Roadtrip Day III - Las Cruces, NM to Fort Stockton, TX

Day III - Sunday, December 25th, 2011

Las Cruces, El Paso and to Fort Stockton, TX

When we approach Las Cruces, NM, I kept noticing there were white substance on the ground. Ignorant of our elevation, I soon figured out that it had snowed prior to our arrival! What luck! 

We arrived to Las Cruces around 8PM, checked into the motel and again with stroke of luck, we were given a room across from the laundry room. Exactly what I needed since Bobbie wasn't feeling well and had some accidents. Even though it's only been a couple of days, it's nice to have clean smelling clothes. Oh yeah, I even brought some detergents and softener cloths along as I was well prepared to do laundry on the road.

It wasn't as cold as expected, I was actually out on flip-flops hehe of course that didn't last too long. Even took Bobbie out for a stroll. Basically, the first few days, we lived on the food that we brought along. We lugged all our stuff in upon arrival and packed everything back into the car upon departure. All motels were equipped with ice machine so we were able to replenish the ice supply to keep the perishables from getting perished!

Kesian Bobbie, forced to come with me on the roadtrip involuntarily hehe Didn't do too much that night as we were exhausted from all the driving. Showered, watched some tv before falling asleep.

The next morning, we checked out pretty early and had no clue what to expect from this town. It was supposed to be the 2nd largest cities in New Mexico but I still find it kinda town-ish vs. city-ish. As we drove to 'downtown', we stumbled upon this:

It appeared out of nowhere but then we were in the middle of nowhere. We just pulled the car aside, got out and walked toward the spectacular find. Photo-op lo:

Despite this piece of land is right next to the road side, there weren't that many car that passed by, could also be because it was Christmas. We continued our way to the old town called Mesilla... did not see anything that caught our attention.

We drove around aimlessly around this part of town and saw houses scattered randomly, some of them were in sad shape but some were really grand with all the XMas decoration etc. We then start driving to the new town center and then this appeared before us:

What a contrast to the barren foreground and all the buildings that appeared so little in the middle and the breathtaking view of the peaks in the back!? We drove on and continued to explore the little town and ended up by the town center where we parked right by the courthouse. 

As we walked around the corner, we heard what sounded like a huge argument. Apparently, one guy was trying to cross the street and there were two guys in a truck that seemed to be in a hurry, he beeped at him and one thing led to another, the next thing we saw was the two guys were out of their truck running after the  guy who was crossing the street. We were not sure if he got beat up or not, we just went the opposite direction swiftly. I do know that NM has a high crime rate especially in Albuquerque, but this was a small town and for something like that to happen so early in the morning of Christmas... wow, it must be bad.

Moving along, I saw the best photo op every so I came up with this brilliant idea and asked SW to go across the street so I could take this brilliant shot hehe doesn't it look great? Of course it does! We had to coordinate until the lights turn green so we could actually walk to the center of the road to take this shot.

There weren't much else to see so we decided it was time to move onto our next destination which is El Paso, TX which is only less than an hour away. El Paso is just right next to the Mexican border we could actually see it while driving on the freeway. And of course, the border is fenced all the way through and border patrol presence is very much visible here. Temperature also climbed and humidity can be felt as well.

We drove directly to downtown and once again it was eerily empty, I guess it was due to the fact it was a major holiday and nobody's working. We walked around the square and snapped some pictures. 

I read that El Paso was the city with every fast-food chain imagineable. I suppose we were at the wrong place because we were not able to locate any! I looked up nearby restaurants on Yelp and couldn't find any that was open. After a few days of making and eating our own sandwiches, we really wanted something different so we drove around as there's got to be a McDonalds hiding somewhere.

Sure enough there was one so we stopped for lunch before hitting the road again, SW even took a picture of me while ordering food.

After we get our McD fix, then head back on the road for Fort Stockton. As we drive further along the freeway and away from downtown, we then realized all the fast-food chains were lined up on both sides of the freeway! Aiya... already makan, so continued our drive to Fort Stockton where we will be spending a night which is about 3.5hours from El Paso.

One of the highlights of our drive:

And also made a brief stop for Bobbie :)