Museums and Monuments

I visited the Branigan Cultural Center in downtown Las Cruces. The main exhibit there is Journey Stories: Traveling to and Through America. Everything you want to know about how the West was settled. The Center encourages visitors to share stories as well, and so I put a pin in the map on Ainsworth, Nebraska. It's worth a visit to explore Las Cruces and Mesilla, New Mexico history. The Las Cruces Museum of Art is next door, and right now is showing New Mexico: 100 Years of Art . I also tried to visit the Las Cruces Railroad Museum, which was closed. I found out this afternoon that people of Wal-Mart are the same no matter what state you are in...

Tuesday night I went to the Rio Grande Theatre to listen to The Big Band on the Rio Grande, a 19-piece band that played mostly swing pieces. The vocalist, an Asian woman, sang the German version of "Mac the Knife," because, as she explained, it was written by German immigrants and she is an immigrant, too.

I started Wednesday morning with a trip downtown once again to the local Farmer's Market. Everyone was quick to tell me that I should come back Saturday, when they have over 200 vendors. I traveled to Organ, New Mexico, an old mining town that is now mostly a restaurant and mercantile shop off of I-70. If you plan to visit, locals suggest calling first to see if they are open. I was walking around taking pictures, and the owner of the restaurant let me in to have some food. He locked the door behind me, but also let two other people in later.

The name of the restaurant has changed in the last year, and is now Renoo's Thai Delight.
The owners just got back from visiting Thailand and were going to re-open tomorrow. I had a nice lunch of Spring Rolls, Thai Shrimp Salad (Shrimp, fresh cilantro, tomatoes, onions, medium spicy, with steamed rice), and Diet Pepsi.

I had a great visit today to White Sands National Monument (Photo above from newmexicowanderings.com), and will have gypsum in my shoes and my car for a while! White Sands is in a bowl surrounded by mountains made of gypsum rock. The rain breaks down the gypsum into crystals which tumble and blow down the mountain to be polished by the wind. Animals and plants survive in this rugged terrain that is ever-changing. Worth the drive from Las Cruces, near Alamagorda, New Mexico. $3 buys you a ticket to drive the trails through the park for a week. For $10 you can rent a sled and go sledding down the dunes; you get $3 back when you return your sled. There were several children taking the opportunity to do that today, as this is their Spring Break.

I am going to sign off now and check out karaoke. I don't even need to drive; it's in the bar attached to the hotel. See you soon!

Janeen