We’ve reached the conclusion of our two-weeks in Las Cruces. It’s been rewarding, exhausting, frustrating, interesting, fun and challenging! We’ve made some new friends and learned a lot from the experienced Habitat Care-a-vanners, and we hope to use these skills at home and at future Habitat projects. 

When we arrived, we discovered that our water pump was leaking all over the bedroom subfloor. Bob took half the bedroom apart to reach the pump, which was tucked into a corner underneath one of the nightstands. Seriously, he had to take the bed apart, empty one of the closets, and cut a hole inside the closet and in the bottom of the nightstand. Then, he discovered the subfloor where the leak had been occurring (apparently for some time) had practically turned to pudding. He removed that rotted wood and replaced it before driving to El Paso to get a new pump, then installed that and a new fitting on the fresh water tank. All of this was done after working at Habitat and as well as throughout last weekend, taking the bed apart on pretty much a daily basis and putting it back together so we could sleep. The poor guy has had little time to explore the Las Cruces area. I think by the time we get home, he’ll be able to build a motorhome from the ground up. This motorhome life is not for the faint of heart!

That being said, we have seen a fair amount of Las Cruces between our trips to Home Depot, RV stores, and the like. We managed to drive around for a few hours on Sunday afternoon to see the Organ Mountains and Old Mesilla town. The landscape is beautiful! We even met a local man and a Care-a-vanner from Texas who dance, and we managed to get out one night to a social dance, which was a lot of fun. The people we’ve met around town have been very nice, and many of them moved here from the north and east to get away from the cold winters. They say the cost of living is good here, and so is the climate, with this “high desert” area not getting much hotter than the upper 90’s (and not humid) in the summer and generally not colder than 40-ish in the winter. We keep hearing that this winter was colder than normal. We’re glad that it has finally warmed up around here! The morning chill has been warming to the 70’s during the day, so Louise is finally wearing shorts, put the winter pj’s away, and we took three blankets off the bed! 

We have experienced the wind here already, and highway signs instruct drivers what to do in case of a dust storm. There are arroyos on local roads, even in the middle of neighborhoods. These are gullies, or dry washes, which can flood during the rainy summer season. Signs warn drivers to turn back if the dip in the road is flooded, because a sudden downpour several miles away can flood an arroyo here. And, they say, just as quickly as the arroyos flood, the water drains away. 

One of our fellow Care-a-vanners put it very well when she said about the desert, “You’ve got to be ok with beige.”

Tessa’s hanging in there. This has been a rough stop for her. She’s almost 11 months old now and has only known us as retired folks, so our going to work every day has been upsetting for her. Most of the Care-a-vanners with dogs bring them to the job sit and tie them to a fence where the dogs find a piece of shade and lay on a blanket, or soak up some rays. Tessa found the whole thing to be very upsetting. She learned to howl quite well in Las Cruces and even chewed up the car a bit in frustration. Louise has stayed at the motorhome with her the last couple of days, where Tessa has been very content to lay outside in the shade and soak up some rays, even when Mom disappeared to do laundry or go to the dumpster. We think the strange and loud noises of the construction site, all the people milling around, and not being able to see us really made her anxious. We took her for almost daily visits to the huge dog park here, where she had a blast running around with the other dogs until Sunday when another dog went after her and even pulled out a small tuft of fur. Tessa took off for the gate, tail between her legs and yelping, and she has been very cautious at the dog park since then. Poor girl has had a tough time of it in Las Cruces. It’s time to leave the city, move back out to the boondocks and take our girl for some hikes!

Today we move on to City of Rocks State Park about 90 minutes west of here.

The Organ Mountains (whomever named them thought they resembled the pipes of an organ) frame the east side of Las Cruces.

The Organ Mountains are famous for glowing orange when the sun sets.

The city of Las Cruces with the Robledo Mountains in the background.

Cow thinking of crossing the road.

The Habitat homes we worked on.

Louise, setting nails.

Judy (Vermont) caulking baseboard trim.

Bob and Tony (Michigan) building shelves (they look like brothers from the back, don’t they?)

Sandi (Michigan) shimming a door.

Barbara (California) and Gail (Alaska) installing flooring.

Meghan (site supervisor, New York) and Tony (Michigan) at the chop saws.

The whole crew at our pot luck supper.