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LAS CRUCES - The past two days' negative temperatures, electric and gas outages, frozen pipes and ice-rink roads didn't bother the thousands of Las Crucens who got an unexpected two-day winter vacation.
With no thaw in sight, children, teens and adults hit the still-snowy hills at Sunrise Terrace Park, knowing that Thursday might be the only opportunity for some time to make a snow angel, like 17-year-old Cassandra Gonzales, or have a snowball fight, like her friends from Las Cruces High School.
"It's a miracle," said Erica Aguilera, 16, who said she hadn't seen even the modest few inches of snow Las Cruces received Wednesday since she was "really little."
"There's snow and there's no school," said 16-year-old
"Best combination ever!" added Allie Gonzales, 15. "It's awesome snowball-making weather.
"I think it's awesome," said her older sister, Cassandra, 17. "I really, really like it."
Their dad, Bobby Gonzales, 46, a native Las Crucen, came out to the park for the second day to go sledding with his two teenage daughters and marvel at the weather - even though his pipes were frozen at home.
"I never thought I'd experience this kind of weather, not here," said Gonzales, a retired city garbage truck driver who'd bought the bright red saucers for dune-sledding at White Sands. "I was in Denver two years ago and it snowed three days straight, but not like this. Not this cold. It took me by shock, and I'm even more shocked today. This is like a once-in-a-lifetime thing the kids get to experience, something they might never get to experience again, at least not here."
Siblings Brooklyn and Vinny Calderazzo, 11 and 9, and their cousin Maya Thomas, 10, neighborhood children who borrowed the Gonzales' saucers to go sledding Thursday, were fittingly impressed by nature's strange turn this week.
"I actually think it's pretty amazing - " Thomas said, her younger cousin finishing her sentence for her: " - because it's never snowed like this before!"
"Last year it snowed like, an inch, and it was gone, not even the next day," Brooklyn Calderazzo said.
"I have fun sledding, because we've never done this before," said Vinny Calderazzo, bundled in two jackets.
"It's more, to me, to see each other," his sister said. "Because we never get to see each other."
Even their parents got a break, said the Calderazzos; their mother works at New Mexico State University and their father, an architecture student, commutes to El Paso for long hours at school. Thursday morning found the couple uncharacteristically snuggled in front of a movie together, their children said.
Thomas said she was sending winter wishes into the air, crossing her fingers that it could last just a little longer.
"We were doing that last night, hoping that the clouds would come back," she said. "I hope that it's so cold that the snow doesn't freeze and we won't have school."
Ashley Meeks can be reached at (575) 541-5462.
