Walking Las Cruces

Journal Entry August 1999 (Written while sitting on our front porch in New Mexico)
This morning the rain falls, it has been since about 4:00 a.m. I’ve been up since then. The quiet morning hours are a peaceful wonderful way to start the day. I should do that more often. I love my dear husband. Sometimes we are as fire and ice. Hot tempered and stubborn and too sensitive, (me more the latter). Never the less, he is the love of my life. I must try harder to keep my home beautiful. ~I miss my children when I spend the day cleaning. But alas, there is much work to do; Spiritual, physical and emotional. It is an exhausting job. We have a nice home – a nice life- a hard life, but nice none the less.

Walking Las Cruces

Nearly every night, you and I, hand in hand, would walk our Las Cruces Neighborhood. The neighborhood was set above the city and we would walk the hills surrounded by million dollar homes and watch the beautiful sun set in the beauty of the desert. The Dona Ana mountains in the background lit up in colors of purple, orange, yellow, and blue. We were often walking for 2 hours, loving the view, the cool night air, and each other too much to turn back so soon.

City of Rocks

Camping at City of Rocks was a blast. I remember our first time there. We decided to make the 2 hour drive out there with the children just to check it out. We brought a small snack lunch which consisted of sandwiches, fruit and cookies. By the time we got there we were all very hungry. I suggested that you take the children exploring, and I would set the food out for a small picnic lunch. You left and I set the food out on the picnic table. I wondered where all of you went off to and stepped away from the table to look over and around a mound of rocks. I saw you and waved, indicating the food was ready. When I returned to the table, well, I can’t explain it, but somehow in the 30 seconds or so that I had my back turned from the table, all our food disappeared. I got back to the table just in time to catch a squirrel with his hand reaching deeply inside a Tupperware container filled with our cookies. I scared him away and replaced the lid, with bite marks in tact. You and the children returned, all very hungry and excited to eat. I told the family all we had were the cookies. You had that look of confusion on your face. You know, the one you get when you just don’t understand my thinking. Then you cocked your head to the side, shrugged your shoulders and grabbed a cookie. How horrible of me to keep the secret of the thieving squirrels. I was too embarrassed to admit I had been duped by several small 4 legged creatures.

We all fell in love with City of Rocks, and would return many times to camp, hike, climb and listen for coyotes and owls and “owls” in the still of the desert night.