Denver to Raton

We left Cherry Creek State Park on Sunday, January 6 and traveled to Raton, New Mexico. It was a pretty easy drive. We stayed at the KOA campground in Raton.

Raton to Albuquerque

The windy conditions today (January 7) made for a little bit of a challenge. Nothing major, but we took it a bit slower today to compensate. We stopped at Blake’s Lotaburger for lunch. When we go to New Mexico, I always enjoy eating green chile cheeseburgers. Blake’s is a New Mexico chain which has them (and it was conveniently placed for a stop).

Our night was spent in an RV park operated by the Isleta Pueblo Casino south of Albuquerque. This was a very nice park that was landscaped nicely and had nice (but frozen, of course) fishing ponds.

Albuquerque to Las Cruces

On Tuesday (January 8) we completed our journey down to the end of I-25 in Las Cruces. We spent a week at the Hacienda RV Resort. It’s a very nice park in an area that we always love visiting (Old Mesilla).

Las Cruces Area

While we were here we explored several places.

Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks National Monument

This was the first national monument that I’ve been to that was not operated by the National Park Service. That’s a new learning for me. There are 130 national monuments operated under 8 different federal agencies. We didn’t do much there but just drive around. The government shut-down has, of course, hampered visitor access.

Veteran’s Memorial

Las Cruces has established a very nice Veteran’s Memorial park.

Museum of Nature and Science

The city of Las Cruces operates four museums (Branigan Cultural Center, Museum of Art, Railroad Museum, and the Museum of Nature and Science), all with free admission. I was most interested in seeing the Permian trackways which are on display here, collected by Jerry MacDonald at Prehistoric Trackways National Monument (see separate section below).

The museum also had several displays of local desert life.

Clyde Tombaugh was a resident of Las Cruces. Clyde used math to predict the planet Pluto’s location and then was the first person to observe it.

Prehistoric Trackways National Monument

Another National Monument operated by the BLM in this area is a wilderness area in which trace fossils from the Permian age (about 280 million years ago) have been discovered.

Watch a youtube video about the guy (Jerry MacDonald) who has made the majority of the fossil discoveries here.

First Baptist Church Las Cruces, Sonoma Campus

We had the opportunity to worship with the congregation of FBC, Las Cruces. They have two campuses – one downtown and one in the newer suburbs northeast of town. We chose to visit the suburb campus. The pastor preached a very good sermon on Faith based on Romans 1:16-17.

This week we plan to head into west Texas. We’re investigating the possibility of working for a few months as gate guards/keepers in the Texas oil fields. More on that later!