After spending Christmas with our family in Oklahoma, we headed to Holiday Campground at Lake Benbrook, Texas and met up with Larry and Beverly. After a couple of days planning, we finally headed west. We traveled through the Wind Turbine Capital of Texas (Sweetwater) and the oil fields of the Midland/Odessa area.
In Van Horn we had great Mexican food at Chuy's Cafe (not associated with the restaurant chain of the same name) made famous by former NFL great John Madden. Mr Madden did not like to fly so he traveled by coach/bus most of the time. On one of his trips through Van Horn he stopped at Chuy's and really enjoyed the food and conversation. After that, he stopped anytime he was in the area. They have a table reserved for him at all times.
After eating a wonderful homestyle breakfast at the Park Cafe and hearing how the couple that ran it came to be in Van Horn, Texas, we headed out. As we traveled through El Paso, we realized how closely I-10 takes you to Mexico. It runs parallel along the border for quite a bit. You could see the wall/border, the road that runs directly next to it and the houses that cover the hillside in Mexico.
We left Texas and entered the "Land of Enchantment", New Mexico. We spent the next week at the Hacienda RV Park & Resort, in Las Cruces.
On Saturday we headed downtown to the Farmers and Craft Market.
Since it was not harvest time, we didn't find fresh produce but we did find locally made jelly, apple butter and breads plus kettle corn, of course. Since it was lunch time, we decided to have pizza at Joshua's Pie at the Market. They cooked in a mobile wood-fired oven and the pizza was delicious. Yum. Yum.
The next day we headed to La Posta de Mesilla, a 100 year old Mexican Restaurant in Old Mesilla. Great authentic Mexican food.
One thing we had to see while in the area was White Sands National Monument. Dune after dune of white sand, as far as the eye can see. Although we walked around, we didn't stray far since we had heard several stories of people getting lost. While there, we stopped in to see Gary and Ann, a couple working as interpretive volunteers that we met last summer while volunteering at Chickasaw National Recreation Area in Sulphur, Oklahoma. We met up with them over breakfast the next day and had a great visit. 
A few days later we visited the White Sands Missile Range located inside the military base. We all had to provide ID and be photographed, then Larry had to show registration, insurance etc on the car. Even after we got the okay to enter, we still had to get out of the car while it was searched from front to back, inside and out. All this for us to travel a few hundred yards to the Museum. It was all worth it as we toured the museum and outside displays, learning some of the history of these missiles.
