Our first stop in our Travel 2.0 route was Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks National Monument. It’s about 30 minutes from Las Cruces and the drive to get to our campground was along some beautiful scenic road. The Monument has a nice little visitor’s center, along with some hiking trails. We took a weekend day to visit and walk some trails and were excited to find a really cool cave along the way.
It was interesting although to be honest I wouldn’t go out of my way to visit this monument but since it was on our way it was fun. What was really neat though was the town of Hatch, NM where Hatch chilies come from. The entire town of 1,000 is geared around the chili’s and walking around downtown was really cool. There were tons of huge bags of chilis for sale and gift stores along with some very cool roadside attractions. Great little town and we had a blast there.
One of the coolest places was a restaurant that had tons of statues around it. We didn’t eat there but its worth going in and taking a peek because the design in and around the building is awesome.
Lee’s absolute favorite was at an RV park down the street with a giant “Muffler Man” holding a small RV and an “airstream” crushed by a giant pepper. Very cool.
I know this little town is off the beaten path but if you are close I absolutely recommend a stop. Their annual chili festival is labor Day weekend and I would definitely go for that if you are in the area at that time.
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