We were told by our Las Cruces realtor that “Las Cruces has its windy season this month and next.” I believe he meant April and May. But I remarked back; “And come May, you will again say Las Cruces has its windy season this month and next.” It certainly seems that way, we have seen our share of wind!
Valley of Fires
After having the purchase offer on the Las Cruces lot accepted, we headed north towards Albuquerque. The builder we have been working with suggested we take a slight detour to see the Valley of Fires Recreation Area. I was up for something touristy after all the property searching we had been doing. Let’s go!

It’s pretty scenic. There is cheap camping WITH power in the Valley of Fires, with every site having a view. We did just a quick drive through, but we WILL be coming back. My new knee and I even managed a short hike to the top of a small hill with a lookout.

Throw-down of the green chili cheese burgers
Our builder, Kelly, made another recommendation. After the Valley of Fires, we would be going through the small town of San Antonia, New Mexico. There are ONLY two restaurants there, and they both serve great green chili cheeseburgers. Little did we know how famous this little town AND the green chili cheeseburger are!
New Mexico may be the “Land of Enchantment”, but it is also the “chili capital of the world.” The city of Hatch, just 41 miles north of Las Cruces, is where many of the green chilis are grown. Driving through Hatch when they are roasting chilis is an aromatic experience!
On our way to Albuquerque, we stopped at the first of the two restaurants, the Owl Cafe.

This unassuming cafe was the hangout for the atomic scientists working on the atomic bomb during World War II. They asked for hamburgers, what they got were hamburgers with green chilis. The rest is history.

On our way back from Albuquerque, we stopped in San Antonio again, this time we ate at the Buckhorn Tavern, right across the street from the Owl Cafe. GQ Magazine voted their green chili cheeseburger the 7th best burger in America.


It was only after we had tried the two cheeseburgers (and voted Buckhorn’s the best) that we learned what a big deal the green chili cheeseburger is. New Mexico has a Green Chili Cheeseburger Trail. Chef Bobby Flay did a “Throwdown” with the owner of the Buckhorn Tavern (Discovery+ or Food Network, Throwdown with Bobby Flay, Season 6, episode 12). Spoiler: Bobby didn’t win.
All in all, we had good burgers and learned a few things bout green chilis! Below is a short (2:49 minute) video about the two restaurants. You can also view it at https://youtu.be/viDEeI03hpU.
Albuquerque
Finally, we made it to Albuquerque, where my Dad now lives, close to my brother Jim and his family. I hadn’t seen Dad since April of 2020, and that was from a COVID safe distance. It was good to give him a hug and see how he was doing. Unfortunately for Dad, I had a list of errands we needed to run. After three days, I think I wore Dad out, but we got it done! Errands and this picture were about all we had time for!

Rusty’s RV Ranch
We were in need of some down time. Therefore, we headed to one of our favorite places on earth, Rusty’s RV Ranch in Rodeo, New Mexico.

This was our fifth visit and it felt like coming home. We pulled in and were greeted with “Howdy. I guess I better turn up the temperature in the hot tub.” They remembered us and our fondness of a 103 degree hot tub!
Rusty’s is a dark skies park and one of the resident astronomers remembered us from a previous visit (the Blue Flame DOES stand out). In fact, this astronomer was able to get Jim into another astronomer’s onsite observatory (called the Astro-shed) that Jim spent an afternoon assisting with two years ago (read that post at https://rv.cjsquare.com/2019/01/rustys-rv-ranch-again/). You can read all about the observatory build and its owner/builder/RVer Michael, at https://turtleherding.com/2019/06/astronomy-shed-build/. He’s really done an amazing job and can tell the story much better than us.




Remember that wind we talked about? Rusty’s RV Ranch had wind to spare. If you take a look below at this screen shot from the weather station in the Astro-Shed, you can see the temperature as 83.8 degrees. But with the wind chill, the “feels like” temperature is 68.5 degrees. Jim says he now understands the statement “But it’s a dry heat.”

Deming, New Mexico
After a week at Rusty’s, it was time to head back to Las Cruces to finalize the purchase of our lot. We broke up the trip by staying overnight at the Lescombes Winery in Deming. This is a Harvest Hosts location (join Harvest Hosts for a small fee, find places to spend the night for free, spend all your campground money on wine/beer/souvenirs instead).


After the wine and some food, we took ourselves back to the RV to give in to food comas. It was very breezy and we had all the windows open (rather than running the generator and turning on the air conditioner). Jim was outside reading, I was inside the RV. Then…remember those winds I was talking about? Wait for it….

Photo Credit: Josh Bachman, Las Cruces Sun-News
The wind kicked up and we were ‘attacked’ by a dust devil, suddenly sand was blowing into the RV through all the openings, especially the windows. LOTS of sand. I jumped up and closed the windows on the windy side for all the good it did. Jim was outside and almost got blown over. The dust devil only lasted 3 to 5 seconds, but it took us hours to clean up after it.




We spent the rest of the evening sweeping, wiping down, and getting out clean bedding (thank goodness I had some…Thanks Amy H. for reminding me of that). So a word to the wise….if you are in a dirt parking lot and it’s windy, close the windows. Trust me.
Las Cruces one more time
The next morning we left the dust of Deming, and made our way back to Las Cruces and RV parking at the Elks Club (cheap) where I almost immediately took advantage of being on shore power to use the vacuum to clean up the rest of the sand, dirt and dust. I still am cleaning for that matter. Oh yes, we also closed on our lot. We now own property in New Mexico. After the closing we commented to our realtor and title company officer that now we were official New Mexicans. They said “no, when you got ‘attacked’ by the dust devil, that was your official christening to becoming New Mexicans.” Most christenings that I know about use water. But when you don’t have water and only sand, I guess you use sand!

With the closing behind us and some good progress on the new house plans with the builder, it’s time to leave New Mexico. Onward to Texas! We have a daughter about to defend her PhD dissertation.

Speaking of Janelle’s dissertation, if anyone wants to watch her defend, I can provide you the Zoom link. Just send me an email or a message and I’ll get you the info. Her defense is June 3 at 10:00 CDT.

Living the “good life” but — throw in a little dust storm to keep you grounded ๐ Nice pic of you and your dad.
Actually, I could do without the dust storms. That picture of the dust storm was actually taken right down the road from where we are building. I’ve learned…keep the windows closed.