Wednesday morning April 27th, we left Rock Hound State Park outside of Deming, NM and headed east on I-10. We are still in the high desert. The elevation ranged from 4400-3800 feet most of the day. Just outside Las Cruces, NM we passed the biggest dairy farm we've ever seen - must have been over a half mile long.
We left New Mexico and crossed into Texas - we stayed a total of 12 days in the Land of Enchantment state and really enjoyed it.
Not far into Texas (20 miles or so) we came into El Paso - lots of traffic and road construction. I-10 parallels the Rio Grande and you can see the crowded Mexican town of Juarez across the river.
Once through El Paso it was just a long drive across the West Texas desert. Even with the 80mph speed limit, we saw several people pulled over by the Texas State Troopers. Rest assured, we weren't doing 80 mph in the motorhome!
Just before Van Horn we crossed back into Central Time, then 35 miles or so east of Van Horn we passed the junction where I-20 splits off and takes the more northern route across Texas - we stayed on I-10. After a 310 mile day, we checked into Balmorhea State Park just out of Balmorhea, TX in the middle of the afternoon - relaxed the rest of the day. It was pretty hot - in the low 90's, but there was a light breeze. We have stayed here before and it is a nice place for a stop-over. They have the campground, and a motel, plus a huge natural spring-fed thermal pool that a lot of people make use of. We walked over late in the afternoon just to check it out, but it was already closed.
Yesterday (Thursday), April 28th - another leg of the "waltz across Texas". We again hit I-10 headed east into the early morning sun. Still wide open desert.
We started the day at an elevation of 3196 at Balmorhea, gradually dropped down to 2000 feet at the Pecos River. Then it was back up into the 2200-2500 range for a lot of miles. Also, when we crossed the Pecos we started to see a change in the landscape - a lot more vegetation and mesquite trees with a few oaks thrown in. We also started to get into the Texas Hill Country.
We stopped at a rest area that had some really interesting picnic tables!
In addition to the change in vegetation with all the trees, we started to see a lot of color in the median and on the sides of the highway.
After riding at the 2200-2500 feet elevation for a long way, we finally topped the last hill and dropped down into Kerrville at 1637 feet - lowest we've been in awhile! Kerrville is in the heart of the Hill Country.
After a 314 mile day, we checked into the Kerrville-Schreiner State Park in Kerrville - got a really nice site for two nights. The weather was warm, but it clouded up some and cooled down pretty soon. We were able to put our chairs out and sit under our shade tree for awhile. We've stayed here several times over the years and it, like Balmorhea, is a good stop-over.
Today (Friday) was a domestic day - chores to be taken care of. We started the day at Cracker Barrel for breakfast (Yeah!! These folks know about sweet tea!) and then to Wal-Mart for a few comodities and a haircut. Back at camp we had a couple of hours of house cleaning and then back to our shade tree. The weather forecast for yesterday and today was for scattered thunderstorms and rain showers, but we didn't get a drop. Was cloudy for a good part of the day, but later the sun came out again.
Tomorrow we're like Willie Nelson - "On the Road Again". We'll be hitting I-10 for our last leg across Texas - through San Antonio and Houston headed for High Island on the Texas Gulf Coast. We plan on being there a few days.
Sorry, I didn't get to make a post from the last place we were -- not good enough cell service. This one will cover two locations.
Friday morning April 22nd, we left San Antonio, NM - again headed south on I-25. We are still in the high desert. The elevation ranged from 4700-5100 feet. There were a couple of deep canyons where the highway would drop 400-500 feet, then go back up the other side.
We stopped in Truth or Consequences for a couple of McDonald's breakfast burritos and McMuffin to go. You may remember years ago, the town changed it's name. Originally, it was named Hot Springs (for the hot springs in the area), but in 1950 Ralph Edwards, the Host of the NBC radio show Truth or Consequences, promised he would air the show's 10th anniversary broadcast from the first town to change its name to Truth or Consequences. Hot Springs made the change and won the honor of that 10th anniversary broadcast and has been Truth or Consequences ever since. OK - there's your trivia!
We got off I-25 at Hatch, NM (Chile Capital of the World) and hit Hwy 26 for about 50 miles to Deming, then Hwy 180 and Hwy 61 to City of Rocks State Park about 30 miles west out of Deming in the middle of the desert. Hwy 26 is a very good 2-lane that again crosses a lot of desert and some farm lands.
The entrance road into City of Rocks State Park overlooks the park and you can see where the name came from. It's like this big patch of huge rock formations out in the middle of the desert.
