Texas & New Mexico

This post will cover our time moving from Georgetown, TX where we spent time with our friends, Rob and Laura, through the rest of Texas and New Mexico. As we write this, we are now in Benson, AZ at an Escapees Co-Op park for at least 2 weeks. We’ll write all about it in the next blog.

San Angelo State Park

We spent time in this park last year after getting our solar installed so we knew what it was like. We figured it would be a good place to spend Thanksgiving week and relax. We definitely relaxed as is evident by our lack of photos for the week we were here. We had some minor repair work to do on the rig and got that done on our first day here. Unfortunately, the weather turned for the worse after that and kept us inside for the next few days. We did manage to prepare ourselves a very nice Thanksgiving dinner, complete with turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing and asparagus. It’s amazing what you can cook in an Instant Pot.

This park has a very large network of biking trails and it wasn’t until the last full day here that we finally got the bikes out for a ride. About 80% of the trails are fun and relatively easy to ride and the other 20% forced Amy off her bike to walk up or down the rough rocky terrain. As we began our return route, we had the option of taking a trail called “The Rollercoaster” or ride along a paved and hilly road. Amy opted for the road and Dan decided to try the trail. We both got quite the work out and Amy was sure she chose more wisely than Dan and after navigating “The Rollercoaster”, he wasn’t arguing any.

Carlsbad Caverns and Guadalupe Mountains NPs

Our next stop was Carlsbad, NM. We wanted to boondock just south of the park but wanted to have an opportunity to check it out before bringing the RV in so we spent a night at a KOA. Unfortunately this KOA was about 20 miles on the north side of Carlsbad and the National Park is about 20 miles south of Carlsbad. It was a nice park with big spaces but not as convenient as we would have liked.

The boondocking site was an easy access large flat area designated for dry camping and we moved down to it first thing the next morning. After settling in, we drove into the park to take the unguided tour of the caves. This is the first time we have ventured into a cave where we were allowed to tour the cave on our own. It was nice to be able to go at your own pace but you really were not allowed to go anywhere you wanted. The path through the cave is asphalt with hand rails to keep you on track. Tripods are allowed in the cave so Dan was able to setup for longer exposure shots with lower ISO to keep the pictures free of noise. With that said, it was very difficult to capture the size and beauty of what we were experiencing in the cave. The one thing that detracted from the wonder of the place was the underground gift shop and visitor center. It kind of gave the place a Disney like man-made feel. You can see more pictures from the caverns at the end of the blog.

The following day, we ventured further south to Guadalupe Mountains National Park. We had hoped to hike to the peak nearby but the ranger in the visitors center said they were expecting gusts of up to 70 mph. We thought that was a bit high compared to our forecasts but decided to take a hike through a canyon instead of the exposure of the mountain peaks. We hiked the Devil’s Hall trail and found it to be very enjoyable and the geology of the area was very interesting. I don’t think we experienced 70 mph winds but it did get pretty windy at times. We were done with the hike by early afternoon but given the windy conditions, we decided to return to our RV and prepare for the next leg of our journey.

Harvest Hosts and Las Cruces KOA

We could have gone straight from our boondocking location near Carlsbad Caverns to the KOA in Las Cruces but decided to check out a Harvest Hosts location along the route for added adventure. This turned out to be a wise decision. Sombra Antigua winery was very nice with lots of room for big rigs to visit. After being shown a few options of where to park we opted to pull around the building and setup right beside the entrance to the tasting room and bar (hey, why not).

The young man tending the bar and providing us with our tastings was very nice and we enjoyed our time chatting with him. Later on, a couple of regulars came in who were two young gentlemen that were air traffic controllers for the El Paso airport. It was fascinating to talk to them about their jobs. They told the bartender that they just left another winery and had encouraged a group of people to come check out this place. Sure enough a few minutes later, three young ladies came in and that rounded out the customers for the evening. In addition to wine ,they had a few taps of locally brewed beer, so we had a couple pints after the wine tasting was complete. When all you have to do is walk 20 yards to get home, it’s pretty easy to have another.

