Its Not Mexico -- Its NEW Mexico

I got into El Paso, TX around noon and the rep I was working with picked me up post haste and we zipped over to the Army Med Ctr. They were having some issues with instrumentation so I was taking a look at their problem and trying to do some product conversion of my own as well. We were out of the facility by about 1:45/2 and then we zipped back to the airport where Kirk caught a flight back to Phoenix and I caught a car to my hotel in La Cruces, NM.

Its about a 40 minute drive from El Paso to La Cruces and you have to drive through the dessert and the mountains. Its pretty barren. It always amazes me how empty the sky is. Its this big slab of blue with the occassional big white puffy cloud floating around. The clouds that are hanging about the mountains put these great big shadows sporadically across the sides of the mountains. You can see forever, even with the mountains in the way because its this perfectly flat, dry landscape.

















I had to laugh as I was surrounded by true Mexican spirit. Literally every radio station that I put on was just rapid fire Spanish. I finally found a classical station and she was alternating between Spanish and English - it made no sense. Then she announced a piece by Grieg and -- I'm dead serious -- they played the piece with a mariachi band! Those trumpets and guitars and everything -- I was almost on the floor of the car because I was laughing so hard! Even this street was name "Nacho"!














I had read before I came, that there was a monument to the Bataan Death March. I guess, from what they say, its the only federally funded monument in the country. Its these three soliders - one is looking back (the past), one is looking down (the present) and the other is looking forward (the future). Its pretty cool because they have footprints on the path behind and ahead of the three. The footprints are representative of those who died (behind) and those who survived (ahead) the death march in the Philippines. The took actually cast molds of the survivors feet and then did the impressions (I believe the deceased ones were done with their shoes or something).
The monument is in a Veterans Park and so they have a big wall with all the people from NM who died in the different wars. They have all the wars the US has fought and the total number of deaths in each war. I'm adding it for the learning experience :)

And to conclude -- I drove around a little more and admired all the adobe-ish houses with no color and flat roofs and lawns composed of pea gravel. It looks like Mexico - it feels like Mexico - its NEW Mexico! Enjoy the SI SENOR restaurant roses that I got to admire while we still have daffodils and tulips at home :)