March 1-15,2024 Arizona, New Mexico and Texas

We have been to Tombstone three times already in our travels but we just love it so we headed back. They have this community lot within walking distance of the town. They charge $10 per night which is reasonable considering the closeness to all the attractions. On our second night here we walked past another lot and noticed the Harvest Host sign. We never bothered to check the Harvest Host app because we have always stayed at this $10 lot. So we could have saved ourselves thirty dollars being we are members of Harvest Host and the overnights would have been free. Oh well, I guess we will just have to come back next year and stay at the Harvest Host.

We had already done the OK Coral shootout once before but hadn’t done the Historama narrated by Vincent Price, so we sat through that and then also got to tour the museum as well. The Historama thing was pretty cheesy but still fun. We walked up and down the Main Street multiple times enjoying dinner and icecream and everything else you do while on vacation in Tombstone. The costumes are outstanding and the people seem to really enjoy themselves. It’s sort of like Disney in the Wild Wild West. 

I went to church there in an old historic church built in 1881. Small church and not many parishioners but it was nice to have a church within walking distance of where we were camping.

So we wound up staying 4 days in Tombstone. Then we headed 36 minutes away to Whitewater Draw Wildlife Area for the night. This place has three camp spots with picnic tables and porta potties for free. The Sandhills Cranes migrate here. I’m talking hundreds and hundreds of cranes everywhere. Plus many other types of birds but the Cranes are the big attraction here. I wish we had some better photos but unless you have one of those huge lenses there’s just no way you can get a decent shot of these birds.

We also had this hawk perched on a pile of twigs right outside of our van. He put on quite the show for us trying to catch a mouse. 

Next day we drove back north a bit, back to the Pecan Trees and the Pecan Pie. A small little rv campground attached to a beef jerky store. We needed showers so this was a great place to stop. We had been here before and had noted that they had great showers. Plus only $10 a night. We settled in and headed to the local food truck for tacos and some Pecan Pie. It was another super windy day so we were confined to the van for another movie night. 

Next day was our birthday!! Woop woop!! We had two things in mind, a steak dinner and a state park so we headed south towards the Mexican border to a state park in New Mexico called Pancho Villa. The state park is in walking distance to the town so we walked to the Steak House but it was CLOSED!! So we found another place and had some steak Quesadillas for our birthday and then went and bought some snacks for another movie night in the van. (Another windy day in the desert) 

Next day was a little better so we went on a hike and then to two museums to learn about this town and how Pancho Villa destroyed it. It’s bizarre to us that they would name this park after him. He came to this town from Mexico which is 3 miles away. He came here with his Mexican Army and killed people and burned down the town and then they go and name a state park after him. Does that make any sense to anyone. From what they told us the governor of New Mexico at the time wanted to continue to have good relations with the Mexican people so that’s why when the State Park was built it was named after him.   I wonder how the towns people felt about that?

Check out at the State Park wasn’t till 2 pm. I love that!! We headed out toward El Paso, Texas because we wanted to take the route closest to the border which was a quiet local road with beautiful views and no traffic.  We travelled along side the wall that borders Mexico the entire time. We decided to spend the night at the El Paso Cracker Barrel as we are members in their Reward Program and they sent us an email for free birthday desserts. On top of that my brother, Jim, LJ, and my nephews sent me an electronic Cracker Barrel gift card so we had a great dinner and even had extra to buy some old school Cracker Barrel candy.

Next day we headed out pretty early toward Las Cruces, New Mexico. I saw on Google Maps this cool recycled Road Runner sculpture that I wanted to check out so we headed toward that. It was at a scenic overlook rest stop. It was so cool. made of old sneakers and bicycle tires and other junk. 

From there we decided to have a little lunch at the local hospital. This hospital looked brand new and was really beautiful. Whoever designed this hospital did an amazing job. It looked similar to the hospital over by Disney that we had dinner in way back when we first headed out this year. Hospital cafeterias really never disappoint. For the most part, it’s usually healthy, home cooked inexpensive meals.  At this hospital they had a few things to choose from, but I think they didn’t actually understand the eating healthy scenario. They had two vegetables listed on the menu to choose from. Vegetable 1 was French fries and Vegetable 2 was onion rings. 

After lunch we hit the road headed to our destination for the night which was a little past White Sand Dunes National Park. We decided not to stop at the National Park as we had been there before and also it was RIDICULOUSLY windy. So windy that the fine sand from the park was making it impossible to even see the mountains in the distance.

