I’ll Give You $5 & All Our Poo
February 28, 2023 — Day 13
Next morning I added the emergency 2 gallons of water to the tank. This gave us some water, but more importantly, it let us know that we had just been out of water, we had worried that something else had gone wrong with the plumbing, like a clogged line.
After breakfast and some phone calls we found a NM state park in Radium Springs that for just the day use fee would let us dump and take on water for only $5. This was a good deal. It was slightly out of our way but it also meant we got to see parts of NM there were not on the highway, we like doing some of that every day.
Oh, but before we left, we got to log 2 new life birds, the White Winged Dove and the Eurasian Collared Dove. Sweet! Merlin also heard a Western Meadowlark but we never saw it so it doesn’t count.
Then there was the forever train crossing. No trains, but just the red flashing lights. People were pulling u-turns and many were just going around the gates. Susan chose to pull a U-turn, we got lucky since there was a wide dirt spot.
We got to cross the Rio Grande several times with all the U-Turns, but we gave it a new name, the Rio Sand.
We stopped by a Target to get some thing and the Albertsons grocery store. I saw another life bird in the parking lot, the Great-Tailed Grackle. Sure, they’re common as dirt here, uhhh, as common as sand here, as are the other doves, but they are Life Birds for both of us.
We dumped and filled.
Leasburg Dam State Park in Radium Springs is a really nice park! We’re plan on going back. We tried to make reservations for March 17/18 since they are having an astronomy event, but they were 100% booked. We chatted with the caretaker for about 20-30 minutes.
He told us all about the area, including what all those trees were.
There are pecan trees! The caretaker said that NM really is the pecan producer but Georgia just has better press. LOL. Oh, he also told us that Susan maneuvers the trailer really well, that the State Flower of NM is the plastic bag, and that he hates Texans.
We had lunch in the trailer then walked for a bit around on some of the trails.
Two more birds, the Cactus Wren and the White Crowned Sparrow.
Rather than head back the way we came we went further north to Hatch and then down the road back to 10. Hatch is a really cool small town. There is a great hamburger place called Sparky’s that Anastasia and John have eaten at. (They do work stuff in Hatch sometimes.)
Hatch is know for it’s chilies and they have a festival for them, sometime. I forget, there was a sign but I forget. Oh well.
New Mexico really is a beautiful state, we’ll certainly be back.
We made it to Arizona, this our last state for this leg of the trip, whoo hoo!
We pulled into the Cattle Rest Saloon. I was looking forward to this place, but it is more of a dive bar than a saloon. I guess we wanted the Disney version but what we got was the discount bin. We bought a site with power so we could run the electric heater. The proprietor was pretty grumpy. The bar was divided into two camps, the locals and the Harvest Host people. It just smelled bad, like old cigarettes, and it had a bad vibe. We just went back to the trailer even though there was food and beverage offerings.
But of course the views were wonderful.
I wish I had caught that sight just moments before. I couldn’t find my phone and the sun had partially gone behind a cloud, it was a much more vivid red just moments earlier.
Later that night I went outside to get some ice from the outside freezer. The lunar halo was amazing. I told Susan it was the biggest I had ever seen. That was incorrect, lunar halos are all the same size. I guess what I really meant to say was that it was the brightest one I had seen.
She came out to see it and was just as amazed as I was. You just gotta love the iPhone’s night time shooting ability, I still can’t believe that a stupid phone can take a shot like this:
We were off to sleep.
Daily: 251 miles
Total: 3,310
Miles/Day: 254
New Life Birds: 5