Recap: Las Cruces, NM

Shereese, Juno, and I drove from Phoenix, Arizona to Las Cruces, New Mexico on Tuesday, May 18 with the intention of staying through Sunday. Shereese has a client here — Evershine Assisted Living — that she hadn’t seen since before the pandemic and this road trip offered her the opportunity to spend time with them on a couple big projects they have in the works.

It’s a good thing we had reserved this time to slow down, because it allowed us to get more situated with work and some logistics that still needed to be ironed out. On Wednesday, I had to get the windshield of my car replaced, because a rock had cracked it on the way to our hike in Arizona and I didn’t want to watch it grow over the coming weeks of this trip. We also recorded two podcast episodes for Season 6. On Thursday, I visited the Bill Sybert School in El Paso, representing the #pinksocks tribe.

Friday, we divided and conquered our work obligations, but shared dinner that evening, spent some time coloring our #HITtheTrails postcards to wind down, and Shereese signed me up for her family’s traditional “pickle and hot sauce challenge”

On Saturday, we went for a hike in the mountains that serve as a backdrop to the city of Las Cruces. We made a point to go early because the sun is strong in this part of the country and we didn’t want to be caught in the midday heat. It was good choice and within a few hundred yards of being on the trail, I brought me great joy to hear Shereese say out loud, “This is the best hike I’ve ever been on, hands down!”

She and I talked about what a privilege it is to have the National Park Service in the U.S. They maintain and mark our trails and safeguard special places around the country to make it safe for us explore the great outdoors. As someone who has tried hiking and exploring in Mexico recently, I have a new appreciation for the services the NPS organization provides. We were the only ones on the Pine Tree Loop and very grateful for how easy it was to follow the trail. That being said, there was a point toward the halfway point at the peak of the mountain where we weren’t sure if we had gotten off track — it was a long walk and mostly uphill. So instead of continuing on in what might have been the wrong direction, we decided to double back, to be 100% sure we would return safely with plenty of time for the rest of the day. That’s when we ran into Pam and Mike, who were happy to stop and chat with us in the shade about their outdoor adventures and best practices.

On Sunday, Shereese continued working with her client and I took Juno out to visit nearby White Sands National Park, which was serene and as picturesque as you would imagine.

Next stop: Dallas, Texas!

Las Cruces, NM

Where we stayed: Airbnb, but we wanted to stay at Aguirre Spring Campground

Where we hiked: Pine Tree Trail and White Sands National Park

Indigenous Acknowledgment - Tampachoa (Mansos)