New Mexico -- Las Cruces & Gila Cliff Dwellings

July 5, 2004 -- July 6, 2004

We got to Las Cruces pretty late. And we didn't know where our hotel is. We had this one paper which has our schedule printed out, such as where to visit, where to stay, etc. But we forgot to print out the hotel name in Las Cruces. We only had an address, but we didn't have a Las Cruces city map. (Yeah, AAA doesn't have Las Cruces map). BL took a look at the map when we were in White Sands National Monument, so we tried to get to the hotel based on his memory. Of course, we lost! So we had to call our friend W in California to ask for direction. After we spent so many on roaming charges, we finally found our hotel! The good thing is that there is free wireless internet in the room, hooooolaaaaa!

It felt weird that I hadn't used internet for about 5 days. Unbelievable! As soon as I got into the room, I turned on my laptop and got online. I checked my emails, chatted with my friends, browsed all the sites I usually go to, edited some of my pictures and posted them online. It feels good, like I'm back to a modern society. :P I got into the hotel room probably around 11 pm, the next time when I looked at the clock, it's over 2 am. Geeeze, I should take a shower and go to sleep then. It seems that the virtual time goes much faster than the real time. :P

There is not much to visit in Las Cruces. So we just went to its old town plaza early in the morning. It's a small square with many souvenir shops around it. We went in to look for some gifts. I bought some for my friends, BL bought some for D.

Since it's still early, so we decided to visit Gila Cliff Dwellings. From the map, we figured out that Gila cliff dwelling is just about one and half hours away from Las Cruces. So we left Las Cruses around noon, thinking we'll have plenty of time to visit there. Since we are going to stay in Albuquerque for the night, we probably still have time to stop by Truth and Consequences on the way.

After one hour's drive on highway, we started to get into the mountain. I thought we are pretty close to our destination. Then there is a big sign standing by the road, saying curvy road ahead -- prepare to take a 2 hours' drive to Gila!!! //faint But since we already drove for one hour to get this close, we think we should keep going.

We missed the tour, so we just watched the video of the introduction of Gila Cliff Dwelling and climbed up ourselves to visit. There are several rooms in the cave. But I was kind of disappointed, I thought there would have more stuffs in the cave. I was thinking something made of stone so that Indians can sleep on or sit around it, but there are only pure raw rocks, and some dried tree branches in the dwelling. There is park volunteer resting in the cave. So I asked him where I can see the pictograph the Indians left. He is very nice, and showed me around, pointing out to me all the pictographs he knows in the cave and their meanings. From the chat with him, we found out that he is actually an artist, he does oil painting. He said if we come early in the morning, when the sun rises, and the first sun ray casts into the cave, the dwelling looks amazingly beautiful. I can imagine all the scenes in my head. But unfortunately, I don't have time for that! BL asked him how far away to get back to the high way to Albuquerque. And the answer is at least 3 hours!!! We never thought the decision we made to visit here ends up with a 5 hours' mountain driving journey!!!

To save time, BL drove pretty aggressively. I was holding the safety handler all the way. Later on that night, I found out my arm felt so sore because of that. Since I cannot drive on the curvy road, (I'm really scared of that,) BL had to drive all the way out. The scenery is beautiful along the road. But no matter how good it is, you will still get bored if you look at it for 5 hours. And I started to get car sick. Finally we were out of the mountain. BL was so tired. My turn to drive, but I still had car sick, so we stopped by some gas station, he had to wait for me to finish a big ice-cream, then we hit back on the road again with me in the driver seat and him sleeping in the passenger seat.

I enjoyed the drive. While BL is sleeping, I put on some happy Mexican music and enjoyed the scenery. Sun was setting, the clouds looked like fire, and the mountains along the road were cover in a shiny red coat. I was so moved by the beautiful scene. I kept asking myself whether I should stop the car, and capture all these beautiful scenes into my camera. But I didn't want to wake BL up and the scène seemed to me too beautiful to capture. So I just kept driving and let my thoughts fly. Am I driving too fast? Am I too eager to get to the destination so that I didn't spend enough time to enjoy the scene along the way? Are all those seemingly beautiful sceneries worth to stop and take time to enjoy? How would I know it's not a waste of time?

