Visiting Friends, Good Food, Sightseeing

When we moved from Weatherford, Texas to Alamogordo, New Mexico, we told just about anybody who would listen to come see us. Finally, someone took us up on our request. Jeannine Colley and Barbara Farley are good friends and sister Red Hatters who drove over 500 miles to visit us and to celebrate my 74th birthday. We all belonged to Wild West Women of Weatherford Red Hat chapter until I moved away.

On Friday morning, August 10, 2012, my birthday, Barbara and Jeannine came to our home to visit and see our new living quarters here. After visiting for an hour or so, we drove to White Sands National Monument. I don't believe anyone comes to Alamogordo who doesn't visit this beautiful site. It is like no other place in the country. 

Barbara, Jeannine & Carla; The Three Misketeers

A body could go snow blind out here

Here we three are again with a different sand dune behind us

This raised walkway allows one to explore further into the dunes safely

Carla checking out some of the desert plants

This is actually a bacterial area that holds water and nutrients for desert plants

A shot of some of the native grasses that thrive in the sand

This small hill is actually a holder for a tree that grows underground

Another tree, but this one is thriving

As they say in Kansas City, "We've gone about as fer as we can go"

Where is our partner in crime hiding?  (teehee, in the shade)

Yucca, State Flower of New Mexico and there are millions of them

There are signs posted all along the raised walkway describing plants and different areas of the sands. We returned to Alamogordo and went to the New Mexico Museum of Space History. It is built in what looks like a space ship and one takes the elevator to the top floor and makes their way down to the bottom while looking at all the artifacts and reports of our space history. There are photos and names of everyone involved in space exploration from the very beginning. It is a fascinating exhibit of what man has accomplished thus far in space.

This is the first sign we noticed as we entered the space museum!

High in the museum looking out over the grounds with Alamogordo in the distance

Barbara and Carla enjoying the info on Ham, the first space chimp

This cotton tail jackrabbit just happened to run across the parking lot

I'm asking Jeannine what happened to Barbara. It seems she was distracted by a dog in a doggie carriage.

We drove to White Sands Shopping Mall because Barbara was interested in getting her hair cut like mine. Unfortunately, my hair stylist was off so Barbara made an appointment for 4:30 the next afternoon. We then went to Tropical Sno, a store that makes unusual snow cones in that the ice is shaved very finely. I had a piña colada flavored one and it was delicious. Doug talked us into getting these and we were glad he did because they really hit the spot.

It was time to go to our respective abodes, take a nap and dress for dinner. We were all definitely ready for a rest of some kind. We had reservations at the lovely Stella Vita Restaurant in downtown Alamogordo and I was really looking forward to dining there. As we are pulling out of the garage, Doug hits the button on the car mirror to close the garage door. It comes about a third of the way down and quits and all lights go off in the garage. He went inside and manually closed the garage door and we went to pick up the girls. On arriving , it is obvious the hotel has no electricity either. Doug receives a call from the girl at Stella Vita's and they have no power either. We made an instant decision to drive to Tularosa to dine at Casa de Sueños and it's surely a good thing we did. By the time we ate and started to leave, the place was wall to wall people and the parking lot was jammed. It seems the power outage continued and most of Alamogordo who wanted to eat came to Casa de Sueños which is about 13 miles away.

By this time, we are eating sopaipillas with honey drizzled on them

The girls surprised me with a delicious birthday cake.

It was a wonderful birthday made even more so by the presence of my friends Jeannine and Barbara and, of course, my darling husband, Doug whom I must thank for taking all these pictures for my blog.

This is all I have to say for now.