There are a few campsites with electric hookups, but the majority of them are out in the rocks and have no hookups - what we call dry camping. We chose a site and worked the motorhome into position -- thank God for hydraulic leveling jacks! We had rocks all around 3 sides with a fantastic view across the desert on the other.
Of course, LaVerne put our hummingbird feeders and some seeds on the ground and it didn't take too long to get customers - Black-chinned Hummingbird and Canyon Towhee.
The rest of the campground is very, very interesting. We rode around and took some pictures of the campsites in the rocks.
Our desert view also provided a couple of great sunsets!
We spent a very relaxing weekend at this state park. Saturday we just camped all day and Sunday we drove back into Deming and went to the worship service at the First Baptist Church. The pastor gave a very good sermon and we could understand him -- found out later he is from Birmingham, AL! After church service we went to the "Si Senor" Mexican restaurant for lunch.
Yesterday (Monday), April 25th, we moved to Rock Hound State Park about 12 miles east of Deming - a good 42 mile drive. This park is also in the desert, but it is more populated in the surrounding area. The campground is at the bottom of one of the mountains in the Florida Peaks.
We checked in and got a campsite facing the mountain and have another great desert view looking back toward Deming. We also have a very nice little cactus garden by our site.
There are wild Persian Ibexes that live on the mountain and we hoped to see some of them. We camped here several years ago and did get to watch a small herd of them as they climbed around on the cliffs. We felt lucky then - a park ranger had told us that he'd worked here for 10 years and had never seen them.
Yesterday and today have been pretty uncomfortable as far as the weather goes -- it's beautiful and sunny, but the wind has been blowing 20-35 mph (with gusts up to 50) for two days. It's too windy to sit outside. So, we sat inside, watched the mountain for Ibexes, and had bird visitors in one of the blooming cacti in our garden.
Bullock's Oriole
Audubon's Oriole
Curve-billed Thrasher
Like the last place we were, our desert view really gave us a couple of beautiful sunsets.
Tomorrow is moving day again and this time we're taking a big jump. We're going to spend about 3 days "waltzing across Texas" and go to High Island on the Texas Gulf Coast. This is one of our favorite birding sites and we hope we aren't too late for some of the annual Spring migration.
Yesterday (Wednesday) morning April 20th, we left Bernardo, NM headed south on I-25. Again, it's a short drive (this time only 42 miles) to our destination - San Antonio, NM and the Bosque Birdwatchers RV Park! We have definitely made a change in landscape - now we're all high desert.
The RV park isn't very much -- on a dry gravel parking lot and definitely not crowded. It'll serve our purpose - we're here for the wildlife refuge.
The Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge is 5 miles down the road and is one of the most popular in the country. It is over 57,000 acres and is wintering grounds for thousands and thousands of Bald Eagles, Sandhill Cranes, and Snow Geese. We went there yesterday and twice again today. Yesterday afternoon it was very hot (80's), but this morning was nice - 47 degrees early and up into the 60's as we did the morning tour. This afternoon was hot again! They have a very nice Visitor's Center which we went to a couple of times.
In the Visitor's Center is a nice Nature Gift Shop and a glass wall with viewing benches looking out on a birdfeeding station. There were lots of birds - several White-Crowned Sparrows, Gambel's Quail, and a Bullock's Oriole (that I got a half picture of)
There are about 15 miles of Auto Tour divided into a North Loop and South Loop. Both loops pass through a lot of wooded areas, open fields, and by a lot of big ponds. As you are driving along real slow, there's no telling who might want to pass you. Also, we'll be on the lookout for the mountain lions!
Although all Bald Eagles and Sandhill Cranes that winter here have been long gone, there's still lots of ducks and other birds.
Here are some of the individual ducks and other birds that we saw:
Northern Shoveler
Gadwall
Blue-winged Teal
Great Egret
White Pelicans
Greater Roadrunner
Swainson's Hawk
Snow Geese
Ruddy Duck
Mallard
Wild Turkey
Red-winged Blackbird.
At our campsite, LaVerne put out a water pan and spread bird seed all on the ground. We had several customers for that:
White-crowned Sparrow
White-winged Dove
Pyrrhuloxia (strange cousin of our Cardinal)
Ground Squirrel
We've enjoyed our stay here, but it's time to move on and tomorrow (Friday) is moving day. We're headed for the City of Rocks State Park near Deming, NM. Will be there over the weekend.