I always feel like that life is a journey. There are many stops along the way, people have to figure out the major stops to jump out the train and spend time to enjoy their life there. Some people make mistakes to stop at those small stops, they spend much time trying to look for scenes worth of visiting, but it finally turns out there is not much there. They just waste their time. Some people see the major stop, but they think there is nothing to visit there, so they miss the most beautiful scene they can see in their life. But how will I know where to stop? How will I know when to stop?


Pray

The picture was taken at Las Cruses old town plaza. I don't know why, when I took the picture, I strongly felt like it should be black and white. To me, the halo around the head of the statue is like a thorn crown. I can feel she is suffering, I feel it with a heavy heart. I feel like I'm praying with her, praying for the end the suffering.

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New Mexico -- White Sand National Monument

July 5th, 2005

Since it was so hot in New Mexico, we figured out that in order to avoid becoming a human jerky, we'd better not go to white sand national monument during the day. So we planed to get there right before sunset, so that I can take some good pictures.

White Sand National Monument is the world's largest gypsum dune field, about 275 square miles. Because of its white color, it reflects the heat, so even we walk on it during the day, it's not that hot at all. I carried a big responsibility to go to the white sand national park. My director is a big hiking fan, his plan is to go to all the national parks. So he asked me to get him a topographic map from the park. I was looking and looking in the tourist center, but I couldn't find one. So I asked for help, and was told there is no such map, because the sand dunes move about 30 feet every year by the strong and steady wind in that area.

The weather was not very good for pictures because of the heavy haze. We took the 7 PM tour, and the guide said the haze may come from the big fire nearby. BL was following the tour, I was wandering around to take pictures. But suddenly something that the tour guide said got my attention -- how do plants survive in the moving sands?

The big problem plants have in the dune field is being buried by moving sand dunes. Plants can't walk away from a dune that is starting to bury them. Most of the time the plants simply die because they can no longer get the oxygen they need once the sand has covered them. The tour guide pointed us to some small lovely pink flowers and told us that they're going to die soon. :( To Live on top of the dunes requires very special adaptations. Only a few plants are able to live very well on the sand dunes by growing faster than the dune can move, or/and holding on to the sand by building hard pedestals.

Soaptree Yucca

Yucca is one of the plants who grow faster than the sand dune moves. When it begins to get buried, the stem of the yucca starts to grow very rapidly and pushes the green leafy part above the surface of the sand. The stem can grow as much as 12" a year, and may get to be 30' tall. When you see a yucca plant on top of a sand dune, you can be sure that beneath it is a long stem that stretches all the way down through the sand.

I really admire Yucca's vitality. It must go through hundreds of generation's death and find a way of living, what a strong desire to survive! It never gives up the passion of living! Even a plant can do this, why human being always give up their passion for life and love so easily. When some people get hurt in love, they become so afraid of being hurt again, so they loose their passion for finding real love. They just lock their heart in a safety case, and throw the key in the ocean. Then they just wander around the world with an empty body and a big cold safety case. They can never open the safety case and show their heart to other people any more. Why can't we be like a yucca -- always holding the passion for life? Even though we fail, we should still beleive in that eventually everyone will find a way to grow out. Eventually everyone will have the most beautiful flowers over the white sand dune.

Yucca under sunset


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New Mexico -- Roswell

July 4th, 2005

We got back to hotel a little over 4 am. Since my flight is 6:40 am, I didn't have any time to sleep . I just took a quick shower to get rid of the smoke smell on my hair and body. The girls were sleeping after I came out from the shower, I didn't want to wake them up, so I had to pack in the dark. BBY kindly offered to take me and BL to airport, I did't want to keep him waiting, so I packed in a hurry and left the hotel.

