Las Cruces has some charming homes and qualities, but there really doesn't seem to be any compelling reason to pull up stakes and schlep everything down here at the moment. We ran around most of the day with a realtor, and enjoyed the tour, but other than the wonderful house he and his friend are building, there wasn't anything exceptional to see.


Pat and the realtor chat under the gazebo they are completing atop the hill on which their home is nearing completion.


The gazebo, from the house below. It commands a dramatice 360 degree view of the surrounding vallet and mountains. You can see Mexico from here.


There are some wonderful old adobe homes of the style I have always admired, but they are not numerous or readily available.


Here's a pseudo adobe modern house in Taos - there are quite a few of these here in Las Cruces. They have a certain charm and suggest a more graceful habitation than the average tri-level of Northen Colorado.

In general, Las Cruces suffers from the dreary sameness that afflicts pretty much the entire country, with identical franchises and fixtures of consumption and infrastructure so indistinguishable from one region to another. A little different climate and geography - not much more to get excited about, I'm afraid. Oh, but quite a bit more hispanic influence, which would be nice to encounter regularly.

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