drive from san jose to las cruces

Yesterday we drove from San Jose to Las Cruces, our first biological station. The entire countryside is so beautiful; there are forested mountains everywhere, and the cities are built into mountainsides. We stopped at a rest stop, that was very highly elevated and it was freezing!! I had some te con leche (tea with milk) and we watched hummingbirds at their feeders outside. They were so pretty and they had a kind of iridescent green and blue mixture of feathers and they were speedy quick! I got some pictures ill post later when i figure out how.. For lunch we stopped in a valley in this restaurant. There was an incredible difference in temperature, we all took off our sweaters and were still hot! I have to go to my morning walk around the botanical gardens so I'll write more later!!!