Parked by the water.....

Our Location:  Bosque Redondo Lake, Fort Sumner, NM

We spent a quiet night at the Walmart in Soccoro although Riley didn’t like the light right above her vent and claimed it kept waking her up through the night. I didn’t have that issue. It was warmer than we’ve had it for a number of mornings and so I enjoyed a short walk to the local Valero Gas Bar to see if they had some juice for the Big Dog. Sure enough they did and at $2.79 per gallon the Dogsled had about a 20 gallon swallow.

 

Much of US 60 is like this, long, rolling hills, but straight, straight, straight.

Last night after posting my blog I chatted with a couple, Tim & Sue from Belleville, Ontario. Farmers back home they are enjoying a short holiday before they start working in the spring. We chatted for about a half hour before parting and wishing each other well in our journeys. Another Canadian vehicle belonged to a fellow from Alberta. We chatted for a few minutes this morning but not long. This gent is in a wheel chair and stays in this small camper van, it’s his second year at least of doing this. Now that is brave. 

 

We climbed, and climbed and then we climbed some more.

We were on the road after fueling up shortly after 9 am and heading north, against my better sense but followed the GPS directions.  Phoebe (our RV GPS) wanted to take us to Albuquerque and along I-40. I didn’t want to do that, and instead turned off on US 60 East toward Mountainair, Willard, etc.This was not the route I originally wanted to take but it was the route we took. 

 

Very scenic is some places.

We cruised along on an nearly empty road for a couple of hours, and I mean nearly empty. In all of that time except in the small towns I don’t think we met or were passed by more than 20 vehicles. I mean it was just empty, long, straight and in some places a bit hilly but on the plateau just flat and straight. We could see for  miles. We spent some time on the plateau driving along at about 6200 feet in elevation. We eventually dropped down to just around the 4000 foot mark which is where we are tonight. A truck pulled out to pass us and as he pulled alongside his front wheels started shaking some thing terrible. I was worried the wheel would come off. He was into the grass on the wrong side of the road before he slowed down enough for the shaking to stop. He pulled back in behind us and continued driving, he didn't stop to check on anything but just kept behind us. . He finally went around us at Willard when I slowed down for the town limits and he didn't have to speed up. I was shocked to say the least. 

 

Down in those trees are train tracks, we must have seen at least a dozen trains today.

We didn’t pass through the town of Lincoln which had been my original plan but still managed to see some interesting sights along our travels. Phoebe managed to get us turned around a number of times but we finally got it figured out. We eventually had two gps going to ensure we found our way.

 

A dry lake?

We found our way to Fort Sumner, which is famous for the grave site of William H. Boney, better known as Billy the Kid. I didn’t know that he was buried here but tomorrow we will do a bit of sight seeing around the town and check things out. It looks like an interesting little place. 

 

This is at 6200 feet, and the road just hazes out in the distance. It's perfectly straight.

We passed through the little village of Fort Sumner and a couple of miles down the road hung a left on Realwind Drive heading to Bosque Redondo Lake. We arrived here to find no one else camping but a number of locals fishing. In fact as we were getting set up a nice lady came by with a freshly strung catfish and offered it to us. Since we aren’t fish people we thanked her but declined. I'm not sure it's a lake so much as a big pond, or at least this part. I'll let you know more tomorrow when we've been out walking. 

We noticed numerous small herds of Pronghorns along the way today.

Set up and called dad while lunch was cooking. They were getting more snow as we chatted. He has 6 weeks to get it melted before Riley and I arrive back at our summer spot. Hopefully he gets it done!!! 

 

Easy driving along US 60 and if you look you can see Fort Sumner off in the distance.

After that we just simply rested. The last few days have been a bit stressful and so we are going to just enjoy the next 3 nights as we are planning on staying here until Thursday before heading on. It’s not quiet, as there are birds, insects, and living sounds all around us. The folks that come by are very quiet and they fish for an hour or so before quietly slipping away. It isn’t the spiffiest of spots but it suits us fine, at least so far. We shall see how we like it after a night here. 

 

A bit blurry but we were almost past before we took note of it.

Thanks for stopping by, I hope you had a wonderful day. I will catch up on my reading and commenting in the next couple of days, I just haven’t had the time the last couple of days. 

The view out our window. That green building is a bathroom.

Until next time… take care, be safe,

Deb