New Mexico

New Mexico is a very beautiful state so when you drive through places with names like Los Lunas, La Luz, Pinos Altos or the very evocatively named town called Truth Or Consequences it makes it feel even more exotic till you get to a place called Pie Town.
Either some idiot who didn’t have a clue named this place or some enterprising person set up a famous bakery there.

It could have been a prototype for all the other tourist stops that have sprung up around some trivial activity that went so viral they’ve forgotten what originally started it all.
A good example is, New Mexico grows a lot of nuts. Now I Iike my nuts, so when we saw a sign for a place called Pistachio World we didn’t hesitate to call in.

They’ve really ramped this one up, they have some sort of train type thing that does, as we are constantly told “tours of the orchard on the hour, every hour”
At least they have an orchard this is a good thing and out the front they have a giant sculpture of what we suppose is pistachio nut but looks more like something excreted by a not so well animal.

What attracts people to these places is beyond us as we look around and see all the fools who have been sucked into yet another highway tourist trap... ooh hang on, thats our own reflection in the big glass window pane of the Pistachio World Gift Shop.
Anyway now we’re here we decide to quickly grab a bag of farm fresh pistachios and hit the road.

The gift shop is huge and full of every unique to the area souvenir you could imagine so we were going to grab a few but the prices were too expensive, probably because shipping costs from China are so high.

Because of the shops size we decide to split up and search for some actual natural nuts.
Two hours later we manage to meet up again both having no success though Rhonda found a interesting little snow dome where two little pistachios nuts are sitting on a bench smoking pipes and when you shake it, they’re in the snow.
I told her it was stupid.
She said “but the eyes make them look so real”. I think she was right and now regret not buying it.

What helped us get over our snow dome disappointment is, for the next couple of nights we found some beautiful and uncrowded camping sites, in the US this is very rare, plus they were very cheap, in the US this is even rarer.
The quietness at night was the first we have experienced here though Alaska is a different deal.

Few places can you ever get away from the howling highways or a sort of constant muffled background roar but sitting out at night, gazing up at the stars, even though most are moving because of the obscene amount of aircraft in the sky at anyone time here, we could almost hear nothing at all,
Then a f#*#ing dog starts barking.Read more