Update on Frosty:
Ok everyone, before we go any further we need to get an all-important viewer verdict on Frosty the Snowball Bush - dead or alive???
Some of you may remember Frosty, who has been traveling everywhere with us since last fall. [See post from October 8, 2013] While we've mostly been in warm temps, we did have a few weeks in Alabama back in December where it was cold, so we kept him inside on the dashboard during that time. So you'd think he would have survived. He lost all his leaves and started looking kind of stubby but we thought well, maybe he thinks it's winter and has gone dormant. But if that were the case, wouldn't you think he would have noticed that it's spring now? Especially since we haven't been anywhere cold since the first of the year and he's been outside in the warm sunshine ever since. Obviously there is a divergent opinion between the Captain ("Frosty's fine...he just thinks it's still winter.") and the Queen ("He's not just mostly dead...he's completely dead!")
So please...render your thoughts and we will consider them carefully.
Las Cruces, NM:
We arrived in Las Cruces on Saturday afternoon, after bidding farewell to the Lone Star State. About 45 miles to the southeast along I-10 we came through El Paso, which is a much larger city than we had expected. There was a lot of traffic and it felt like it took forever to get through, especially since the wind really started picking up around that point. We got into Las Cruces and set up at the Coachlite RV Park and that wind continued to pick up. We disconnected the car and went out to run a few errands and by the time we returned home, there was a brown haze in the air throughout the area and the winds were around 50 mph. There is not much grass here, so a high wind will just kick up a cloud of dust and wow, was it kicking.
After dinner, seeing that it wasn't dying down, we made the decision to power down our satellite dish and to bring in our driver side slide outs since that was the side that was exposed to the wind. Our concern was that the dish could be torn off the roof - when we power it down it folds itself up and tucks away nice and almost flat in travel mode. As for the slides, we feared that the non-retractable awnings that cover each slide could sustain damage. We have never had to do this before, but the wind was just that bad. We can function with the slides in, but it definitely feels cramped even with just two of them pulled in. One slide actually covers the TV in our living area but without the dish we couldn't get reception anyway. I spent the evening catching up on old episodes of The Tudors on my laptop (downloaded through Amazon Prime) and Bill watched stuff we had on the DVR on the bedroom TV. It was definitely not a night to do anything outdoors. This morning the weather was beautiful - sunny, 70s and NO WIND.
Today we drove out about 50 miles northwest of town to the White Sands National Monument. It was a fascinating place - miles and miles of rolling sand hills and shifting dunes.
We did a bit of climbing.
The roads are regularly plowed to keep them passable since the dunes shift and the sand drifts in the wind. It looked like snow piled up on the side of the road.
It was kind of like a giant beach...only without the water! And actually we learned that water is only down from inches to at most a foot or two below the surface, although it looks like a desert. Also, these dunes are only between 7,000 and 10,000 years old (an instant in geological time) and scientists study the area because the plants and animals that have evolved here have done so much more quickly than in most places. Most of the animals and insects tend to be white or very light in color, an obvious adaptation. White Sands was an amazing place and we were so glad that we were able to experience it.
This was a short two day stop. Tomorrow we head for Tucson Arizona.
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