Hola New Mexico

We are now in New Mexico having left Arizona on Monday morning. Had our first “Denny’s” meal (Jarrah is on a mission to review every fast food joint and breakfast cereal in the US) – was very impressed with quality of the food. Pic of Jarrah’s “lunch” below – this was one item on the menu. Even more unbelievable was that she ate it ALL!

Entering New Mexico is this large sculpture of a Road Runner – we saw our first one at Windmill Winery and have subsequently seen a few … running across the road on our travels. Was very disappointed to find they look nothing like the road runners of Disney fame 🙂

Joined another RVing club called “Boondockers Welcome” (BW) – this one allows you to search for people who have offered for RVers to stay the night/week on their property at no cost whatsoever. Stayed at our first one in Las Cruces, New Mexico en route from Arizona to Albuquerque (“Breaking Bad Land”). The host was a New Yorker from Italian decent but has lived pretty much all over the country – he was very entertaining and invited us and another lady spending the night in an RV to join him, his girlfriend, the dog and the cat for an Italian home-cooked meal.

On Tuesday, we went for a drive to the nearby Organ mountain range and did a 3 mile hike to Dripping Springs – no prizes for guessing it was obviously named during the dry season. Used to have a hotel there as well as a TB hospital.

Today we had rain for the first time since being in the USA. Rained most of the day and almost all night – only served to turn the dust on outside of the van to caked on mud though 🙁

Wednesday we headed off to White Sands and then on to the second BW host for the night in a town called “Truth or Consequences”. No, that’s not a typo. Apparently in 1950, Ralph Edwards, the host of the popular NBC Radio quiz show Truth or Consequences, announced that he would air the program on its 10th anniversary from the first town that renamed itself after the show; Hot Springs officially changed its name on March 31, 1950, and the program was broadcast from there.

Funnily enough, as we drove through White Sands, we could see that the roads had been cleared of sand (actually gypsum) similarly to how snow is cleared in winter.

Heard a loud booming noise from the sky but couldn’t see anything for a while, shortly thereafter two F16s appeared (must be a military base close by).

On our way to White Sands, we came across even more beautiful snowy mountains:

On our meanderings today we were stopped not once, but twice at USBP (US Border Patrol – not USB patrol) – despite the fact that we’ve crossed no border. First one asked if I was a US Citizen – when I said no, he asked to see our passports. Second time, guy looked at my face and waved us on … either I scared the hell out of him (I was smiling, I promise) or it is very clear that they are after “specific” people and we clearly don’t fit the brief. Either that, or my mother was right … once you’re over 50, you become invisible.

We were met at our second BW venue with “You’ve got an English (as in England) accent (!), your plates are from Washington and your mobile number is Californian – what’s your story?” Told her it was even more complicated than that! 😊 Very welcoming host, however, in the morning it became apparent that there were pets being kept in appalling conditions which had us out of there as soon as possible.

Next stop … Albuquerque to visit some “Breaking Bad” filming sites. Apparently Albuquerque is very unsafe. However, it didn’t even make it onto the list of the 50 most dangerous cities of the world but Cape Town made an impressive #11 – so we figured, if we survived Cape Town, we can survive Albuquerque 🙂