The Williams Tour Part 1 — Old Mesilla

Old Mesilla Plaza

My very good friend from college, and best man at our wedding, decided to pay us a visit out here in the Wild and Wooly West.  His name is David Williams, he attended Clemson University, and he loves the Great Desert Southwest.  So when he comes out this way, we like to clear our schedule and give him a tour of the surrounding area.  This time it would be Old Mesilla, White Sands National Monument, the Franklin Mountains here in El Paso, Cloudcroft, Mission Valley, and a place I cannot believe it’s taken me almost thirty-five years to visit — Hueco Tanks State Park.  Over the next six weeks I’ll be showing you the grand tour as we showed David, with two solid weeks devoted to Hueco Tanks alone.

In Prayer

Today we begin with a tour of Old Mesilla, New Mexico.  Neither Ursula nor I ever tire of visiting this magical place seemingly stuck in the 1880s, and we go there frequently — usually via this mighty steed:

A streak of light, a cloud of dust, and a hearty, “Hi-yo, Burnt Sienna! Away!”

Alas, with three of us that ain’t gonna happen.  Time to roll out the ol’ sedan.

Lights and Leaves

The preserved sights and wonderful look of old adobe buildings dating back to the 19th Century aren’t the only reason for making this trek.  The dining venues are an equal draw and the shops are incredibly quaint and in some cases pretty kitschy.

Henry McCarthy, William Bonney, Billie the Kid — Take your pick

The big draw on Sundays, however, has to be the Basilica of San Albino.

San Albino Basilica

And then there are all those other little photo opportunities:

Competing Spires

By the way, if you’re reading this and other material authored by me on The Destinary website, this post was not “Posted on (fill in the date) | By destinary” as they’ve been erroneously claiming; this material was in fact reposted.  The Destinary have also been claiming the right to do so, without links back to the original and without full attribution (“by RDoug” and a nonworking link is not proper attribution) with a rather bizarre interpretation of U.S. copyright law in which they claim I’m responsible for changing my RSS feed settings so that they cannot skim my material for commercial purposes.  That would make reading my blog less convenient for you, which I’m not willing to do.  As such, I’ll be running this little diatribe on all travel related posts until they cease and desist, along with this:

© 2015 R. Doug Wicker (RDougWicker.com)
All right reserved — that includes you, Destinary

Final note:  Considering The Destinary is a site listed as owned by Sonia Bosquez-Platt of Indianapolis Tour & Travel, you may want to rethink doing business with her or her company.