Hanging Out at the Mercados in Las Cruces

January 18, 2011 Sunny Acres RV Park Las Cruces.

The last few days have been spent relaxing, visiting relatives and the local markets (mercados).

On Saturday, we went to the downtown mall Farmer's Market. We weren't looking for anything in particular, but wanted to just stretch our legs and look around. 

Las Cruces Mall Farmers Market

Las Cruces Mall Farmers Market

Mariachi's

On both Saturday and Sunday morning we awoke to see several hot air balloons floating in the skies out our back window.

Ballons out our back window.

We were told there was a ballon rally going on over the weekend.

On Sunday, we picked up my Cousin Bonnie and her daughter Stella. We spent the day in the town of Mesilla at their downtown market.

This market was much smaller and located in the town square. However, the buildings in the town of Mesilla are filled with history and old charm.

We had a fantastic lunch at El Comedor passing up the more expensive but popular restaurants like La Posta de Mesilla.

While browsing the many shops before lunch, we came across an art gallery. Now to be honest it had a sign with the words "tortilla factory" so that's what I thought it was. We went inside and determined that it wasn't a tortilla factory. It was an art gallery that at one time had been a tortilla factory. As we browsed the shop we heard two ladies, at least one of whom was an employee, laughing and having a good time. I struck up a conversation with them as they seemed very cordial. At one point I asked about the best restaurant in town and they gave me their opinions. However, Ella (pictured below) said that none of the restaurants made enchilladas and especially the chilli sauce as well as she can. I joked that we would be over for dinner and she actually invited us. However, I graciously refused. Next thing I know she's offering to give us a jar of her homemade chili (enchilada sauce). Long story short, we came back after lunch giving her time to walk home and come back with the sauce.

Ella and her enchilada sauce.

I thought that it was such a sweet and kind gesture for her to give us her homemade sauce. We haven't had the chance to sample it yet and hopefully, my cousin Bonnie will make some enchiladas for us with the sauce before we leave! 

Later in the afternoon we stopped off at another relatives home for a short visit before calling it a day.

You meet the nicest people on the road.

Travel Day to Sunny Acres RV Park, Las Cruces, NM

January 14, 2011 Sunny Acres RV Park.
We were up by 7:00 to get ready. It was a travel day. While I walked Maggie and Rico, Joyce got the inside ready for the slides to go in. I had not unhitched so the truck was already connected. We had the slides in and all I had to do was raise the BigFoot gear on the fifth wheel. After raising the four landing gear, I noticed the left rear had not retracted completely. It needed to come up another couple inches. I tried the control panel again to raise the rear to see if the errant jack would continue to retract...but, it wouldn't. Great! I quickly called the customer service number for BigFoot but got directed to a voice mail. Isn't that what usually happens! 

RR BigFoot Lever in the down position.

Looking at the jack/leg I decided to extend it and then retract it. No deal. Finally I decided to lower the right rear jack lower than the left and then raised them both and that worked. When I had initially raised the rear jacks in unison, the left rear had further to travel than the right rear due to the uneven ground. So it stopped retracting when the right rear finished retracting. By using the control panel I was able to lower the right rear lower than the troublesome left rear and retract both. It appears the limit switch is not working on the left rear. Needless to say, I lost some time figuring that out.
After finally pulling out, we headed for the dump station in the back of the campground and took care of business. In our haste, we failed to check our walkies and discovered that I couldn't communicate with Joyce in her Jeep as we left the park. So after driving down the road and pulling over to figure out what was wrong we discovered that one of the walkies was nearly dead already. Apparently it hadn't been placed in the charger cradle properly. So we were left with only our phones to communicate down the road.


View Larger Map
Out on Interstate 10 we decided to stop for fuel in Benson, Arizona. We pulled into a Shell Station large enough to accomodate our rig. I was shocked to see the diesel was $3.69! I needed the fuel, so I bit the bullet as we had over 200 more miles to go.
We stopped at a truck stop in Deming Arizona for a quick lunch break and to walk the dogs again. By then a BigFoot technician had called me back. He also suspected a bad limit switch and promised to mail one to me.

Down hill to Las Cruces from Hwy. 70

290 miles and about 6 hours later, we pulled into Sunny Acres RV Park surrounded by the urban strappings of Las Cruces. After checking-in, we were given a golf-cart tour of the available sites and we were impressed with the size of the sites. We chose site 24 which is a pull through at the end of a row of back-ins.

We paid for a week long stay for $230 which includes full hookups, WiFi and cable. It's a nice RV Park that originally was a mobile home park, thus the large sites. The roads however, are very dusty dirt.
After unhitching and getting level we opened the slides and discovered that the kitchen slide tore the linoleum.

This happened because a screw fell off one of the ceiling fan blades while in transit and got jammed under the slide tearing the linoleum when we opened the slide. It's not the first time screws have fallen from the ceiling fan blades. I need to get some Loctite to put on the screws!
In summary, it wasn't our the best travel day, but I can't complain too much!