THE WEEKEND - by Dot

Although we were under no pressure to celebrate Valentine’s Day over the weekend since we had already had our special lunch at Cloudcroft, we did talk ourselves into eating out several times over the weekend. On Friday night we joined one of Dan’s high school friends and his wife at the Aqua Reef, a very good Euro-Asian restaurant that opened while we were here last year. It was a nice change from our almost steady diet of Mexican food. However, by Saturday morning we were ready for the hot stuff again! We had breakfast at Nellie’s Café, which is very popular with the locals. We got there early enough that we did not have to wait for a seat. The food was excellent with a good “kick” to the salsa and sauces. I find that having spicy, hot food for breakfast really wakes me up and energizes me!

On to the Farmer’s Market where I immediately made a beeline for the location of a vendor of local produce. Alas, she was not there! My week’s menus will need some adjusting now. We meandered on to the Branigan Cultural Center to see a new exhibition of local art, including one work by a friend of ours. We had known her for her photography. However, her entry was a work of fractal art, a new medium to us. Quite interesting.

While we were in an artistic mood we made a visit to the Las Cruces Museum of Art where we enjoyed the whimsical paper mache creations of Stephen Hansen. It was really interesting to hear chuckling and bursts of laughter in an art gallery!

Since we were too full from breakfast we decided to skip lunch and go to the gym even though we do not normally make a trip there on Saturdays. It was probably a good decision since we didn’t get much exercise at the movie theater later in the afternoon. We saw Frost-Nixon which was pretty interesting. The acting was good and it appeared that much of the interview segments were true to the original, although we now have a desire to watch the original interview to compare them.

We debated visiting the newest English-speaking United Methodist Church on Sunday but felt drawn to St. Paul’s, Dan’s home church. It is our next to last Sunday in Las Cruces so we wanted to worship in familiar surroundings where we know at least a few people. We did, however, break our Sunday tradition of brunch at Paisano’s and went instead to another Mexican restaurant for breakfast after the early service.

Since we knew that we would not be able to view the Duke-Boston College game in the afternoon we decided that we needed to spend the afternoon outside. We struck out on two places that we thought about going (they are opened only Tue-Sat.) I dug out the book Day Hikes and Nature Walks that I had bought at a local bookstore and we headed out to find Aden Crater between Las Cruces and El Paso. We had noted that this was “an easy 2-mile roundtrip hike” to an ancient shield volcano that produced lava flow over 10,000 years ago. The book suggested that hiking there “evokes a sense of walking in a moonscape.” Here, at the bottom of a volcanic vent 110 ft. deep the mummified remains of a giant sloth were found. These remains are now on exhibit at the Smithsonian.

Unfortunately we did not pay close attention to the details of the directions so we did not realize that the total trip would be 35 miles each way, mostly over unpaved country roads! The Prius did its best to be an SUV but when we got to the final turn, 4.2 miles from our destination, the road just did not seem to be Prius-friendly. Disappointed, we picked up a piece of lava rock at the side of the road and wound our way back toward town in our extremely dusty car.

In spite of the disappointment in not being able to actually walk around and into the volcanic crater, we enjoyed the beautiful drive through large agricultural areas of the Mesilla Valley. We passed acres of pecan orchards, newly plowed cotton fields with tufts of white mixed in with the dirt, and bright green fields of something that we believe was alfalfa. For miles around we could see various mountain ranges and mesas and a vast desert landscape as well.

We were able to hear the first half of the Duke game on the way home. It was good. Unfortunately the second half was apparently not as good and the Blue Devils went down to their third defeat in the last four games. I do hope they regain their winning momentum before the ACC tournament.

Less than two week are left in southern New Mexico so we have to begin scheduling the things we still have on our list of things we want to do. We are also beginning to plan our week in Santa Fe. What a wonderful privilege it is to be able to experience this “Land of Enchantment” over such a long period.

Note: There are still some back east who think that we are out of the country! The rest think we are in Arizona. Now we understand why New Mexico is the only state that feels a need to put USA on its license plates!