New Mexico & Arizona

New Mexico

After the Bahamas, we spent a day in Longmont and then left for New Mexico. The plan was to visit New Mexico and Arizona and spend some time visiting family. We took Nick's Mom, Flo, with us, and planned to spend a couple of weeks traveling around. First stop was Las Cruces New Mexico, to visit Nick's Aunt Toni and families.

This is Nick, Flo on the left and Toni

We love Las Cruces in the spring - the gardens in the old part of time of town, Old Mesilla, http://www.oldmesilla.org/ are just gorgeous - and the food isn't bad either! We love to eat at Andale! or La Posta. And of course, the specialty margaritas at the Double Eagle are always good. This spring they were serving pomegranate margaritas, which were so good, we had to buy a couple of bottles of the tequila they were using!

The Double Eagle building is the oldest on the square in Old Mesilla and was originally built in the 1840s. Legend says Billy the Kid was once imprisoned in the building...and the main dining room is always worth a peek!

http://www.double-eagle-mesilla.com/html/main_dining_room.html

I think hollihocks are now my favourite flower - they bloom everywhere here in the spring - the deep red and dark purple ones are especially stunning against the adobe walls...oh for a garden!

Here is Toni with her grandsons, Xander and Jotham.

They are Todd (Nick's cousin) and Laura's children (apologies to you both if the spellings are incorrect!)

And here is Nick with Audrey's girls, Jessica, Jasmine and Jade. The kids loved the pool - and we couldn't keep Nick out of it either - or off the trampoline!!!

In fact, he managed to find lots of toys to play with in Las Cruces! The riding mower was a dream come true...I keep telling him that now we don't have a lawn, there is no way he can have one, so he decided to "help" Toni out and mow her grass...

...and then he moved onto the pecan orchard and the tractor!!!

Eventually I managed to drag him away from all these new toys and we headed out to Tucson with the promise that we would come back and Nick could ride the tractor again...!

Arizona

Tucson was HOT!!!!! We had managed to time our visit for Memorial Weekend and Alex's graduation from high school. Congrats Alex! Here she is with Mom (Marci, one of the Gutierrez clan) and sister Savannah on the day of the big party...

It wasn't all fun and games. In return for room and board Marci had us working in her yard at 6 am on the morning of the party to get it finished!!!

Who am I kidding? It was great to be working in a garden again! Here is the section I planted with Alex and Savannah in the old fountain - not a bad day's work. Hopefully Jade is keeping out of it along with that lolling tongue of hers!

Alex graduation party was a great chance to catch up with all Nick's extended family down in Tucson. The sisters were in party mood as always...here's Judy cracking up at another of Jan's stories...I'm staying mum...the agreement was: "What happens in the back yard, stays in the back yard....!"

We managed a couple of days out while we were there. One morning we went to Sabino Canyon. http://www.sabinocanyon.com/

It's so hot down there that we started hiking around 6.30am, and by the time we had finished the 9 miles or so at 10 it was already too hot to be outside...yep, Crested Butte is far more comfortable...!

This was taken at Seven Falls. A lot of the trails were closed because of fire damage. This is one we have hiked before. It's better earlier in the spring when all the flowers and cactus are blooming, but it's still beautiful up there - and there was even some water left in the falls!

We also rode a tandem in Tubac (http://www.tubacarizona.com/)

- a first for us, and lots of fun...we were pretty much in sync, although Nick stopped a bit too quickly for me a couple of times...hint - it's a good idea to let the person on the back know what you are doing, otherwise they keep on pedalling...! And although it looks like I wasn't doing anything other than holding my hat on, I did do my fair share of the pedaling - honest Nick!!!

And there are those hollyhocks again - we had lunch at a great place in Tubac and were introduced to micheladas...ice cold beer, preferably from the freezer, poured over lots of ice and freshly squeezed lime with salt around the rim. Perfect for a hot Arizona day!!!

And of course, no trip to Tucson is complete without a photo of a giant Saguaro cactus. This one is at one of the resorts and is well over 150 years old....saguaros don't even produce their first arm until after they have been standing for 70 years...!

Our last day there, we had lunch with Jerry, Jane and Gil. At least it's a nice photo of Jane (in the middle!)

New Mexico

From Tucson we headed back to Las Cruces for a couple of days to spend a little more time with everyone there...and so Nick could ride the tractor again...! Then we headed to Roswell, NM; home of Veronica, Brian and Sterling, Nick's god-daughter and family, and of course, the world famous Roswell Alien museum, where we able to spend time investigating the alleged alien space ship crash of 1947 which was a lot of fun: http://www.roswellufomuseum.com/

Our verdict? Something happened out there that for some reason they are trying to cover up. The original accounts of all the local people involved are too consistent for it to be some sort of community conspiracy! And then the key people either disappeared or abruptly changed their version of events and refused to talk about it anymore...

After Roswell, we headed up to Tucumcari, the town on the old Route 66 that Nick was born in. Tucumcari has unfortunately lost some of it's splendour since the 60s when it was a thriving railroad community. Now the railroad no longer goes through town and the highway by-passes it about a mile to the south. Main St is full of closed up hotels and Route 66 souvenir shops. A lot of people have moved out to places such as Albuquerque, Amarillo, Las Cruces, Tucson and even Denver, but still go back to see friends and family on a regular basis. We visited Virgie and Marcello, Nick's aunt and Uncle on his Mom's side.

Here are (front to back) Rumor, Taneka and Crystal. Rumor is Nick's cousin Vanessa's daughter, and Taneka and Crystal are Valerie's daughters. The girls were hanging out enjoying their summer and nagging Marcello to let them have the hose pipe on in the back yard to cool off...they won!

We also were able to catch up with Frances and Carol, Flo's cousins. Here they are with Flo and Virgie.

And we spent some time in the library in Tucumcari trying to trace Nick's family tree. We weren't able to get a lot of information, but it gave us a start and made us realize how rich the history of the whole area is. Most of the last generation of the family came from ranches and towns around the area - even as far away as Las Vegas, New Mexico - looking for work when Tucumcari was booming. We know at least that Merced, Nick's paternal grandfather was from Las Vegas NM, so next time we are down that way, we will have to see what else we can find out.

This (not very good!) photo is of the disused railway station. It clearly shows the Hispanic roots of the community. Hopefully they will be able to renovate it and turn it into a museum or community center.

All in all we had a great time, covered about 3,000 miles, broke in Flo's new car, and got to see lots of people we haven't seen in ages. Thanks to everyone for their endless hospitality - we couldn't have afforded it if we would have had to stay in hotels every night and eaten in restaurants every day. And thanks to Carol Jean for the discounted hotel room in Tucumcari.