Our Road Trips

7/14/16 7/10-14/16

Our ride to Leasburg Dam State Park just north of Las Cruces, NM went well. It is very hot out here and watching gauges is important. The new radiator in the MH seems to be functioning very well. We arrived at a campground with no supervision or anyone who could check us in. Barb went into the office and a maintenance guy was there who told us to go park...several hours later, a guy knocks on our door wondering who we are and why are we parked on this site...a first time for that one. Barb explained and then he understood. The place has been virtually vacant since Tuesday, at least no yapping dogs. The hot wind blows continuously though, glad we have a comfortable RV to stay cool.

We ran some errands in Las Cruces and found a couple of incompetents at an eyeglass store while trying to get my glasses repaired. We wasted an hour or more and accomplished nothing. So we drove west on I-10 looking for the famous Roadrunner statue. We located it, took a few pictures and headed to White Sands National Monument, about 50 miles east of town We got stopped for the 3rd time by Border Patrol on the way, asking again if we are US Citizens, nothing else....weird. We watched a movie at the Visitors Center and then took a drive...very hot and windy, which meant the gypsum was blowing around a lot, it was pretty miserable being outside. We got turned around and headed back to Las Cruces. Our day for miserable service wasn't over yet. We stopped at an Outback for some dinner. We ordered a Bloomin' Monday and it came raw. We sent it back and the second one came back still partially raw too. Our waitress was preoccupied with being outside smoking, and the manager came and told us they had the wrong type of onions...so get some different onions or take it off the menu...sheese! All & all, it was a pretty bad experience. We were glad to get back to the camper for the night.

We got up early and started the 3+ hour drive through the Guadalupe Mountain National Park to Carlsbad Caverns. The Guadalupe Visitors Center was small and not very involved, so we got some info and were on our way. We had been through here in 2001 when we went to the Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta, so seeing it again was nice. Carlsbad Caverns is an amazing place. We spent 2 hours walking through the Big Room, it is as amazing as we remember. I took 200 pictures...none of them are near as amazing as it looks 1st hand...what a beautiful place. You need to see it for yourself. We headed back and the 3+ hours seemed very long. We arrived back about 11 hours after we left. The gate was locked, we were both tired and glad to get off the road, but we had a great day.

Yesterday, we took a short break, had some breakfast and getting some stuff done at the camper. We drove down to the Rio Grande River near our campsite, basically to view the dam which the Leasburg Dam State Park is named after. The area we are in is very agricultural and water is essential. The Rio Grande supplies most of the water used for irrigation. There are Pecan trees everywhere that require a steady water supply, so the dam is used to divert water from the river into an irrigation canal. Then we moved on to the town of Hatch, a small farm community known as the 'chili capital of the world'. I wandered into the Town Hall & started a conversation with a local, who was very willing to tell me about the areas crops, etc. He also told me about a dairy just out of town that was the 'largest dairy in New Mexico' with 90,000 cows...I did not go count them. As we drove SW out of town, we drove by several dairys, lots of crops, and a huge solar farm. We stopped at the solar farm and a maintenance man told me that it produced enough power to supply the entire town of Hatch. As we continued, we came across a huge 25 MW solar farm under construction and a 51 MW wind farm...what a great way to utilize what I would classify as waste land. Pretty impressive. We finally arrived in Deming, drove through the downtown and then stopped at St Clare Winery. We did some sampling, bought 6 bottles of wine and then headed back toward Las Cruces. We stopped at a recommended restaurant and had a Mexican dinner, went by a grocery store and headed back to the camper.

Today, we have a roast in the crock pot, watching some TV and working on this blog and watching again the awful news, this time from Nice, France. It is getting very, very tiring. It needs to stop, but I doubt it will. It is nice having satellite reception, but sometimes it gets so we have to just shut it off.

Tomorrow, we are moving to Kartchner Caverns State Park in Benson, AZ for 4 nights. We will stop in Tucson on our way to Phoenix and get our roof air replaced which has died after 16 years. That will surely make the weather cool off...lol. Internet has sure made making those type of arrangements so much easier. We think it will only take a couple of hours, at least that is our hope.

Steve & Barb Larson