5in29: Day 8-11. Las Cruces: Part 3
2024-12-18 ~ 12-21. Las Cruces, NM
Special Event: Book Signing at COASBooks, Las Cruces, NM
COASBooks is the largest independent bookstore in New Mexico, holding 500,000+ items, including published new and old books, rare collectables, research reports and manuscripts, CDs, DVDs, Vinyl, VHS, audiobooks, and games.
I videotaped the store as I walked through non-stop. The video is almost 5-minute long! They have one big room after another big room after another! What a heavenly place for readers, researchers, and anyone who loves what they carry.
Emma and Richard from the store worked with me for weeks to make the book signing happen. Thank you, Emma and Richard!
The store carried copies of my book already before I arrived. It just happened that a reader Jes emailed me the day of my arriving in Las Cruces. It made me so happy to read her email! Here is excerpt from her email (with her last name removed):
“My name is Jes, and I'm from Las Cruces! At COAS, your book cover instantly stuck me with the captivating blue sky and yellow title. As soon as I read the first few lines, I was hooked! I loved hearing about how the city was right before I was born, especially from your POV of coming from another country. It was fascinating to me. Now I want to know how you returned back to Cruces!! It made me most happy to know that people in Cruces were good to you. I think you accurately portrayed the people of our town, and I hope that still rings true for you. I can't wait to share this with my grandma who is 92 to hear her thoughts too.”
Our continued communication revealed that Jes was visiting her family from Denver during the Thanksgiving holiday when she saw the book at COAS.
After the book signing, Richard bought several copies from me . It was such an honor to be able to sign my book here and keep my books in the store!
Today was Winter Solstice. What a special day to sign books and connect with others. I had a great time chatting with people who stopped in front of my table.
A lady bought a copy from the store and asked me to sign for “Katy.” She visited China in 1994 and was very fond of the country and its people.
A couple originally from India chatted with me about IT jobs, schooling, being immigrants, and feeling lonely in a foreign place. I autographed it for Ginu, the boy. Harinee, the girl, became my friend on FB.
A gentleman told me how much he enjoys non-fiction.
A father and daughter stopped by. The father saw my SU sweater and told me about his graduate study in filming at SU!
A lady, who grew up in Las Cruces, had moved away for 40 years, recently came back, chatted with me about re-learning things of the hometown she thought she knew so well.
A gentleman, Kevin, was visiting from Minnesota. We talked about several topics, from IT to communication to people’s connection. He liked all three of my books! And he wanted to continue hearing from me.
Van Life:
Before the trip, Roman and I both heard of KOA Journey from our friends. For the first night at Las Cruces, we decided to stay there just to check it out.
We arrived at night, but we felt so welcomed as soon as we pulled into the front of the office! The front was fantastically decorated for Christmas. Our package was ready. We found our “home” spot easily in the dark even though the place seemed huge. It is standing in a high place where we could see the night of Las Cruces at its edge.
The next day, I found the place to be even more enjoyable. It offered fantastic views, free coffee with two ways of making it (press and drip!), free breakfast (freshly baked blueberry muffins were so addictive, plus packaged goodies), and the community room where I called my office during our stay (see my backpack in the picture). And many more amenities including microwave, indoor and outdoor cooking places, spacious bathrooms, etc. etc. etc.
The KOA Journey campsite was so homey and welcoming that we decided to (1) join the KOA membership for $36/year (and get a discount and earn points for each stay at any KOA across the country), (2) stay here during our entire stay in Las Cruces: 3 nights!
On the first day, just when we finished lunch close to El Paso Airport and were about to drive back to Las Cruces, we found the house battery was dead! Our brand new battery!
We contacted the local store Martin’s Tires that BrakeMax gave us after we returned from El Paso. A group of technicians worked on it—it was a slow day for them and one person said they all loved challenge.
They found the technician at BrakeMax installed the new battery connections upside down! We wouldn’t know about it because we had been using the shore power since the new battery was installed.
They fixed the installation. We thought finally, all should be good now.
Not so! The next day, we purposely tested the house battery and it was dead again. Nothing in the van worked if we unplug the shore power.
People at Martin’s Tires were super kind and made a thorough diagnosis. The house battery was 100% new. But the van engine battery has only 20% life left—luckily it should support our trip.
They directed us to another van company. We got there and the technician there found the main switch in the van was off! What an embarrassment! The idea of a bad battery consumed us so much that we ignored the normal practice of using the van!
Eureka Moment:
While Martin’s Tires worked on the battery, we wanted to work with our laptops in a Starbucks, thinking that is where people could sit down and work. After being dropped off by an Uber (Martin’s Tires paid for it), we found the Starbucks has 2 small round tables, each can barely hold two people. Learning moment: Not all Starbucks are the same! We ended up spending 2 hours in a nearby Burger King.
(to be continued)