Last week we took off a few days to spend in the Colorado Rockies. As usual it was a very nice trip and we had a great time. Hope you will enjoy the pictures.

On a side note, one of the features of our travels is that Mike likes to find new music for each trip and so, in our minds, each trip ends up associated with some set of music. If you have not discovered them on your own, we would like to recommend two albums that dominated this trip for us:  Bruce Springsteen's new album "Western Sky" and the sound track from the movie "Echo in the Canyon," which is built around a live concert by Jakob Dylan and friends doing covers of music that grew out of Laurel Canyon in the late 60s. (It is also a pretty darn good movie.)


Driving through White Sands National Monument - near Las Cruces - with the Sacramento Mountains in the distance

Breakfast in Vaughn, New Mexico - fun little diner, but don't bother stopping here (Indigestion from a waffle?)

Early morning at Sugarite Canyon State Park, NM

Hiking in the Rocky Mountains near Nederland, CO

Ruby Crowned Kinglet 

Aspen Grove in Cold Springs Campground, outside of Golden, Colorado

Chip (or maybe Dale)

Echo Lake - along the road to Mt Evans, CO

Ducks in Echo Lake

Blue Damselfly on a leaf

Dennis at Echo Lake Picnic Area

View of the mountains from Leadville, CO - there are supposed to be something like a dozen 14,000 foot peaks along this road

Yellow flowers in the desert in northern New Mexico

New Mexico sky - near Bandelier National Monument

Frijoles Canyon - Bandelier National Monument

Dennis at the visitor center - Bandelier National Monument

Mike in the ruins of the main pueblo at Bandelier

Ruins of the cliff dwellings at Bandelier 

A current resident of Bandelier

Wildflowers at Bandelier 

The moon at Bandelier 

And after we got back to Las Cruces we took another hike:  About half a mile from the pecan groves along the Rio Grande River, Mike at the Prehistoric Trackways National Monument

We have been focused on getting settled into our new home, but we're also trying very hard to remember why we moved here: Our first camping trip was a 3 night run to Cloudcroft, NM.

Cloudcroft is about 90 miles east of Las Cruces and about 4500 feet higher than Las Cruces. So you drive out of the Rio Grande river valley, up over the Organ Mountains, across White Sands National Monument, around Alamagordo, and then up into the Sacramento Mountains.

While it was 100 degrees in LC, it was 75 in the pine forest of Cloudcroft.



Lovely afternoon in the woods

Young Bull Elk

Hiking in the woods

Aspen Stand - Just like in the Colorado Rockies

View from the Cloudcroft Senoir Center westward - The light colored strip of land in the valley towards the next mountain range is White Sands National Monument, which runs about 60 miles up the length of the valley

We never could decide what kind of bird this was, but we liked the picture

Same here

Cloudcroft has its own butterfly: Sacramento Mountains Checkerspot Butterfly

Another view across the valley westward from Cloudcroft. At this point, it was raining out over White Sands - but the air is so dry that the rain was evaporating before reaching the ground. 

Mike in the woods - along Pump House Road

The view across the mountains from Pump House

A Steller's Jay

Sleepy Grass Campgound

Good, solid advice

Sunrise over the Organs

In our last blog post we shared photos of our new house in New Mexico. In this post we would like to share photos of Las Cruces and the surrounding area.


The Las Cruces Aquatic Center - an oasis in the oasis.
Lap swimming, water aerobics, yoga and an exercise room all for $1 for seniors.

Sunset at Leasburg Dam State Park, where we lived in our trailer while our house was being remodeled.

 Celebrating our 20th anniversary in Truth or Consequences, New Mexico - an hour from Las Cruces.

 Street art in T or C

 Every Saturday year round Main Street is closed for the Farmer & Crafts Market.

 The Basilica San Albino Catholic Church in Old Mesilla, a colonial section of Las Cruces.

A short 20 minute drive behind our house is the Organ Mountains and Desert Peaks National Monument. It has great hiking and spectacular vistas.

 Speaking of vistas

 Views across Las Cruces from the west, looking towards the Organ Mountains.

View from the east looking across Las Cruces. The swaths of green are groves of pecan trees along the Rio Grande.

 View of the Organ Mountains from Buena Vida Park across the street from our house.

 Sunrise over the Organ Mountains from a morning walk in our neighborhood.

 Our own personal slogan living in Las Cruces