Friday 1/7/22 Las Cruces, NM to Silver City, NM
Up at 7:30am, on the road at 8:30am. A bit chilly this morning (27 degrees). Ran out of propane and so lost our heater at 4 am. Blankets, Eldon and Moreno were all warm however. No gas to make hot water, so no coffee either. Walk the dog and hit the road ASAP.
The Rio Grande Winery has potential, per Eldon the Cabernet Franc was acceptable and they make a white Mission grape wine that he found intriguing, but just try finding it after dark (and they are only open 3-8 pm). I really liked a couple of their sweet wines but cannot remember the grapes.
We had had a pretty bouncy ride yesterday and last night we noticed that a lot of the stuff in the Alto had been displaced. Even the toilet door was open and stuff (Eldon always says "too much stuff") on the floor. BUT what was most important was Eldon noticing that the drain pipe (to empty sewer and wastewater tanks) had been lost somewhere after our last gasoline fill up. The cover to the storage tube for the pipe was dangling loose (thank goodness it has an attached strap to prevent it from being lost). But now we cannot dump our waste water so will have to be careful in its generation. Fortunately only a couple days to home where we have a spare hose. The 2 end caps to our bumper are also missing. We had quite a bumpy ride yesterday. Thanks to western Texas, eastern New Mexico, and the oil industry tearing up the roads. They are welcome to our wastewater tube. Eldon says we should have just pulled the valves, nobody there would have noticed.
A top priority today was replacing the propane gas tank so we could have heat tonight and fire to cook with. Running out of propane at 4 am in freezing temperatures was not fun. That was accomplished at our first gas stop where there was also coffee and hot chocolate.
It was a beautiful, bright morning as you can see the light coming through our window. We love this camper! None of the other campers have this feature and we have had a lot of people wanting to find out about this. They are impressed and amazed by the retractable roof feature.
Sparky's is apparently a legend and the "center" of town. They have hundreds of colorful cartoon characters and signs. When we were there, there was another woman who was taking dozens of photos of all the characters. I will save you that experience, but seriously, you should go.
The open and flat landscape is perfect for Solar Panels. We had not seen too many around but they were here for sure. To the east was more wind turbines, here it was solar.
Along the way we stopped at this rest stop to ... you know, and coincidentally there was a plaque honoring Carlotta Thurmond, who among other things became the role model for Kitty in Gunsmoke. So, as she made her fame in Silver City, and it "was on our way" (well not really but could be) we decided to head there.
The other point of taking this relatively deserted road (as if that was not reason enough) was to do a drive by of this HUGE open pit copper mine that Eldon noticed on the map.
The invention of open pit mining happened here. Like what could go wrong?
Then the mine ate its own town, that's what.
You simply cannot imagine the scale of what this image shows, and this goes on forever along the road, not just here.
And I think I could even live here for more than a month or two. What concerns me is not seeing any medical facilities around here. (Eldon say's "there is a distillery.") I'm not a spring chicken anymore and even if I were, anything can happen to anyone at any age. The views around here are spectacular and this campsite we are staying tonight is really neat. The nice owners came to check out the area and found this campground for sale and decided to buy it after being retired long enough to be bored! It has full hook ups, wifi, surrounded by trees and nature. It's so clean and quiet here.
The town itself has a lot of quaint shops and we had a late lunch in town so no need for a big meal preparation. This place is like 150 years old, is a restaurant, brewery, winery and distillery. So I guess it covers the four basic food groups so who needs a hospital. Also as Eldon said, it is a copper mining town ... there is a hospital somewhere. Oh, they made a Hatch chili vodka that even Eldon found undrinkable. Amazing, eh?
Eldon met a geologist working around here. I'll let him write about that. Of course there were beers involved. [Eldon - the guy (George) is a hydrogeologist working for the state of NM on mine water cleanup and monitoring. He has been camping here for over a year, preferring that to living with his wife in Las Cruces. Clara understands.
Eldon and Moreno really enjoyed the sun getting ready to set for the day. Of course they are not bloggers.
But I was able to do a little catching up on the OPB and now it's time for bed to start our next to last leg of this wonderful trip. One of the priorities for selecting this campsite is their wifi. Sadly, I got nothing new posted as I too went to sleep after an awesome shower and such a calming day.
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