We slept all the way on tha airplane, and got to Albuquerque early in the morning. We went directly to Alamo car rental place and asked about our reservation. Since I cannot access to my Yahoo account before I left for the trip, I couldnot print the reservation information with me. The guy checked in his computer and cannot find our record. So we had to rent another car on the spot. Not a good start for the trip!

We got the car. BL started to drive. I was so sleepy, but I had to keep myself awake and kept talking to him to keep him awake too -- I didn't want us to get into any accident. It's about 200 miles from Albuquerque to Roswell. And I felt this is the longest drive I had ever taken.

The original plan for visiting Roswell was to get there in time so that we can catch the last day's UFO festival and watch Independence Day's firework at night. We got to the hotel in Roswell around 1 pm, but the hotel receptionist told us that we cannot check in until 3 pm. It was extremely hot outside, just like in Vegas, and we both were extremely sleepy too. So we decided to skip the whole festival thing, and rested on the hotel lobby couch. I felt the couch is the most comfortable couch in the world, because right after I sat down and found a way to support my head comfortably, I fell into sleep. I felt I only slept for 5 minutes before the receptionist woke us up and told us that we can check in now. We just went directly to the room without even taking the luggage. I threw myself into my bed and slept. I was soooo sleepy. ZZZZZZ

I woke up around 7 pm and got up to take a shower, which made me feel much better. We didn't eat anything the whole day, so we decided to drive around, getting something to eat, and getting ready for the July 4th firework.

Roswell looks like a very old and small town, only one main street. It got famous because the 1947 UFO incidence. It was saying that there was a flying saucer crashed in Roswell. But later on goverment claimed that it was just a weather hot balloon. No one really knows which story is real. I prefer the UFO one. Think about this -- universe is so big, there is living creature on earth, why not on other planets? And human being is so curious, we send rockets and spaceships to other planets, why can't the creatures from other planets come to visit us?

This small town looks very shabby, BL kept saying it's even worse than those small towns in Mississippi. I've never been to Mississippi, but this probably is the most shabby town I've ever seen in US. And not like in california, I didn't see even one Chinese there. We went to the stadium where people gathered around waiting for fireworks. There was a mexican band singing on the stage. It seemed to me that the whole town were gathering in the stadium. But there was not even a single black hair, yellow skin person in the crowds except for us. People stared at us when we passed by. I felt like I were an alien there. We walked around, but there was nothing really interesting, since we still had about an hour before the firewrok started, we went out of the stadium to grab some dinner.

We came back and got a very good parking spot, facing the firework directly. So we can just put the seat back down and lied in the car to watch the firework. Before, when I watched firework, I was always swamped in big crowds, surrounded by people's head, but not this time. It was so relaxing and comfortable to sit in the car and see all the fireworks through the windshield. My favorite one is the golden colored firework, when it dropped from the sky, it looked like a golden willow tree, spectacular! Whenever that fireworks came out, I could feel there is something jumping really hard in my heart. Wish I could share the view with someone.

Is emotion or love just like fireworks? So spectacular and moving in the beginning, during that short period, it releases its best images. Then it dies quickly, only leaves the smoke and the smell in the air. How can we keep it longer?

New Mexico -- Adobe window

The picture was actually taken in Taos. Since I left Vegas in such a hurry, I left my tripod there, so there is no fireworks picture for me this time.

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Whatever happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas -- Zumanity & Strip Club

We chose Zumanity because J really wants to watch a topless show since she has never seen one. I have no interest in any topless show, because I've watched a couple and I remembered that I almost fell into sleep last time when I watched Jubilee. Nothing exciting at all. But Zumanity is different. It's very erotic, and different from the other show which I have seen from Cirque Du Soleil. The whole show is about sex -- man and woman, man and man, woman and woman, S&M, orgy ... Erotic, funny but not dirty. I really like the part that two acrobatic girls swim in a big transparent fish bowl, very sexy.

