Close-up of the Organ Mountains

Las Cruces has a lot of history.  Coronado, the Spanish explorer, came through the area with his troops in the 1500's.  Many Spaniards followed, and then American cowboys, desperadoes, and the Calvary.  Not only was the dessert inhospitable, but this was Apache land, and it was dangerous territory to cross.

A few blocks from our RV park is the very old town of Mesilla.  We had dinner our first night here at the historic La Posta, whose hallways were once walked by Billy the Kid and Kit Carson.

The fare is Mexican, and the setting is colorful:

A couple of days after our trip to the White Sands National Monument, we hiked a trail at Dripping Springs in the Organ Mountains, just nine miles east of Las Cruces, so got a close up view.

These mountains, it turns out, are volcanic.  Erosion has worn away all but the hardest rock cores.

We walked behind the light-colored rocks in the photo above.  There is a cave on the front side where native Americans lived 10,000 years ago.  In the 1800's, a gentleman known as "The Hermit" lived in the cave.  People brought sick people to him, because he was well-acquainted the healing properties of local plants.

I loved the rocks from the back side.  Such rocks are always photogenic.

It was very dry throughout the Southwest while we were there.  Spring rains had not yet arrived.

There was some greenery, and most of the yucca showed signs of previous blooms:

There were some flowers if one looked very carefully.  Can you see the light purple flowers below?  It is amazing that they can grow here at all.

There were lots of these yellow berries all over the place.  They were about the size of blueberries.  I have no idea what the are, even after doing a (somewhat) extensive Internet search.  I am no botanist.

Every now and then is a shady spot to hide from the sun.  Not that it was hot the day we were there.  It was in the low 70's, but in the sun, walking up hill, it got warm.  Birds liked these cool spots as well.

Every now and then we did see some greenery that indicated life in the desert.  Here is one such plant with an interesting dried flower:

As the name Dripping Springs indicates, there are springs in the area.  We did not see the springs, but we were assured that they are there.  The arroyos were green at the bottom, and the songs of birds drifted up from them.

Speaking of birds, this white-winged dove sat on the fence next to our motorhome each morning, and cooed away.  I'm not sure what Beanie and Barney thought about a bird that cooed rather than chirped. They had "no comment".