Ursula Leaves the State, Day 5: Tuesday, November 20, 2012

Well, it was time to finally leave Las Cruces and do the second leg of the trip. We got Ursula all ready to go, then we split up. Lee went directly to Alamogordo, while I drove over to the Las Cruces rodeo arena to see Guy’s horses. I do like the equines, you know. He has two horses right now, one old one, who is the horse he won all the roping trophies with, and a much larger and younger one who he hasn't competed on yet because of Guy's hip problems. The hope is that when he gets his second hip replacement in January, he will be able to compete again

This is the younger horse, with Guy. He is very big.

I enjoyed getting to pet and talk to the horses, especially the one in the next stall to theirs, a black filly who was incredibly sweet and friendly. There were also very cute calves for roping as well as some goats. Guy does goat roping, apparently.

The calves had on horn protectors so roping wouldn't hurt them.

We took Guy’s horses out to run in the roping arena and they had so much fun. Guy worked with them a little, but mostly they just ran and pestered each other and exercised. 

Hooray, we're free to roam the arena!

I have to say I was tickled at the sight of Steve walking a horse. He did not appear all that comfortable with it. I never would have guessed my cerebral musician and linguist friend would end up with a rodeo dude. Of course, I never would have expected I’d have my own ranch and donkey! You just don’t know what the future will bring.

Steve intrepidly leads the older horse, who Guy's had a long time.
He looks like he is thinking up something naughty to do.

I got some eggs from their chickens, plus a cool old horseshoe Guy found, and headed on to Alamogordo, passing some more lovely mountains, and then the plain with the White Sands Missile Range on it. There was a blimp in the sky there, too, plus a Border Patrol stop, where I admitted I was a US citizen and they let me go on.

I managed to find the Boot Hill RV Resort all by myself, and Lee was all set up by then. This is the same park we stayed at last time in the rental RV. It is not overly scenic, but clean and kitschy. The whole set-up is in the shape of a boot, for example. Plus it is across the street from nuts.

Our parking spot. There ARE mountains behind it.

Sunset over pistachio. Everyone says it reminds them of Georgia O'Keefe.

The World’s Largest Pistachio still beckoned, and the space we had, which was the closest one to the office, was made even more special by the fact that it was also the closest space to the horse corral, which contained two horses, and their poop. 

RV Park horse.

Still, it was fine—we weren't there for the scenery anyway.

Right after we got there, we went to have lunch with Lee’s niece, Jan. It was a late lunch, but since she works at a Ford dealership selling cars, she could lunch whenever she wanted to. We had yet more Mexican food, which was fine but nothing like that place in Deming. We discussed our plans for Thanksgiving, which were complicated by the lack of propane accessibility in Ursula. Then we dropped by her house, which has a wonderful mountain view, and re-met her three youngest (of 5) daughters, Jayme, Katie, and Tara. Tara immediately friend requested me on Facebook.

Cute Greco girls.

I would not complain about this view from my house!

On our way back from lunch, just before reaching the RV park, we saw a LOT of emergency lights. Thank goodness we spotted them in time to take a back road and make it to the familiar boot and pistachio. We saw the Life Flight helicopter and knew it was a bad one. Traffic was stopped for a LONG time going both ways. We were sorta bad and went and gawked, along with another guy, for a while. 

Saving a life, we hope.

Then we realized there was no better time to go to the pistachio store across the street than when all traffic was stopped, so we ran over to get coffee, pomegranate wine, and pistachios. I sure liked the lemon lime ones. The pistachio farm also makes their own wines, including a bunch of fruit ones. I find then fun for dessert or after dinner, so I planned to stock up later.

We were tired, so we settled in and watched a movie in the evening. We watched Brave one night (loved so many aspects of it), and really liked it. Another night we watched The Election, which was pretty funny. Oh yeah, and watched an oldie but goodie, ET.

Lesson Learned: Always have an escape route.