MERRY CHRISTMAS; HAPPY HOLIDAYS EVERYONE!
Day 75 – We had a good day today. We hope your day was good, too! We are writing today’s post a day late; we were busy all day yesterday, as you will see. The wind had died down and it was a very nice day, perfect for scenic driving at the wildlife refuge. Although it did cloud up a bit, that was part of the scenery. The high was 71 degrees.
A few quick personal notes:
Ernie, OMG!!! Will call you today. Thanks for your note!
Thinking of you, Donna P. and Diane G.
Mark & Mark, how was the lasagna? YUM!
Now, for our Christmas day – we left the campsite at 9 a.m. and first drove to the Overflow Wetlands area which borders Bottomless Lakes State Park. We also drove to Lea Lake Campground, the main campground of the Park. They were still nearly fully occupied. We were glad we found the Devil’s Inkwell campground. We took pictures of the valley and Lea Lake from the bluff above the main campground.
Note: Please be patient! There are a lot of pictures in this post and they may take a while to load!
Next we took a road from the top of the bluff west that meandered through desert fields and cut through abandoned farms/ranch land. There were some cattle in the fields but not much else. This road cut through the valley and lowlands and ended up at the main highway, Route 380, and back to civilization. Near Roswell, we turned north and headed to Bitter Lake National Wildlife Refuge, the primary unit, which had bike trails, hiking trails, and a wonderful Wildlife Auto Tour that circled the Refuge and cut through the wetlands by lakes that house the migrating birds. We’d been to this Refuge before, in 2018, and it is one of our favorites. We spent most of the day there, driving through and exploring in the morning before lunch, then going back at “prime time” near sunset. The earlier visit today yielded less than expected, but was still lots of fun.
We stopped for lunch then drove towards the three other small units of the Wildlife Refuge. Normally these smaller units of refuges are really for wildlife conservation, not so much for entertaining the public, and there are rarely roads to drive, although sometimes there are hiking trails that are open. We ended up just driving by the two southern units; there was no way to enter these parts of the refuge. The northernmost unit, Salt Creek Wilderness, did have hiking trails, but was closed to driving at this time. We also stumbled upon another Overflow Wetlands area road, and drove for awhile on it, but the gravel road got too rough for the Honda, so we turned around and went back to the main road.
By this time is was around 3:30 p.m. and we had to drive by the main unit of the Refuge anyway, so why not go back and drive the Auto Tour again? We were there until it was almost dark, experiencing a beautiful sunset, and a spectacular opportunity to see both the Sandhill Crane and the Snow Geese coming in for the night. The lighting was perfect for photographing the ducks. But what knocked our socks off, was our first sighting of a Bobcat in the wild. He or she was quite far away; all we saw was a lump that moved. Odd, what could it be? Rob zoomed in and took a picture. Shock, it’s a kitty! Zoom in more, wow, a big, beautiful kitty! We wished we could have been closer or had a larger lens, or both. But the Bobcat was completely unaware we were there. Exciting!
We left the Refuge very happy with our Christmas day. Christmas in New Mexico, who woulda thought? Not us. On the way back to to RV we saw a bunch of Mule Deer near the side of the road. Topped off the day!
It was dark when we got back to the RV, and by the time we made dinner and fed the girls, it was too late to do the blog and to call people for Christmas. We gave the girls their Christmas present – a new knitted (in Newfoundland) Fat Harp Seal filled with catnip – their two other Seals have gotten a little worse for wear. They proceeded to have a party, somersaulting around the RV with their seal.
Love the bobcat pics and hope to see one too some day!