Day 2 - Around Las Cruces

We started off the day with breakfast at Chick-fil-A. I just don’t understand how they can serve two egg-and-cheese sandwiches on really good biscuits, along with an orange juice, for $10.15. At McDonald’s, the same order would be nudging $20. I suspect they do a pretty brisk business, especially since they’re located directly across the street from the University of New Mexico campus. (Go Lobos!)

After fueling up with a Starbucks mocha, we headed for the Chile Capital of Hatch, New Mexico. A few years ago, we discovered a back road from Las Cruces to Hatch, and it makes for a much more enjoyable drive than Interstate 25. Along the way, we passed pecan farms, fields of chiles, cotton fields, cattle grazing, and, every once in a while, caught a glimpse of the Rio Grande. A far more interesting way to spend the drive than staring at the back of an eighteen-wheeler.

As you may have guessed by now, Hatch is all about chiles. Whether you’re looking for a 5-, 10-, or 25-pound bag, or simply trying to find just the right salsa, Hatch has you covered. Several varieties of chiles are grown in the area, each categorized by its level of heat. Salsa gets the same treatment, with bottles labeled everything from mild to extreme. Apparently, in Hatch, even salsa comes with a warning label.

Village Market is a large, very modern grocery store, the kind you might expect to find in any major city. Finding one in a little off-the-beaten-path town like Hatch is something of a surprise. As we wandered the aisles, we spotted a sign marked “Salsa.” Naturally, in Hatch, that got our attention. But when we reached the section, there were only a few bottles. A few bottles of salsa in Hatch? Surely, something wasn’t right. Then, a little farther along, we came to this.

The photo on the left shows an entire wall devoted to salsa. If you can’t find what you’re looking for here, you may as well give up salsa forever. The photo on the right is a wall of chiles, beans, and corn husks for making tamales. If Mexican food is your thing, this is definitely the place for you. In Hatch, they don’t fool around when it comes to Mexican cooking

We took the same road back, although the scenery was considerably better now that the morning fog had disappeared. Our earlier drive had been plagued by quite a bit of fog, most likely courtesy of the nearby river. With nothing better on the agenda, we returned to the hotel, where Barb settled in for a nap while I got down to the business of writing up today’s news.

Keeping a daily travel blog is surprisingly time-consuming. So far today, I’ve invested about an hour and a half writing, changing, rewriting, rearranging and generally second-guessing just about every sentence I’ve put on the page. At this rate, I’m beginning to think I need either a beer or a bottle of Tylenol. Perhaps both

With dinner tonight at La Posta cancelled, we had settled on our usual soup-and-salad routine at Olive Garden. This is our go-to option when the calorie count starts creeping upward and a little restraint seems in order. However, considering that we haven’t eaten anything since breakfast at 7:00 this morning, we’re beginning to have second thoughts. Olive Garden’s soup and salad may have sounded like a good idea earlier, but hunger has a way of changing one’s perspective. We’ll be heading out shortly, so this is going to be a game-time decision.

Hunger won out. However, we both opted for the “smaller portion,” menu, so we at least have that going for us. Of course, choosing the smaller portion comes with a catch: you get soup or salad, but not both. We went with soup, skipped dessert and passed on the alcohol. All in all, we exercised a remarkable degree of restraint. Whether it was enough to offset the hunger that got us there in the first place is another matter.

So, that pretty much wraps up our day. Tomorrow, instead of heading home as originally planned, we’re off to Gallup, New Mexico. I have a feeling the scenery will improve along the way.

Until tomorrow...