Well, it's been two days without a blog. I hope no one is too disappointed. We did so much in those days, too! I don't know where to start. I guess there will be a lot of pictures to put up.
We had a lovely time in Ruidoso Downs at the Hubbard Museum and the Billy the Kid Scenic Byway Museum on the day we left Roswell. We ended that day in historic Lincoln, NM and our stay at the Wortley Hotel. It was amazing! Then we drove 440 miles to Tucson, but we stopped at the Smokey the Bear Memorial in Capitan and the White Sands National Park on the way. That meant we didn't get checked in to Mira Vista until about 9 p.m. We were exhausted and didn't even unload everything from the car until this morning after we went out to Subway for breakfast. There is no restaurant open at Mira Vista except on weekends, so we ate breakfast in the Subway and brought salads for lunch and subs for dinner back to the room. About 10:30 we were poolside, reading and relaxing all day. The temperature hit 108 here today, but it wasn't unpleasant because there is no humidity, a constant breeze, and complete shade to sit under. The pools were also somehow kept cool, so it was very comfortable to take a dip. Mark and I both did 20 minutes of water aerobics, too. Tomorrow we have about 7-8 hours to drive to a hotel just off I-10 near San Bernadino, CA and then about the same amount on Thursday to Evey's house in San Jose. Thursday we will finally be able to empty the entire car and sleep at her beautiful new house. It's very exciting!
We had one interesting story happen on the way out of New Mexico. There are many border patrol stops that are not actually on the border. We were stopped at one once between Tombstone and Benson back in 2013, so we were expecting one. Everyone had to go through it in NM along I-10 about 100 miles before the Arizona border. When we pulled up to the guard, he looked at our car. The entire backseat and trunk of the car are piled with suitcases, laptop bags, backpacks, a laundry bag, cooler, beach bag, and bags and bags of souvenirs and stuff for Evey and Eric. All of it covered up with four big beach towels so no one can see the wedding dress on top of it all. The guard said, "Do you have someone sleeping under there or are you hiding a dead body?" I replied, "No, officer, we have a wedding dress and a shitload of other stuff that belongs to our daughter. We are driving across country to her house in San Jose because she bought a house twice as big as mine and she's getting all the crap that's been stored in my house for the last six years." He laughed and said, "That's the best story I've heard all day. Go on your way."
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| Lincoln County Courthouse, catty-corner from the Wortley. Billy the Kid escaped from this jail. |
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| Doors were shorter then. |
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| In front of the historic Wortley Hotel, which Pat Garrett used to own. |
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| We spent a lot of time reading on the porch, even after it got cold! |
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| Coffee awaited us on the porch the next morning. It was in the 50s out! |
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| Hummingbird! |
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| Eventually we went in to the dining room and warmed ourselves by the fire. |
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| This is basically a Bed and Breakfast now. Our hosts served us scrambled duck eggs, fresh from their own ducks, sautéed breakfast potatoes and onions, a stack of silver dollar pancakes, and a bowl of very fresh blueberries and strawberries. The hostesses mother made the little bowls herself out of pottery.! |
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| Then off to Capitan, which is a town about 12 miles from Lincoln, much bigger than Lincoln, which has only about 50 residents. Capitan has a few hundred and a school. These towns are all in the Capitan Mountains, between 6-7k feet elevation. |
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| Smokey's gravesite |
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| I got another stamp in my passport. |
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| Driving through the dunes is like being on another planet! |
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| People are warned not to take the sand out of the park, but they are encouraged to touch it, walk barefoot on it (not hot at all), or sled down a dune. Sleds are sold at the gift shop. |
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| We walked all the way out to the end of the boardwalk. |
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| Welcome to Arizona! |
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