#90 March 2022 – Las Cruces

 

March 2022 – Las Cruces

I’ll start with the big news: This is our new home, or it will be on April 14 when we close. Yup, your eyes don’t deceive: no wheels!  

Despite our sour experience with the first house we tried to buy, we sucked it up and charged back into the fray. The real estate market in Las Cruces (LC) is still  pretty hot. The good houses came and went very quickly, so when this one popped up a few days after we returned from Benson we went to see it right away. That evening we made an offer, and two days later we had a deal. The inspection didn’t turn up any issues and the appraisal (finally) came through without any drama. All the pictures show it with their stuff, so you’ll have to wait until the next issue to see the rest of it. 

A park along the Rio Grande

LC is an interesting place, weather wise. These photos were taken two days apart in mid-month. Sheesh. It's a challenge to dress right.

Yup, that's snow

Since we sold or gave away most of our stuff when we moved into Ripley, we have been shopping, a lot. We are now familiar with most of the consignment stores, thrift shops and new furniture stores in LC at this point. More pictures after we get stuff in the house.

We haven’t spent all of our time on housing related issues, however. One of the reasons we chose LC is the spectacular backdrop of the Organ Mountains.

 

One morning we drove about 10 miles from town to one of the mountain sections of the Organ Mountains-Desert National Monument to hike a little and get away from everything to do with real estate, furniture, etc. As you can see from the pictures, the mountains are even more spectacular up close. We walked a couple of miles, which turned out to be plenty, given how little exercise we’d had lately. We certainly will be back, often. More pictures below.

It turns out that waiting for this house-buying process to wind through the steps  is pretty stressful. We’ve been cleaning up small projects on the coach and watching furniture ads on Craigslist. That is pretty pointless because we don’t have any place to put anything. We ordered a few new items because we have to buy things like chairs, tables and a couch just to move in. The highlight of our week is going to the farmers market on Saturday for really fresh tomatoes and tacos, and the everything-sourdough bakery on Tuesday for bread and bagels.

Las Cruces does have a couple of geograhic drawbacks: It's 220 miles to Trader Joe's in Albuquerque and 55 miles to Costco in El Paso. There is one decent wine shop in LC, but the prices are high and the selction could be a lot better. I foresee monthly pilgrimages to Costco to restock the cellar, aka closet.

Next month is going to test our stamina. We have to retrieve the contents of a storage unit in Phoenix that we haven't seen in eight years, collect all the stuff we accumulated in Benson and move all that and the stuff in Ripley into the house. Logistics is an art, and a hell of a lot of work. 

More soon,

Bob

Yes, that's still snow in the Organ Mountains

 

LC and the Rio Grande Valley