We had decent seats for the show, the 3rd row on the left side. When the show started, there was a very good shaped half naked guy holding a bouquet of roses walking around the stage. The audience started to scream. Of course I screamed too, I probably screamed pretty loud and got his attention, so he threw a rose to me. :) Then I found out that K screamed even louder, and he got a rose from the half naked guy too. (/faint) It's a fun experience to watch the show, with lots of laughing and screaming.

When we came out of the show, it's almost 1 am. J was so excited, and she really wanted to go to a gentleman's club. I have never been to a strip club either. But I have an early flight to New Mexico at 6:40 am. And what's so fun to watch female stripping? I'm not a guy! I'll have more interest if it's a male strip club! :P So I was very reluctant to go, but everyone else is going, and J dragged me along with them. BL picked the place, so all 8 of us went there.

The cover charge is pretty expensive there, $20 each, even girls need to pay for it. I was so disappointed when I went into it. I looked around, the place is not very good, not crowded at all -- only half of the tables were open. The light was very dim inside. Some half naked girls were dancing on the table, they are not very pretty. Music was not that exciting either, a big difference from the scenes which I saw from the movies. But since I came in already, why not have some fun and enjoy it? So I got some 1 dollar bill changes and sat down around a table with my friends. We ordered drinks and waited, waited. But no girl came to our table, then we were told the table was not open yet. We had to switch table, but the girl on next table was just, huh, not appealing at all. So we decided to buy W a private dance, since it's his first time to be in a strip club too, and he has to walk with a ski pole. :P K saw this pretty Thai girl and asked her to dance for W. The girl came up to W and sat on his lap. We thought it would be more fun to watch W's expression than to watch the girl dancing. So we all sat around W just to watch him. :P When the girl started to dance, my eyes were popping out, because W's hands were all over her body. I was wondering, wow, that's why they need 20 bucks cover charge, it's an all-you-can-touch place. And the funny thing is that W touched all over her, but I noticed that when she tried to touch W, he moved her hand away. I was laughing and laughing, what kind of club is like that. After the dance, we all made jokes about W's behavior, he just kept saying that it was not him, it was the girl who put his hands on her body. Yeah, right! :P

Then I found out that there is a girl dancing on the table where we sat around before. She is not that bad. So we decided to move back. BBY suddenly found out that his money got stolen and he got pretty upset about it. So I put some changes in front of him, the girl came to him and played with him. Then I put some changes in front of J. But when the girl came up to her, J became so shy and refused her. I was very surprised, because it's her who really wanted to come to a strip club and tried so hard to persuade everyone to come with her. Well, anyway, since I was there already, I decided to have a little fun. So I put the change on my chest and another on my lap, the girl was laughing and came down to take the changes away with her mouth. I got a close look at her. It's fake. So many fakes there. BBY was still upset, so we bought him a private dance too. He likes those plump white chicks. So K found a very good looking dancer, she seemed to have a perfect shaped body until she took off her bra. Hmmm, what should I say? It's a very unsuccessful surgery, a big turn off. :P

There was another girl dancing on the couch behind ours. She is gorgeous, with beautiful face, and perfect body. And they're real! I think she is the best looking girl I saw in the club that night. She was dancing for a couple, dancing on both their laps. I was staring at her for a while, and all my friends think she is pretty. K came to me, asking whether I wanted a private dance from her, I refused. Then he said either I should kiss him on the cheek, or he'll buy me a private dance. Hmmm, private dance for free? What's to think about? Of course no kiss on the cheek! :P So I got a private dance. The girl came to me, making me sit comfortably on the couch, asking me to spread my legs open, and started to dance between my legs. She put some weights on me, I felt a little uncomfortable, I'm not a guy, and she is bigger than I am -- a little bit too heavy for me. :P She is very young, I would say she's only 20. And she is very beautiful, I was wondering the whole time why she wanted to do this job? For living? Saving for her big dream to become a famous show girl, then go to Hollywood? But I didn't ask her. Then she turned around and spanked her butt, so I decided to play a little. I asked her whether I can do that for her, she said yes, but she only allowed girls to do that though. Lucky me! I did that, then I heard that the guy from couple on the couch behind ours was asking his partner "How come you didn't so that!" Haha!