We stayed at Holloman Lake/ Raptor Lake Dispersed Camping Area. This is right across from an Air Force base and I’m not even sure why they call this a lake because it’s really a wastewater storage area from military waste. I’m not really sure what any of that means but can tell you that the wind caused the lake to produce this white foam that supposedly is poisonous. I’m not sure if I believe all that or not but for an overnighter, I’m sure we’ll be fine. The military planes were awesome to watch and they were either dropping bombs or breaking the sound barrier because the earth moved with the loudness of whatever it was they were doing. 4 loud BOOMS!!! I love that stuff. I really do. I can watch military planes all day and never be sick of it. We were trapped inside the van because of the wind, we couldn’t even open the doors. As soon as we did, the entire inside of the van got sandblasted and covered with sand. It was crazy. The morning was calm and beautiful and the “lake” had a beautiful reflection of the clouds.

Woke up excited to drive to Roswell New Mexico to visit the aliens. along the way we came to a GIANT  pistachio. Had to stop. You can’t drive past something like that. They had so many flavors and you can try as many of them as you’d like. They also made their own homemade pistachio icecream which was amazing.

We knew we had to go over a mountain pass to get to Roswell but we did NOT know that there was an unexpected blizzard going on.  So we stopped at the first travel center we could and decided to hunker down there for the night and continue on in the morning. It got down to 22° that night. Thank God for our zero degree bags.

Woke up and warmed up the van and then continued on to Roswell. Such a fun town. We went to the museum and every single alien gift shop there was in town.

There wasn’t much to choose from in Roswell regarding camping so we headed to the nearest hospital. Our plan was to have dinner in the hospital cafeteria but unfortunately it was closed. So we went to the farmers market which is basically a grocery store and had dinner there then back to the hospital to park for the night. 

Next morning we headed to a state park, the Oasis Lake State Park. We booked site #5 for $14. We took a nice hike around the lake. So many fishermen. But didn’t see anyone catching any fish.

We had a nice steak dinner and then a movie night.

Next morning the temperature outside was 25°. Thank God for our Diesel heater. 

Headed the next day to Texas and lost another hour in the process. We are back in Central Time Zone again so only an hour behind the east coast. We found another wildlife refuge area to stay at. This one was only 2 dollars to stay overnight or free if you have the America the Beautiful annual pass, which we have.

We stayed 2 nights here. It was so freaking windy. We went on a nice hike into the canyon and another hike to a prairie Dig town. We were only able to see the Prairie dogs through the binoculars because they had them fenced in, or actually we were fenced out. Woke up to a beautiful sunrise with a family of deer outside the window. 

We headed out to town to do laundry and have lunch. We wanted to stay in a state park there by the Laundromat but all the spots were full so we’ll have to do it another time. So instead we headed to Lubbock Texas cause Greg found another Prairie Dog Town and we were hoping this one wasn’t going to have us fenced in. We definitely were not disappointed. The Prairie Dogs were everywhere.

From there we headed to the local hospital for a bite to eat in their Cafeteria. (Don’t knock it till you try it.) This hospital cafeteria was, hands down, the best we have been in thus far. It was huge and had everything imaginable to eat. Plus ridiculously inexpensive and on top of that, the WiFi was super fast.

After our meal, we headed back to the van. The security guard was locking all the doors and the parking lot really emptied out. The van was sticking out like a sore thumb in that lot so we decided to not stay there for the night but instead drove on to Cracker Barrel to spend the night. Really glad we did that because RIGHT BEHIND the van was a Prairie Dog Family. Right outside our window. You might be wondering, what’s with the Prairie Dog Obsession? We used to own a Prairie Dog as a pet, his name was Paca. He was so cute.

The wind has died down a bit today so maybe we can spend some time outdoors again. I’ll probably hit up a library again today to upload the blog to the website.

We decided to drive in because we found a nice County Park that offers free camping. We arrived and parked next to a couple from Washington State that are full time RVers. They shared with us a couple of good spots that they have stayed at while traveling. 

This park is pretty awesome. They have disc Golf that unfortunately we were unable to play because a big storm came in. Wind and Rain all day today so we will head over to WiFi at the local library to upload the blog. Maybe later we will come back to spend a second night here or move on. We have a lot of exploring to do here in Texas for the next few weeks. We plan on staying in Texas for the Eclipse on April 8 and then heading back east to visit some friends and family.

Currently at the library, the plan was to upload the blog using the librarys wifi. However, the wifi is the slowest I have ever encountered. For example, my cell signal speed is currently 66Mbps. The library wifi is .2 Mbps. At that speed, it would take me all day and night to upload the blog. So instead, Ill just use my cell signal and call it a day.