Sunday, December 19

TRAVEL DAY

From: Sanford-Yake Campground, Lake Meredith National Recreation Area, TX.

To: Ute Lake State Park, NM.

Day 69 – Rob got up at sunrise and took a picture of the moon setting behind the RV. Later at 8 a.m. it was 23 degrees, sunny with some wind. Bitterly cold, Rob had to spend some time working on the tire pressure. I thought he was going to get frostbite. We finally departed after dumping tanks & emptying trash at 11:20 a.m., running behind schedule. By that time, it was 36 degrees and sunny; the wind had decreased. When Rob had headed outside earlier, he surprised a Deer right outside the RV. On the way out of the campground, there were two more Deer foraging by the road.

Our drive took us out of Texas and into New Mexico. Yes, we’re leaving the land of the 72 oz. Steak, which is offered at several Texas Steakhouses. Can you imagine eating 4 ½ pounds of beef in one sitting? As we passed the border we left the Central Standard Time zone & entered Mountain Standard Time. This saved us an hour & the timing was perfect since we left later than we’d wanted to leave – now we were right on schedule. Our entire drive was on two-lane highways with TX being flat again once we left Lake Meredith Recreation Area. The roads were straight as an arrow for the most part. There were very few towns, and what small towns we did go through were basically, blink-and-you’ll-miss-them. The wind picked up some in NM and the scenery changed a little – more desert plants than we’d seen in TX, and even drier (if that is even possible). There were canyons cut out of the land where rivers used to be, now all dried up. Less cattle, less oil wells, and the soil appeared to be more sandy. We saw lots of hawks and a few antelope.

We arrived at our campground at 1:40 p.m. (mountain time] after stops for lunch by the side of the road and to get gas in the RV. Our original plan was just to stay one night here, a stopover before heading northwest to some mountains. Ute Lake State Park was almost empty, but is obviously a big boating destination in the summer. We picked up a camping fee payment envelope on the way in and drove around checking out campsites. As we were driving around, Turkeys were walking through the campsites. We found a site we liked, and as Rob was making sure the RV was level and I was filling out the payment paperwork, we heard Sandhill Cranes flying overhead. We looked at each other and said simultaneously, “two nights here instead of one night”. Great minds think alike. We are Crane Junkies.

Out of several campgrounds that remained open, we chose site #7 at New Cottonwood campground. Quiet and private, we were the only campers in this campground. We had no hook-ups; we have all the electricity we need with these solar panels, so far. Sun is something you have plenty of in the southwest! We paid $10 per night. Water was available at spigots; there was a dump station.

We were close to the Lake, which we soon found was full of Canada Geese, Ducks, and some Sandhill Cranes. A very nice path led from our campsite to the Lake, and we were hidden from the birds by bushes until we were quite close to them, therefore not scaring them away so easily. We had a nice hike there in the late afternoon; prior to that we drove around most of the campgrounds at this Park and checked them out. The high today was 53 degrees with full sun.