Moving on: Saguaro Co-op Escapees Park, Caballo Lake and Elephant Butte

Since leaving San Diego, Katie and I have been traveling east to New Mexico and we're finally here.  We stayed a couple of nights at the Viejas Casino in Alpine, CA, then traveled to El Centro to stock up on food, gas up and spend a night at Wal-Mart.  We drove onward toward Benson, AZ, spending a night at the Love's Truck Stop in Gila Bend. Next we traveled to the Saguaro Co-op Escapees Park in Benson, AZ where we spent a night in their dry-camping lot, right next to the office.

While we were in Benson, we met up with Judie and Gary, fellow RVers, from Sierra Vista.  We've been trying to get together for a while and finally things worked out.  They came to get me and treated me to a wonderful dinner at Mi Casa, Gary's favorite restaurant in Benson.  I had a wonderful time - they are the most interesting couple!

After dinner we came back to the The Palms and spent a couple more hours visiting.  The evening came to a close, and I hated to see them go - they might be traveling to the New Mexico State Parks this spring/summer and I hope we will meet up again.

Thanks for your visit and a great dinner, Judie and Gary.  I'm so happy I finally met you both - see you soon!  :)

I got some photos of a few birds at the Saguaro Co-op park -

and my first cactus blooms of the year.  Some of the toughest looking cactus have the most delicate flowers.

There were a lot of "babies" in one area of the landscape - this is one of them.  I was surprised how many were ready to blossom at this tiny size:

This Escapees park is beautifully landscaped with different kinds of cactuses and little signs telling what kind they are.  Not a weed in sight - they do a great job.  It's a very nice, clean park.  I have been thinking about spending a month or more there in the future.

The next morning we headed to Caballo Lake State Park in New Mexico.  I have to say, I don't enjoy driving like I did in the beginning.  It's still exciting to get behind the wheel heading toward a new destination, but after about two hours of driving, I'm ready to stop.  That's one reason this area is so great.  Caballo Lake and Percha Dam State Parks are very close to each other, and Elephant Butte State Park is just 30 minutes down the road.  And Truth or Consequences (T or C) is right up the road from there, and it has a Wal-Mart in addition to other stores and restaurants.

We've been here at these state parks for the last four years, and taking photos isn't as high a priority as it used to be.  Most of the sites, birds, flowers, etc, have already been snapped and posted more than once.  I did take one photo, though, at Caballo.  We camped in the parking lot above the lake and boat ramp for three nights.  We had a great view of the lake, blue and  beautiful, then changing to grey as the clouds came in and the wind started up.  We had some rain, too. 

When the wind whipped up one afternoon, the lake below was sparkling with diamonds.  It was so pretty, there must have been little whitecaps all over the surface of the water and the sun was hitting them just right.  I snapped a photo to see if it would show the "diamonds," and it wasn't bad:

We caught a mouse in the trap under the driver's seat the first two mornings.  I got out my flashing solar light strings and put one in the engine compartment and one under the seat in the cab - and that did the trick; we didn't have any more mice.  :)

Then on Sunday I decided to head on to Elephant Butte, do some shopping at the Wal-Mart in T or C, then get a free dry camping site (with my annual pass) overlooking the lake.  We got here in the late afternoon and there were NO sites.  There are not many designated dry camping sites here, but there are two I know about that I've used in the past, and I was able to grab the last one.  The lake is so high I actually have a lake view from this parking place.  And super good Verizon and TV channels.  I was planning on staying at South Monticello, but just might stay here for the 14 days.  We'll see.

That's about it - just driving east and hitting a few spots along the way.  Now that we're in New Mexico we'll settle down a little and hopefully have a nice summer.

And one more thing:  I wanted to let you know - Discount Tire/America's Tire has never gotten back to me after that first e-mail.  I didn't want anything from them, except maybe paying the extra to exchange my four tires for the four I originally thought I was purchasing.  I'm disappointed; I thought their customer service would be better than that, and they dropped the ball.  :(

From me and Katie, have a great Monday, everyone!  :)