Different Trails: Las Cruces, New Mexico

During the month of October I took a trip to see my sister at her new home in the city of Las Cruces, New Mexico. I had been to Las Cruces several times but had never taken the time to get to know that area of New Mexico. Before moving to Carrollton, KY I lived in the Albuquerque/Rio Rancho area of New Mexico for the past 40 years but never got to see much of Las Cruces and the southeastern part of the state. Las Cruces means 'three crosses' but these are not the original three crosses that marked the burial place of someone several hundred years ago. These crosses sit just off of one of the major highways through the city and made for a good photo while we were sitting at a stop light one evening.

Since New Mexico is known for chili peppers we had to stop and take a couple of photos of this giant chili at The Big Chili Inn, That's me in the bottom corner of the photo.

This is a photo of the city of Las Cruces, NM taken from a rest area on the west side of town. Those are the Organ Mountains in the background. My sister likes in the foothills of those mountains on the eastern edge of the city.

What we really came to see at this rest area was this very large roadrunner. The roadrunner is the state bird of New Mexico. Some talented welder or welders made this huge bird out of all kinds of scrap metal. We guessed it at 20 feet tall and found out we were right when I found this interesting little article about the bird and it's builder. https://www.roadsideamerica.com/story/14700

Next are three photos I took at a park that was beside the Rio Grande River. That is an odd name as 'rio' is Spanish for river. The Rio Grande is known as the famous river that divides the United States and parts of Mexico. You have no doubt seen all the movies that show someone running from one side of the river to the other to get out of Mexico or the United State. Through much of its winding course the Rio Grande truly is a grand river but here in Las Cruces it isn't much more than a few inches deep. A few years ago when I saw it there wasn't even this much water in it, just a few puddles.

Unlike Albuquerque and the northern part of New Mexico Las Cruces is warm enough to have palm trees scattered among the landscape of the town. Most of the trees looked in good shape this year but a few years ago it got so cold far a few days that many palm trees died.

A yellow trumpet vine plant.

The state flower of New Mexico is the yucca which usually means the smaller verity of yucca that is found in and around Albuquerque. Here in the southern part of the state the larger yucca's grow. They bloom in the spring around May but hold their unusual seedpods for most of the summer, fall and winter.

Many homes in Las Cruces are landscaped with native plants that are not seen any where but in the southwestern states. The above photo is of a large century pland.