It's that time of year again when anyone who can get out of Houston gets out of Houston. And not a moment too soon - when Texas is too cold, the power grid fails. When Texas is too hot...the power grid fails. Various friends have disappeared to Missouri, Colorado, and Minnesota, or simply jumped in a van and scarpered to anywhere under 100F.
We decided to repeat our New Mexico adventure of last year and head to the mountains, the Sacramento Mountains, north of El Paso and the closest high ground to Houston's swampy locale. Having done Ruidoso, this time we're summering in a little village called Cloudcroft, one of those amazing American places that was at the top of a logging railroad and someone thought "Let's build a tourist lodge here and charge people to come!" The railroad is long gone, although some gravity-defying trestles remain, and the village is now a hiker's/tourist's paradise on the long and winding mountain road from Dallas to Phoenix. You can take the much flatter and boring Interstate, but why?
Though most of our time is spent in the blessedly cool (and somewhat rainy) outdoors, things are a lot more open this year with the US vaccination program in full swing. We've revisited the largest pistachio in the world - naturally - but also managed to see a few museums and visitors centres, and even enjoy a cheeky beer at the local Cloudcroft Brewery.
New Mexico remains a fascinating and inspiring state, open and empty and close to unchanged from when the Mescalero Apache wandered freely around these parts. The Sacramento Mountains skirt the eastern side of the huge Tularosa Basin, and whether you're on the hills looking down or in the valley looking up, the clouds and storms and greens of the Lincoln National Forest are breathtaking. And, more importantly, about 30 degrees Fahrenheit cooler than Houston.
School has finished, so here's Pete's graduation dinner of beignets. Or donuts, as we call them.