Well, the whole thing is a new experience to me, I had fun there! But no matter how pretty the girl is, no matter how sexy she dances, I can never get excited. No chance to be a lesbian then! :P

It was 4 am after we came out from the club. Need to get ready for my trip to New Mexico! Vegas is a crazy city -- what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas!

Latterns from Bellagio




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Whatever happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas -- Blue Man & Ugly Coyote

It was extremely hot, over 100F, when we got to Vegas. The air was hot, the wind was hot, and you can feel the steam coming up from the ground. It was like a big sauna room, my skin cannot even breathe when we walked on the strip during the day.

Since it was supposed to be a fun vacation, my friends and I decided not to torture ourselves under the baking sun. So we gave up watching all the free shows and spent most time in hotel instead -- eating, watching shows, clubbing, sleeping and doing crazy stuff in the hotel room. And yeah, I didn't gamble at all. I know, I'm in Vegas, where the best casinos are, but I didn't spend even 1 cent in gambling.

I watched 2 shows there, the blue man group and Zumanti from Cirque Du Soleil.

We watched the blue man group on the first night. My friends didn't want to watch the blue man group initially. I insisted on watching it. I have seen their DVD already and really like their performance. It's different from other Vegas shows, very creative and humorous, and it's rated G -- all aged group can watch it. They communicate with the audience very well, making the whole atmosphere very friendly and easy-going. After the show, we came out of the theatre; the blue man was standing outside the theatre to let audience take pictures with them. I was wearing a nice dress that day, and brought my little purse with me, so I couldn't bring my camera with me. But hey, we have cell phone, so I went up to the blue man, asked him to kiss me on my cheek, and use cell phone to take a picture with the blue kiss on my cheek. :) On the way back, everyone was looking at my face, I'm not embarrassed at all, I just want to keep it until I get my camera and take another picture again. But we decided to go clubbing after, even W went with us. W is a friend who broke his leg during a ski trip. He hasn't fully recovered yet, still using a ski pole to assist himself to walk in Vegas. It was so cool to see him dancing with the ski pole. We went to a club called ugly coyote in NY NY. It's a so so club, we went there because the club doesn't have dress code and the guys didn't prepare for clubbing in Vegas at all (except for strip club :P). The girls were pretty shocked to hear that the guys didn't prepare for clubbing. Come on, it's Vegas, how can you not prepare for clubbing here? So we have to go to this Ugly coyote; even though it's so ugly, it's still packed and had a long line outside the door. It's very hot inside the club. After we got in, we started to drink. I was so thirsty, so I drank beer like water. I was a little buzzed and a little high, but at the same time, some thoughts came across my mind, I felt a little sad and depressed. So I drank more and kept dancing and dancing, moving every part of my body. They bought me some gello shots, I drank and danced more. I thought I could feel better if I kept doing this, but the emptiness in my heart cannot be filled by drinking and dancing... J helped me walking back to our hotel room, my blue kiss on the cheek was gone, it ended up on BBY's shirt. I didn't even get a chance to take a clear picture of it. :(

Las Vegas


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Vegas & New Mexico trip

I just came back from a trip to Las Vegas and New Mexico. It's exciting in Vegas, but relaxing in New Mexico. I took many pictures when I was in New Mexico. And I have been carefully selecting and editing pictures the whole night. Hopefully I'll have some free time this week so that I can start to write my travel journal before I forgot all the interesting things happened during the trip.

The serious photographer


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