Category Archives: vacation

July 8, 2015 · 5:35 am

The Williams Tour Part 2 — Still in Old Mesilla

San Albino Basilica

On Monday I mentioned the dining venues in Old Mesilla. Here is one such spot famous for its green chile cheeseburgers and green chili cheese wontons with pineapple jalapeño salsa, it’s called Pepper’s Cafe, which is co-located with the jointly owned Double Eagle steak house:

Pepper’s Courtyard

Speaking of the Double Eagle, this place is home to the 30-foot/9.1-meter hand-carved oak Imperial Bar. This alone is worth the trip just to see it.

The Double Eagle Imperial Bar

And then there are those magnificent buildings to see and experience:

New Mexico Pecan Company

Not to mention the individual architectural details (more of which I’ll highlight in this week’s Fun Photo Friday):

The Entryway

And one last shot for today:

The Bandstand

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:

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.

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Filed under R. Doug Wicker, travel, vacation

Tagged as David Williams, El Paso area, Mesilla, Old Mesilla, photography, R. Doug Wicker, travel, travel photography, Ursula Wicker, vacation

July 6, 2015 · 5:35 am

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

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.

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Filed under Photography, R. Doug Wicker, travel, vacation

Tagged as David Williams, El Paso area, Mesilla, Old Mesilla, photography, R. Doug Wicker, travel, travel photography, Ursula Wicker, vacation

July 1, 2015 · 5:35 am

El Paso Chihuahuas AAA Baseball — Southwestern University Park

Daytime Panoramic

Well, I believe this was a first. For the life of me I simply cannot recall ever having gone to a professional baseball game, although I’m sure I had to have attended at least one sometime in the past six decades. Nice park, don’t you think? And just a short while ago it was City Hall (see Getting Even with City Hall). So, imploding this:

El Paso City Hall

Into this:

Thar she blows!

On the same weekend El Paso also turned this (see The Demolition of a Historic Landmark):

ASARCO Smokestack — briefly the world’s tallest

Into this:

T-I-M-B-E-R !

Is what got us this:

Nighttime Panoramic

And “this” is the award-winning Southwest University Park, voted in 2014 the best new ballpark in the country. And, just like City Hall, the ballpark is losing money. But that’s another story. Anyway, it’s a great park with lots of amenities and some really great but expensive food. The drinks aren’t cheap, either, as I found out in the Weststar Bank Club. Yes, that means Ursula and I were suite guests thanks to our good friends and neighbors Jim and Randi Brewer, so I’m definitely not complaining about dropping a buck or two at this rather exclusive club. In fact, I’d buy the booze again for this wonderful outing.

the Press Box had nothing on our view!

Check out the view from our suite location:

Not a full house this night; too much to do on Fridays

Although the “seats” past the outfield looked fun as well for the families who were there:

The “cheap” seats even look fun

Now for my second video production. It’s a short (less that a minute and a half) view of the park and the electronic scoreboard:

I haven’t done sports photography since high school football, so I had a lot to learn and a short time to learn it. I’ll give some pointers on that in this week’s Fun Photo Friday. Until then, enjoy today’s gallery (just click on any image below to bring up the slide show):