Leisurely breakfast and a late start as we are only going about 20 miles south to Caballo Lake State Park. We needed a place to camp before we head down to the Mexican border where we will stay at Pancho Villa State Park and couldn’t find any open sites at other state parks.
Caballo Lake is yet another reservoir created by the US Army Corps of Engineers. The park is close to highway 25 (you can hear the traffic, but it is not too bad) and has four different campground areas, three are close together and we are staying in the other campground that is a couple of miles away (Riverside). Our campground is situated alongside the reservoir runoff “river”. It is stagnant right now (no runoff from the reservoir) and there are stepping stones that allow us to walk across without getting our feet wet.
We took the dogs across the river and found a dirt road on the other side. We wandered along the road until we came to a cattle grate in the ground… there was no way Lump was going to cross. SweetPea went back and forth across the gate, but Lump was having nothing to do with it. I briefly considered carrying lump across, but decided that bad things would happen if tried to carry 140 lbs of squirming dog while trying to balance on the cross-pieces of the cattle grate. So, turnaround and walk back the other way on the dirt road… until we came to another cattle grate across the road. End of today’s walk (Lump gave the second cattle grate the same consideration as the first).
The views from the campground are nice, some nearby hills and mountains. We have been spoiled by the incredible vistas at Elephant butte, so this park seems a bit underwhelming.
The camp sites are a bit close together, we had neighbours on both sides for a bit, but there was a large field behind our site where the dogs could play (off-leash as long as no-one else was around).
The campground “Chili Cook-off” was cancelled due to rain, so we won’t get to submit our can of “Wolf’s” finest chili that we picked up at Walmart (would have been funny if we won).
Got a bit of a surprise as I went to drop off some garbage in the dumpster by the showers, two raccoons were inside and awaiting my contribution to their evening meal!
We saw many raccoons in the trees in the evening, their eyes reflect brightly in our headlamps. Also, quite a few deer around the park. Opened the trailer door one morning to find a dozen or so deer behind the trailer and another group in front of the trailer.
Washrooms are nice a clean, but somehow colder inside than outside! The shower water temp is good (hot enough for B, but not too hot for me). The only downside was that the push button control only provided a few seconds of water, so it was a matter of juggling the soap while continually pushing the button!
On Dec 4 we took a day trip to Desert Peaks National Monument in the Organ Mountains, just outside of Las Cruces. Lots of hiking trails in the area, dogs are restricted from only a couple of them. Scenic views of the Organ mountains.
On the way to (and from) Desert Peaks we passed thru a chi-chi neighbour on the outskirts of Las Cruces called “Talavera”. There were traditional southwestern style houses and modern versions of southwestern styles. Looked up some local real estate listings and to our surprise the prices were all under $1m. Don’t know if this is due to depressed real estate values or if these are normal prices.
On Dec 5 we took a drive (about 1.5 hours) to White Sands National Park. On the way we drove through the White Sands Missile Range; there was a definite lack of missiles in evidence, nothing went boom, and the missile range museum was closed, so a bit of a fizzle.
When we arrived at the park it looked like we were back in Canada on a snow covered road. Even the banks on the side of the road looked like they had been snow-plowed!
The gypsum sand dunes look just like snow drifts. The white sand doesn’t blow around much due to the high moisture content just a few inches below the surface. There are 275 square miles of dunes in the valley.
You can walk just about anywhere in the park. We went for a drag-along walk. I forgot the leashes and walking collars, so we made leashes from extra cargo straps, but the dogs just pulled us along because we didn’t have their walking collars.
You can rent toboggans from the visitor centre, and the park has some great picnic areas.
Trip Summary:
Depart from: Elephant Butte State Park, NM
Depart time: 12:30 pm
Odometer: 128690 miles
Arrive time: 4:00 pm (Caballo LakeState Park, NM
Odometer: 128728 miles
Gas Summary (fill-ups):
Las Cruces (Dec 3):
Odometer: 128852 miles, 12.4g @ US$3.50/g (US$43.43)
Enjoying your blog and living vicariously.
Glad that you are enjoying the posts, good to have you along for the adventure!