Hello New Mexico

Greetings from “The Land of Enchantment!” Not nearly as good a tagline as “Famous Potatoes” but I’ll take it.


Todd and I had our first New Mexican experience at “The Whole Enchilada Festival,” an annual weekend event that’s capped off by the creation of the world’s largest flat enchilada. We rode on the rickety Ferris wheel, ate giant gorditas, listen to mariachi music and of course, watch the spectacle of something like 100 lbs. of cheese, 75 gallons of chile sauce and 750 lbs. of fried tortilla bake under a reflective cloth held up by 6 kids. Tasty.

When we had our fill, we headed to the parking lot fairly satisfied with this “cultural” experience in our new town and then BLAM! We find Todd’s Ram and about 40 other vehicles blocked in on both sides by rows of what I can only assume are cars belonging to the most unintelligent people in town. Oddly, my first thought was “Oh crap, is this how it is here?” I even asked another stranded driver that question. I guess I wanted to make sure we didn’t leave functioning civilization by moving down here. That’s horrible.

So we took a whole lot of action but there was little to no RE-action meaning we pretty much had no choice but to wait it out. Luckily, we when got back to the truck a woman had just pulled in to “the unintelligent” row another car column over. There was a big gap between us and the other blocked-in car on that side so we asked her to pull out and after some really poor hand signal maneuvering by me, we were free!

Lifting the enormous tortilla from the giant press into a humongous vat of hot oil.

Layering on the chile sauce and cheese.

Stupido.

All in all, I like it here. Our house is very peaceful with a fantastic view of the Organ Mountains. The Mexican food is AMAZING and I can’t wait to explore the outdoors around the state. Yes, this is a plea for everyone to come visit. If you take a plane here, you have to fly into El Paso. Imagine, you could see two states on one vacation, how efficient and wonderful!

See you soon,

D.Riggs

Small thing: Boxed red wine.