El Paso - 60 Plus Years Later

Wednesday morning we went to the Farmer’s market in downtown Las Cruces before heading out for Alamogordo which means Fat Cottonwood in Spanish. It was another short ride and we were set up just north of town by lunchtime. The campground owners told us to drive three miles north to the Eagle Ranch to take a tour of the pistachio groves. So we had a bite to eat and did just that.

Most pistachios are grown in Iraq and Iran with California being the biggest producer in the U.S. They are also grown in Arizona and here in New Mexico but on a much smaller scale. This ranch has 85 acres planted with 12,000 trees. It was a good time to take the tour because they are getting ready to harvest.







Trees are shaken and the nuts fall onto a conveyor belt, are packed into wooden crates then put in cold storage. They will keep for one year so they have product to work with until the next harvest. We were taken building to building to see the various machines that clean, remove the outer shell, sort, roast, flavor, package, ship, etc.



They also have vineyards and after the tour and many nut/candy/cookie samples we were given five wine samples. We bought a pound bag of roasted, salted nuts and a bottle of wine.

The campground owners also told us to drive to Cloudcroft up in the mountains. So when we left the grove, we did just that. Route 82 is the road we planned on taking towards Carlsbad. The first 16 miles was a 6% grade that rose almost 5000 feet from the 4000 we were at in Alamogordo to 9000 feet in Cloudcroft. It was a narrow, twisting road with no guardrail at times and a tunnel. We were glad we went with just the truck because we knew we had to re-evaluate our route.

We asked around and some said we could do it, others said they wouldn’t and offered a couple alternate routes. We turned to the Trucker’s Atlas and the Mountain Directory. The atlas did not show it as a truck route. Going any other way is a long way around so if it was suitable for trucks they would certainly use it. The Mountain Directory had a strong advisory on it. To be on the safe side, we decided to bypass Carlsbad this trip and just head south to El Paso, pick up I-10 then I-20 and head to Burleson.

With that settled, Thursday morning we drove to White Sands National Monument. We took in the film at the visitors’ center, rented a sledding disk and drove into the park. The “sand” is actually gypsum. Mountain runoff moving across gypsum rich rocks collects in Lake Lucero at the southwest end of the Tularosa Basin. With no river to drain the water, it evaporates and leaves gypsum crystals that are broken down by the elements. The strong southwest winds break the crystals apart and blows them into the dunes which appear to be white sand or even snow! The amazing thing is the dunes never grow beyond the area they are in. They can shift up to 30 feet a year but the area never increases.

We felt as if we were driving after a snowstorm. You can see where the plow has gone through to clear the road.



We drove to the picnic area at the end so we could sled on the hills.



It is quite a climb to the top but such fun to slide down. How great it would be to bring the grandkids for a picnic and a day of sledding! After several climbs we were pooped so we drove to a boardwalk and took it out into the dunes.






We saw a whiptail lizard that had a turquoise head and tail with a white body, his protection on the white gypsum. A volunteer gave a program and we also learned that German Air Force training goes on in Alamogordo and there is a German compound there much like the American compounds our friends in The Woodlands live in when they go overseas for the oil companies. We then understood why they were advertising an Oktoberfest in town in September.

We came home for lunch and then headed back into town and browsed through some stores. We are still looking for new recliners for the RV but stores never stock pairs, only one of each. I guess we’ll order a pair of Lazy Boy Pinnacles from Moore Furniture in Conroe when we return.

On Friday we drove 85 miles south to El Paso, TX. My parents lived near Corona, NM when I was conceived and then subsequently moved to El Paso. My mother returned to Cincinnati in October and I was born in Cincinnati. On December 2, 1945, (according to my baby book) I took my first plane trip on American Airlines - Cincinnati to El Paso. We lived there until November, 1946 when we returned to Cincinnati. Except for changing planes in Dallas in 1985 on our first trip to Hawaii and changing planes in Houston when I went with the girls to Albuquerque, I had never been back to Texas until we moved there in 2001. I had never been back to El Paso until today. We drove on to Odessa and will be here until Sunday when we'll head to Burleson. It's good to be home ... well almost home.