Las Cruces, New Mexico for Christmas

I am writing this on January 2 from the City of Rocks State Park. We were planning to leave here today, but we changed our minds. I did have one more thing to do and I will write all about that in an upcoming post.

On December 24, we left Davis Mountain SP in Texas and made the drive to Las Cruces, NM. We had to drive through El Paso. I will not do that again if I can help it. The lanes were very tight due to construction and the drivers were extremely aggressive. More than once I had to hit the brakes hard to avoid hitting a car that had come into my lane without warning and then the traffic stopped. I am sure glad I got the front brakes replaced when we were back in Missouri.

We arrived in Las Cruces mid afternoon. What a nice looking town. It is typical dry climate without much green, but the surrounding mountains are spectacular.

We went over to Mom and Dad's hotel that is only about 1 mile from our RV park. We decided to stay at the Coachlight Inn and RV park. It is really not bad and has a PA rate of 18.50 per night with FHU. I had to ask my parents, Why Las Cruces? They told me that we would understand later. They have been coming to Las Cruces for 3 years for the Christmas celebration on the historic Mesilla town square. We went back to our rig and got dressed for the evening and Mom and Dad picked us up. The town was all light up with luminaries. There was Christmas carols being sung and a bunch of people just having fun.

We went to Midnight mass at the church at the far end of the square.

Here is a shot with me and Mom and Dad:

And one of Kim and I in front of the Christmas tree:

We had a great dinner and then went to the church to listen to music. It was a very memorable evening and it was great to spend the time with my parents.

We spent Christmas day at Mom and Dad's hotel and just watched football.

On December 26, we decided to go to White Sands. That is a short, but steep drive up and over the mountains. We first stopped at the missile range that has been used for testing and development since the mid 1940's.

I like this shot because of the mountains in the background. 

The museum was closed for the holiday. The rocket garden was kind of cool and I learned a few things from the interpretive signs. Overall good but not great.

We then went to White Sands National Monument. We watched a very good film in the visitor center and then decided to head to Alamogordo for an early dinner. We came back by the NM on the way back and decided to take a quick driving tour. Here are a few shots of the white gypsum sand.

Dad and I with a white capped mountain in the background

We really loved our time in Las Cruces. It is just one more example of why we love this lifestyle. We have seen both of our parents multiple times in the past year. We were lucky if we could see them once a year when we were still working.

We ended up staying one more day in Las Cruces and got a bunch of stuff done like buy propane and go to Walmart. We then went to see "Rouge One" while we were near a theater. Kim is really into the Star Wars movies. We then headed to where we are now. I will write all about our time here in coming entries.