Greetings from Santa Rosa, NM!

vraiblonde

Board Mommy
PREMO Member
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Wide spot in the road (pop. 2000+-) with a third-world grocery store that you have to make sure you carefully check the expiration date on everything you buy. They don't take good advantage of their Route 66 location like other small towns along the road do. It is, however, home to one of the best tacos I've ever eaten.

Sun & Sands diner, we wanted to stop and have a beer and the owner gruffly informed us that she wouldn't serve us alcohol unless we were eating. So fine, even though we weren't hungry we ordered tacos - 2 for Monello, one for me. And DAAAAAAAAMN! A fried flour tortilla with abundant ground beef filling and fresh veggie toppings - it was amazing.

New Mexico food is hit or miss. It's its own culinary genre, much like the difference between Mexican and Tex-Mex. Green chile is a thing on everything, and their red sauce is actually more of a gravy because it's a beef/pork base. They're more about the flour tortillas than corn, and your heat comes from the condiments and not the dish itself. When it's good it's extraordinarily good and the best thing I ever ate (Burrito Victoria, I miss you desperately), but frequently it's underwhelming and an acquired taste.

Their claims to fame in Santa Rosa are the Blue Hole, which is a natural pool that SCUBA divers are all excited about, and the Billy the Kid museum. What they should also play up is that right smack in the middle of the arid high desert, Santa Rosa has a puzzling number of lakes and natural springs. Every place else in NM is drier than @Toxick's wit, but Santa Rosa has a number of fishing and swimming holes.

Our RV park is merely okay. Mostly it's for overnighters on their way somewhere else because there's no reason why you'd want to come to Santa Rosa specifically except to dive the Blue Hole. The bath houses are tired and run down, but SUPER clean (which is all I really care about). There's a restaurant on site that we may or may not care about, and laundry facilities that I'm in desperate need of because I haven't done laundry in two weeks.

Will post pics if I see anything of interest....
 
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vraiblonde

Board Mommy
PREMO Member
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Today we went to Ft. Sumner to the Billy the Kid museum. Very interesting and now I want to watch Young Guns again. On the way home we marveled at how we celebrate our outlaws in this country, and also....why him? There were about 8 million bad guys in the 1800s old west, so why is Billy the Kid special?

Tonight there was a UFO in the sky, which was exciting until we realized it was a stupid weather balloon.
 

vraiblonde

Board Mommy
PREMO Member
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One of the things I'm going to miss when I leave NM is the red chile sauce. Fortunately.....


Ingredients:
3 Tbl Spoons Olive Oil or Shortening
1/2 cup Red Chile Powder
2 Tbl Spoons Flour
2 Cups water (beef or chicken stock)
1 Tsp Salt
1/2 Tsp Pepper
1/4 Tsp Cumin
1/2 Tsp Garlic Salt


Directions:
Use olive oil or melt shortening in a sauce pan, blend in flour and cook flour until light brown – approximately 4 minutes. Have your Red Chile powder already mixed with water. Add it to the flour over a low to medium heat. Chile powder burns easily so be careful with the heat levels. Cook to your desired consistency. Add salt, pepper,cumin, garlic salt & other spices according to taste.
 

Monello

Smarter than the average bear
PREMO Member
A close up of the strange encounter. I looked at it with binocs. It was easy to see the balloon details. It sure had the campground in a slight uproar.

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vraiblonde

Board Mommy
PREMO Member
Patron
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Santa Rosa State Park:


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Finally saw a snake - he's alive, just sunning himself on the asphalt

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vraiblonde

Board Mommy
PREMO Member
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Billy the Kid Museum in Ft. Sumner, NM.

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Because...why not...


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An 1800s homesteader shack
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vraiblonde

Board Mommy
PREMO Member
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It was very exciting. The whole RV park was out looking at it. I mean, everyone knew it was a weather balloon but it was fun to think we were going to get beamed up any minute. Also, what else ya gonna do in Santa Rosa?
 
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