A Large Roadrunner

We woke to 22 degrees outside this morning but watched the sunrise and waited to warm up after running 2 heaters all night. We drove east through Arizona until we entered New Mexico at 10 a.m. Flat land as far as the eye can see, rimmed away in the distance with foothills, of which many are shaped like little pyramids. Saw 5 cows once and the pale yellow grassland and sand goes forever.
New Mexico is know for ancient pueblos, the dwellings carved in rock cliffs the early American Indians lived in, adobe architecture, red rock cliffs and ristas, the colorful strings of sun dried Chile peppers draped over doorways to ward off evil, welcome visitors and alert guests to the fiery food served there. We crossed the Continental Divide, and the Rio Grande River which was wide and shallow with sand bars. Saw this roadrunner sculpture, which was about 20 feet high, at a rest stop before
Las Cruces, the only significant town we went through. It means there was a little forest of crosses marking the graves of a caravan ambushed by Mescalero Apaches and became a major supply point in the 1840's for mining and the forts that protected the trade routes to Sante Fe and points west. Entered Texas by 2 p.m., went through El Paso which stretched 24 miles and stopped at the Mission RV Park for the night.