Lubbock, Las Cruces, Rancho Merlita and More

Some of you may remember that I have an uncle in Lubbock TX who we visit 1 - 2 times per year. Our first time this year was in mid-February. I've made the trip by myself in one long day, but Trout's not usually up for that, so I made reservations for us at a B&B in Las Cruces which is about 4 hours east of Tucson on I10. It was a good thing because we learned that his help was needed the same day we left instead of the day before, so we had plenty of time for that and for us to get to Las Cruces.

Doing what, you ask? Kelly needed him to help with a furniture installation at Rancho Merlita. This is the hacienda Merle Norman built in Tucson in the 1950's. It is this year's site of the Designer Showhouse and Kelly made some furniture for the Tack Room. Each year's Designer Showhouse is an opportunity for local designers to do a room in some special house, and for the Tucson Museum of Art to get the benefit of the entrance fees we looky-loos pay to see the house and what the designers did.

So the morning we left for Lubbock via Las Cruces, Trout helped Kelly load up at the shop and unload at Rancho Merlita. Everything Kelly did was made of mesquite or hand done mesquite veneer.

Here's Trout carrying in one of the round tables. There are two of them.

They fit into the counter Kelly built along the wall. They are on casters, so you can easily push them into the niches or pull them out to use them as dining or game tables.

Here Kelly and Trout carry in the sofa table. You can see in the background that there was lots of landscaping activity the day we were there.

This table was particularly impressive to me. I love the highly structural and contemporary accordian base coupled with the thick, rough slab of mesquite used for the top. This is Kelly and the room's designer talking about the piece.

For those of us cubicle types, the amount of time it takes just to load and unload stuff is always a surprise. I dropped Trout off at Kelly's shop at about 10:30 with a deadline of 2:00 for us to leave. I was supposed to meet them at Rancho Merlita at noon. They got there late, but in plenty of time for Trout to help and for us to leave "early" at 1:40 p.m.

Animal Digression:

Now I need to backtrack a little. We didn't take the animals with us to Texas. We decided it was worth it to send the alien Desert Baskerville Hound to bootcamp while we were gone. The location is the same as where we board Guido. So we took both of them to the Camino Verde Pet Resort. Cisco learned and Guido relaxed and had a much-needed bath.

Here's Cisco.

We just got one of those big round beds for him at Costco. It's for use in the office. One dog bed website said that this pose indicates that he is a "lounger" and needs a large moderately soft bed.

Here's Guido on his pillow at home. He likes Cisco, but I don't think he loves him like he did Killer. He does love his bedding though. He usurped that afghan my cousin made and I found him in Cisco's new bed this morning. So I created a special place for him in the office today constructed of baskets and the afghan. When I can snag a picture of the both of them on their beds in here, I'll post it.

Las Cruces:

We had never actually stayed in Las Cruces before, so we made the most of it. On the way to Lubbock we went to a Saturday market downtown and visited the historic village of La Mesilla, about 10 minutes away from where we stayed.

I bet Kaya didn't know she had a shop in town.

We spent so much time looking around at the market and La Mesilla and waited so long to eat our Valentine's Day lunch at La Posta, that we got a very late start from Las Cruces to Lubbock. We called my aunt and uncle from Ruidoso and decided to spend the night in Roswell because we would arrive in Lubbock too late for them. We always overlook the time change. Luckily we found a place at the Roswell La Quinta even though it was Valentine's Day and I had rewards points enough to cut the price by 50%.

So we pulled into Lubbock about noon on Sunday. We had a nice visit and stayed an extra couple of days to make up for not getting there on Saturday night. Uncle BD has dialysis on TThSat and PT on MW so our quality time with him was somewhat limited but we were there when he was available.

Aunt LaMoyne was using a crutch due to some severe arthritic back pain, but we managed to get her out to Penney's to look at new drapery treatments for the house in Lubbock. We finally took some pictures before we left on Thursday morning

Their dog, Happy, took a real liking to Trout. You can't click on this picture because I somehow deleted it and had to replace it here.

This is Aunt LaMoyne and her son, Scott. He is really a big help for both of them, even though he divides his time between Lubbock and Tyler.

This is Uncle BD and me.

Finally, here's a picture of Uncle BD, Aunt LaMoyne and me

When I see Uncle BD, I'm always struck by how much he favors my mother, his sister, even though they had different mothers. It must be those Garland blue eyes. When I was younger I wished I'd gotten them instead of the Nall (paternal grandmother) green ones, but as I got older I came to realize that green was quite okay.

Texas in October -- 2007

Trout had a very busy fall this year, but we managed to squeeze in a visit to the Panhandle of Texas to see my Uncle BD and Aunt La Moyne. We mostly went to see them, but Trout also had a job to do. His challenge was to make my uncle's 1967 Chrysler Imperial functional enough to drive to the local mechanic for more serious repairs.

When we go to visit, we usually stay at the house in Littlefield. Uncle BD and Aunt La Moyne divide their time between it and a more recently purchased house in Lubbock, the big city of the area. We planned to drive straight through from Tucson to Littlefield, but we both pooped out in Roswell, so we spent the night there and got to Littlefield about noon the next day. We found some good places to eat in Roswell, but this one wasn't one of them.




I realize that for most of you, this part of the world is very foreign. That's probably true for most of Texas, too. It is more like OK or KS or NB than the rest of the state. For orientation purposes, here's a picture of the map of the area. Littlefield is northwest of Lubbock, just to the left of the crease in the map. It's where my grandfather moved the family after they left OK almost 80 years ago.




The terrain where it isn't cultivated is grassland. This is a typical Panhandle farm to market road.








Where the land is cultivated, we mostly saw cotton...





And more cotton...



Or milo, a feed grain similar to sorghum.







This is milo closeup.





Sunflowers are also grown in the area, but more across the border into New Mexico. These are in New Mexico. I was used to seeing miles and miles of cotton and milo, but I'd never seen miles and miles of sunflowers before. These were getting close to harvest.

These were not quite mature enough yet.

This is Little Anthony, as we came to call the Imperial.





This is Trout under the hood.




And here Uncle BD watches while Trout wrenches.






While they worked, I took time to drive by my grandfather's house. It was built in the late 50's.

And it had a unique backyard wall.

I also put flowers on my Granddad's grave.

Trout is closer to Uncle BD and Aunt La Moyne than he ever was to any of his own aunts and uncles.

I don't look so much like the Garland side of my family, but my mother and uncle really resemble each other -- and their father.

This is a picture of my mother and me at a restaurant in Germany. You can easily see the resemblance among her brother above, her, and her father below.

This is my granddad, BD Garland, Sr. His name was really Bunk Dodson. Uncle BD's isn't. It's just B.D.

This is me with Uncle BD and Aunt La Moyne.

After Little Anthony got back on his tires and we got some visiting done, we headed on back to Tucson. Before we left, we took this picture of the relatively new Mormon Temple in Lubbock.


And we headed on into NM on this road.



I don't know what it is about it, but I always feel at home there. Far away on the hill here you can see a windmill farm.

And we passed this garden wall again enroute. This time we got a picture.

We went through Lincoln, Billy the Kid's hideout and worth another visit, and spent the night in Silver City, a great drive but the town was a disappointment, before we got on I-10 and headed west.