Sand storms. Lubbock, TX. Drought. And critters.

[Dien Rice]

Originally Posted by GordonJ

West TX is not for the faint of heart (then what the heck am I doing here).

In the last few days: killed a 4 foot 8 inch rattlesnake. Cleaned out a black widow's nest, chased away an ornery skunk...became aware of scorpions, and that was just the start of my week.

Hi Gordon,

Sounds like there's no lack of excitement there in New Mexico and West Texas!

I've been to a different part of NM (more around the Santa Fe-Taos region), and it was amazingly beautiful... (Luckily, I managed to avoid any snakes and scorpions!)

There's a ghost town in the Taos area called Elizabethtown... It's a fascinating place! Some of the buildings in Elizabethtown are still preserved, as nowadays it's on private land... Elizabethtown even had a serial killer, Charles Kennedy, living there at one stage (he eventually was killed by vigilantes).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabethtown,_New_Mexico

http://www.legendsofamerica.com/nm-etown.html

http://www.legendsofamerica.com/we-charleskennedy.html

The guy who runs the "museum" in Elizabethtown is an interesting character himself... (Forgot his name. I was there in 2009.)

Ghost towns. I wonder if there could be an opportunity there? There certainly are a lot of interesting ghost towns around... Especially in areas that had a "gold rush" 100+ years ago or so (like Elizabethtown did)...

By the way, speaking of alfalfa... I just recently started adding alfalfa sprouts as a regular part of my diet. Very easy to add - just rinse and eat. And I feel much better... You can add it to almost any dish or sandwich (even to soups). I recommend it to everyone. Yum!

Best wishes,

Dien