The drive up to Las Cruces was a short 40 miles and check-in was 2:00 PM so we hung around the winery for until after lunch. This provided us time to stroll down the road and for Dan to got the drone footage you see here.

After setting up in our site at the KOA, we drove to the east side of Las Cruces to check out some boondocking options. We wanted to move there on Monday (this was a Saturday) and then do some hiking in the mountains as well as visit White Sands National Monument. Well, this time our practice of trying to scope out boondocking sites ahead of time paid off. None of the locations we had researched would work for our rig so it was time to come up with plan B.

Dan was really interested in checking out White Sands so we planned to back track east 70 miles and get a site at an RV park or an Elks Lodge in Alamogordo, NM. As Sunday came to a close and the rains started and we woke up Monday morning and it was still raining, we decided to extend our stay in the KOA another day and rethink our plans. We decided to forego White Sands for this trip and keep it on the bucket list. Instead we drove to a unique state park north of Deming, NM.

City of Rocks State Park, NM

We arrived in the park shortly after 11:00 AM and decided to park the rig near the visitor center and walk around the park to find the best site for us to park in. Most of the dry camping sites in the park are first come first serve. We ended up finding a pull through site that would suit our needs as long as we backed into it as opposed to trying to pull through. The large tree and even larger rock near the site would have made cornering in the site a challenge. That being said, the back in was trivial and it left enough room behind the rig for our truck and maybe 2 or 3 more just like it. It was a big site.

When we were in the visitor center, the ranger pointed out a poster size print showing the City of Rocks from the vantage point on top of Table Mountain that is near the campground. It is a 2.3 mile hike to the top of the mountain and Dan thought it would be cool to get a picture of the park with the near full moon as a source of light. We decided to hike the trail after getting setup to make sure we would be comfortable coming back down in the dark. Once we realized it would be doable and we were almost to the top, we realized in order to get back down, get the appropriate gear, and get back up, we had better turn around and hustle.

We made it back to the peak with the camera and tripod just a few minutes before sunset. Sunset pictures were OK but in order to get the desired moonlit shot, we had to wait for all of the evening glow on the western horizon to disappear. Sunset was shortly after 5:00 PM and the moon was already up (this was the night before full moon) but we had to wait until almost 6:30 before it was dark enough to get the shot. If you have ever been in the desert in the winter, you know how cold it gets at night and it did not take long before we were shivering. We held on and Dan got his picture and the walk back to the RV warmed us up nicely. By the time we were done, our FitBits had logged well over 30,000 steps each and we were ready for bed.

The next day we did some more hiking around the park and explored the rocks. If you are ever in this area, stopping by the City of Rocks is a must! Exploring around the rocks was a ton of fun. One evening, as the sun was setting, we walked through and took some interesting sunset pictures. It was very beautiful. We also did some geocaching during our stay, which led us back up to Table Mountain and around the trails that encircle the park. During our stay, the daytime temperatures were not too cool and the sunshine was warm, but it was too windy to sit outside and enjoy the view.

Knowing we wanted to stay at least 3 days in the City of Rocks State Park, we had arranged to have our mail sent to Deming, NM. On multiple occasions, we’ve had our mail shipped on a Tuesday and it has always arrived at our chosen post office on Thursday so we figured we’d be good. However, when we checked the status of the package on Thursday evening, we learned that it was running late but was still depicting Friday as an arrival date. We drove the 25 miles into Deming on Friday and checked in with the post office but no package. We signed up for 2 more nights in the City of Rocks, planning to leave on Sunday. On Saturday morning tracking said it had left the El Paso distribution at 5:00 AM and was on its way to the final destination. We drove back to town hoping it would be there but it was not. Now we had to add another day and stay until Monday. We figured we would come to town, get the mail, fill up the truck and return to get the RV before heading to Benson, AZ. Monday morning, the tracking said the package was available for pickup so we walk into the post office and tell the clerk we had a package in general delivery. He walked back was gone for 2-3 minutes and returns empty handed. “I don’t have anything for you”, he says. We show him the tracking results and he enters the number into his own system and after checking 2 more times he finally finds the package stuck between to other packages. Phew, we can now move on. I guess the mail system this time of year can get a little overwhelmed.

Additional Photos from the Caverns

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