Denise also got up early so we had a morning to use up. How about a drive on El Camino Royale. It is just the other side of the Rio Grande. The road was established well before my seasick ancestor staggered ashore in 1630. It was the trade artery between Mexico City and Santa Fe and remained so until Americans moved in to Northern New Mexico and established the Santa Fe Trail. A dead end road takes you to La Joya, the proverbial dusty little western town.
La Joya has abandoned buildings as pictured above and some rather nice houses, a pattern common to this area. The changes over time would be interesting to see. The town was established on a native pueblo as the first stop north of El Paso, or the last stop if you were headed south. It may be 430 years since the Europeans came and astoundingly there is no golf course!
Then we doubled back and visited a small (by western standards) waterfowl sanctuary. During the season it sees flocks of sandhill cranes and snow geese. Today I had to settle for my first quail, and another vista.
Yeah, lunch at Pete's was good. The daily special was carne adovado, pork chunks stewed in red chili. Pete's is on First Street down by the railroad yard across from the Harvey House (museum).
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