Gila, Organ Mountains and More

Between fits of spring cleaning and gardening, we took a quick trip south before it got too damn hot down there.

Starting where we ended, we visited the Organ Mountains which, along with the Rio Grande, are the most prominent physical features of Las Cruces.

Here are the same peaks as seen from the other side at Aguirre Springs

And now the peaks as seen from Mesilla, the old heart of Las Cruces

And a view from the Organ Mountains of Las Cruces and Mesilla stretching along the Rio Grande

You'll have to click on the image to actually see it.

One more view from the Organ Mountains of White Sands in the distance, which is the location of the most well known photo of me. It's not a great photo but the historical interest compelled me to include it.

The Organ Mountains are where the colorful and gregarious hermit died in the 1860s. Here is Cyndi standing outside of his last cave and where he was murdered.

The Hermit is buried in the old Mesilla cemetery and we spent some time wandering thru the graveyard looking for his headstone, but they kicked us out before we could find it. A few pictures to give you a feeling.

I'm not sure what this means.
But this is just one of many reasons I'm glad I'm not a Cowboys fan.

Mesilla is several hundred years old and has the a bit of the Old Mexico feeling left, mixed with some of the New Mexico feeling.

We had dinner at La Posta because the well-known gourmands Billy the Kid and Pancho Villa ate here.

Cyndi was exceptionally eager to get to dinner this night.

Cyndi looked like that after just one sip.

It was a long walk back to the RV after dinner.

Before we got to Las Cruces we visited the Gila Cliff Dwellings.

The walls and the wood beams are original, about 800 years old

Of course, the ladder and steps are not original.
Cyndi is a modern addition, too.

Nice View.
The commute sucks, tho.

We started out at the Bosque del Apache, where we took a walk thru this nice canyon.

Cyndi saw a sign that said mountain lions were in the area, so she picked up this stick to defend herself.

It must have been effective, because we weren't attacked.

On a Stairway to Heaven.

Given where she started, Cyndi has a lot of climbing to do.

The Bosque is in the northern-most Chihuahuan Desert. Spring rains brought lots of flowers ... very small flowers. The largest was about the size of your thumbnail, the smallest about a quarter the size of the nail on your little finger.

The Bosque is a wildlife refuge, mostly for waterfowl but by this time in the spring, most have left for the northern parts. We did see a few ducks, geese, egrets, cranes and ibis. And swallows. Spring brings bugs and bugs brings swallows and the swallows are happy.

And to end where I began and the trip ended, here is a panorama of the Organ Mountains as seen from Aguirre Springs. You'll have to click this to see anything, but then you can zoom in and out and pan back and forth and have a whale of a time.

Thanks to Google for the  viewer software.

Bonus homework assignment for you: find the solitary tree clinging to the side of the batholith in this photo. You'll have to zoom in quite a bit. It's a very determined tree. (Hint: "batholith" is geologist speak for "big ass rock")

And for my Chinese fans

强风造成坚强的分支

异议者使国家更强大

Well, Fi Me

It's a low bar, but I wanted to be one of the coolest kids on the block so I joined Project Fi.

I hate cell companies and their bills and so I've been using a pre-paid flip phone for a couple years. Cost: $40/year. But I did want a real phone with a better carrier. A better carrier: another low bar.

Cyndi has been using Republic Wireless for a few months of cell service and is quite happy with their service and her new Nexus. I am happy with it too, because it brought her cell bill down from $60 / month to $12 with even better service.

Both Republic Wireless and Project Fi try to use available wireless networks whenever possible. Since these are typically “free”, they keep the phone's data usage in check. Both have unlimited domestic calls and text messages.

Cyndi's service rides on T-Mobile while Fi's uses both T-Mobile and Sprint. Fi has better security built in and works much better internationally.

Neither requires a contract, both use Android phones (Nexus).

My base monthly cost is higher at $20 but the data charges are lower at $10 / GB vs $15 for Cyndi. And you only pay for the bytes you actually send over celluar. Cyndi mostly just talks and texts, so her data charges are pretty much zero.

Both have controls to, well, control how much you use celluar data. FI's controls are finer grain but harder to use and find. But both do a good job of allowing you to decide when / if to use celluar data and handle the trade-off of cost / convenience.

Cyndi had no problems with her service but when I started with Fi, my SMS texting did not work even tho MMS texting did work. I contacted Customer Service and they were quick to respond and very polite and friendly but the responses always was “a technician is working on it.” When I finally heard back from the tech, the service had magically started to work by itself. The tech admitted they had problems like this (I had xferred a Google voice number and that is, for obscure reasons, a mess). It took a week but they did give me a fair credit for the time I was unable to text.

Then I got a pretty dress for the Nexus. It looks so sexy in it's new dress.

So I'm cooler than all my neighbors, except for Jackie. And maybe Michelle.

My new phone was excited to take it's first selfie.

My new phone All Dress Up
And stuck at home with me