a store, hard to find in one of the university buildings. At least we got seeds for the garden! On to the New Mexico Farm and Ranch Heritage Museum, the largest and probably most interesting museum in town. This interactive museum brings to life the 3,000-year history of farming and ranching in NM. It’s also fun to watch the different animals on the property, like different breeds of cattle, horses or sheep. Lots of demonstrations and events take place here as well, e.g. the Cowboy Days in March.

Organ Mountains, 10 mi (16 km) to the east, dominate the town’s landscape, along with the Doña Ana and the Robledo Mountains, and Picacho Peak. Only in 2014 President Obama established the Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks National Monument, which shows the rich diversity of the Chihuahuan Desert and unique Pre-American, New Mexican, and American history including training sites for the Apollo Space Mission, the Butterfield Stagecoach Trail, Billy the Kid’s Outlaw Rock and Geronimo’s Cave.

Passing White Sands Missile Range, east of Las Cruces on Hwy. 70, crossing the Sant Andres Mountains, we drove straight through flat land for many miles before we reached White Sands National Monument. The federal government is a big employer for the region, operating White Sands Test Facility , Spaceport America and White Sands Missile Range; Alamogordo, where the first nuclear bomb tests took place, is close as well.

White Sands consists of massive sand dunes, which were formed by minerals from the mountains and wind and consist of gypsum - different from the Great Sand Dunes NM, which we visited before (see former blog). These dunes are not very high, but spread out and are much firmer to walk on. It felt like a snow landscape, especially since temperature had dropped to about 35 deg, F. and skies were clouded.

Back in downtown Las Cruces - now the sun was out - we (almost by chance) found the COAS bookstore on Main Street, allegedly the largest used bookstore in the U.S., and then checked out St. Clair Winery, one of a growing number of wineries in the region. Many fruit wines and sweet wines were available, but also good Cabernet Sauvignon. In the High Desert Brewing Co. we felt like at home: there was a coaster of our local Augsburg brewery Riegele hanging from the restaurant’s ceiling! Beers, Tortilla and Chili Burger were not only excellent, but cheap as well, and atmosphere was laid-back and „local“, same as in the brewery yesterday.