Las Cruces, NM - 10/10/13

Thursday – October 10, 2013
Nellie’s Café – Las Cruces, New Mexico
Walmart – Roswell, New Mexico

The winds really picked up last night, here at the Elephant Butte Lake State Park in Elephant Butte, New Mexico. Wind gusts approaching 50 mph are expected to prevail throughout the day and finally subside by 8:00 p.m., in the southern portion of New Mexico. Since the soil in this part of New Mexico is mostly sand, sandstorms are blowing everywhere, obliterating the view of mountains in the distance. New Mexico's department of transportation has issued a travel advisory for high profile vehicles. Extra caution will be required while traveling today.

We departed Elephant Butte State Park at 10:30 a.m. We were planning to spend two nights at the Leasburg Dam State Park, while we visited Las Cruces, New Mexico. The state park is located about 15 miles north of Las Cruces. Unfortunately, the state park campsites did not appeal to us, so we scrapped our plan to use this campground as a home base while we visited Las Cruces.

We decided to tow our trailer into Las Cruces, have lunch there, and then continue on to Roswell, New Mexico. While traveling south on I-25, a few miles north of Las Cruces, we noticed all of the northbound traffic was being diverted off of the Interstate to a checkpoint. The checkpoint is a permanent facility; similar to a truck weigh station. We later learned, this checkpoint is manned by Homeland Security personnel checking for illegal aliens and drug smuggling.

We arrived at Nellie’s Café in Las Cruces at 1:15 p.m. We discovered this restaurant using the Yelps application on our smartphone. It received a four-star rating from reviewers as an authentic Mexican restaurant, serving great food. This restaurant did not disappoint! It is a small, family-owned restaurant, serving great tasting Mexican food. Bring cash, because credit cards are not accepted at this establishment.

After satisfying our desire for an authentic Mexican meal, we continued on our journey. We traveled east on US-70 through the White Sands Missile Range in-route to Roswell. White sands is an appropriate description. The sand through this area is pure white. Several miles east of Las Cruces, we were diverted off of US-70 through a Homeland Security checkpoint. The security guard looked us over, asked us if we were U.S. citizens and then waved us on.

We arrived at a 24-hour Walmart in Roswell, New Mexico at 5:50 p.m. A sign painted on one of the window panels at Walmart read "Welcome to Roswell," with several alien characters painted on the window panel. We settled in for a relaxing night’s rest with our newfound "alien friends" and eight other RV’s.

Total miles traveled today: 275

Tomorrow another adventure begins.