On the way back from the White Sands EPMINIS rally, I stopped to take a few pics of some old buildings in Old Organ on the outskirts of Las Cruces, along Highway 70:

The first set of buildings look to be part of some old motor lodge.  It had an attached restaurant that invited visitors with its selection of Sandwiches, Lunches, Beer and Dinners.

The old sign is still visible from the highway though I had a hard time making out what it said:

It most likely was Organ Mountain Lodge, with the O and R having fallen off long ago.  It was pretty overgrown and thick with weeds, locusts and large grasshoppers.

Every building has been broken into and has been subject to the elements for quite some time.  After walking around the property I headed over to a old gas station across the street.  It had pretty much the same story going on as the lodge, boarded up long ago and currently being used as storage.

 We were pretty burnt from the full day at whitesands so we hit the road.

More pics are here: Old Organ

Living on the west side of El Paso in the Upper Valley puts you within 30 minutes of Las Cruces.  I don’t know if its the water, the elevation or the fact that it’s in New Mexico but there’s a different vibe from El Paso there.  Every Saturday they have a market downtown where they show case local artists, farmers and crafts that stretches for about 4 blocks.  Its quite impressive.

View Las Cruces Farmer’s Market in a larger map

This past weekend they added chalk artists to the mix giving the boys something to look at other than boring plants, they were especially interested in this one:

the chalk artists occupied about half a block and they even had a section of a parking lot taped off so the kids could go and create their own drawings.

Of course our boys paid no attention to the taped area and drew on the side walk but in their defense there wasn’t much room left.  Since the street is blocked off it gives the vendors lots of room to set up on both sides of the street utilizing the center for walking and additional space if necessary.

They have such wide variety of vendors and artists you never know what you’ll stumble across.  The local Humane Society even had a selection of dogs available for adoption.

We had originally went to look at the chalk artists but by noon many were still working on their pieces and we were ready for lunch.  We headed out for a quick bite and then off to  check out a British car show in old Mesilla.

Las Cruces Market on Flickr

What do you do when you see a boat in an arroyo, miles from the nearest lake? You stop and take a picture of course:

The arroyo was next to Winchester Lane and Los Alturas in Las Cruces.  The boat has been filled with dirt and it looks like somebody planted the plants in it.  There is a drip irrigation system that runs to it from the house next door. Odd. A few pics are here at my Flickr stream: Dry Docked