Hey hey USA - 20th October - we turn north

 


The time had come to leave Las Cruces and drive north to Albuquerque from where Anne and Michael were to fly home. I thought I would show you the house where we stayed in Las Cruces as it was very nice. Although probably built of breeze block, it had an adobe finish in line with much of the housing there. There were 3 bedrooms, a good sized living room and a small garden which looked over a large natural area before the beginning of Las Cruces commercial district.




Michael had to do a work zoom meeting in the morning, so Alan, Anne and I went to the Farm and Ranch Heritage Museum that was very close to the house. The outside activities were rather limited as it was out of season but the interior exhibitions were very good. Especially one about the effects on the Tularosa Basin of the coming of the missile range and research into the atom bomb. Many ranchers and their families had to leave the homes and farms they had built up over years. Recompense was either limited or never received by the ranchers. All in all a sorry tale.
There was a launch of an exhibition of landscape photography going on while we were there and I managed to put my foot in it big time. On looking at the photos before the launch had started, I proclaimed, very loudly, that I thought them oversaturated and clichéd only to realise I was standing next to the author. We made a sharp exit. Not that mine are any better, but hey I am not exhibiting them.


A dry stream bed at the museum




One of the pair of great horned owls living wild at the museum. Either Hoot or Annie!

When Mike had finished we headed out of Las Cruces on i25. We came to the strangely named Truth or Consequences. This town was previously named Hot Springs as it has a number of them. Truth or Consequences was a popular radio game show in the 40's and 50's. The host Ralph Edwards announced in 1950 that he would air the programme for its 10th anniversary from any town which changed its name to that of the show. Hot Springs officially became Truth or Consequences on March 31st 1950 and the programme aired from there the following evening. Edwards visited the town every year for 50 years and there was always a fiesta to celebrate him. The fiesta is still a part of the T or C calendar.



Just north of T or C is Elephant Butte Dam. This was built on the Rio Grande in 1905 as a storage dam, as so much water was being taken from the top of the Rio Grande that nothing was trickling down to the more southerly reaches of the river. The elephant butte is an island formed from a volcanic plug that lies in the lake. In low water this is connected to the mainland by an isthmus. When we were there the water level was severely low and it did not smell too good. Autumn is a dry time in New Mexico and hopefully it is fuller now.













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