Thursday 1/6/22 Midland, TX to Las Cruces, NM
Up at 7am (heater OUT), 40 mph winds shaking the trailer, 31 degrees inside and outside. The temperature was actually 10 degrees colder than forecasted just last night!!!! On the road by 7:45am, out new record for up and gone. Moreno got to pee and even pooped but no breakfast. Windy drive. It would seem like the heater quit sometime during the night while we slept. Being under the covers helped. No clue what happened to the heater, maybe the wind through the exhaust vent?
So off we go into the face of the 40 mph headwinds. 7 miles per gallon. We are the reason the Permian Basin is so important. Oil pumping wells everywhere, and more being drilled. Midland and Odessa are the oil capitol of the United States. Literally everything revolves around oil here - and despite the wind, there are no wind turbines. But of course there are signs - "No Windmills Here" naturally. Wonder which rancher will cave first?
Crossed the Time zone: Central Time Zone in TX into Mountain Time in New Mexico . (9:25am CT/8:25am MT).
Just minutes into NM we encountered the first Solar panel farm. Also poorly maintained roads. The first town was Jal to which Eldon remarked that it was like The Wild West. He is right!!!
A lot of long lonely roads with sand dunes all around. Not to mention the smell of sulfur in the air from the hundreds of oil pumps working tirelessly. They also exude other gasses like Methane, CO2 and others which contribute to the Greenhouse effect.
A New Mexico oil drilling rig. There are dozens visible along the road, and likely hundreds invisible out in the country. The place is booming.
And trains, trains and more trains.
The roads did get better past JAL. This area did not have the density of oil drill rigs that we had seen at first. Far and few in between but you can see new drilling happening. A lot of oil field water tanks around too. This area is the Delaware Basin. In TX it was the Permian Basin. Just a little geological terminology to share the knowledge, but they are essentially the same thing.
We stopped at Carlsbad Caverns, NM so I could get another Stamp in my Passport book. We had been there before so no need to do a formal tour again. Moreno got into several family photo shoots "he's soooo cute ..." while Eldon was waiting for Clara to get her stamp. Another money-making opportunity wasted.
Eldon picked up the driving again and we tried to find a waterfall that was highly advertised by signage along the way. Sitting Bull Waterfall. Eldon kept saying that Sitting Bull likely was never in New Mexico, but ... well lets go see. It turned out to be a wild goose chase to a point in the road that you then had to hike into the park and find the falls. Not our plan at this time.
Leaving Carlsbad, we drove through Artesia NM. Not expecting anything but hoping for a gas station, we were blown away by their building wall murals and life-size bronze statues. Here are some, definitely not all. Sorry about the sun angle, nothing to do about that. Cool town.
A random building wall mural.
The rustler.
Even pigeons can love.
We now figure it's time to head to our next campsite in which happens to be another HH spot in NM. It is the Rio Grande Winery in Las Cruces, NM. We arrived at 6:45pm and it was already dark and it made it very challenging to find the spot. But we did.
Temperature is dry and crisp at 56 degrees. Feels cooler to me. 3 other RVs already here but the people are all tucked inside their rigs. We proceeded to do a tasting and we were the only ones there. The young woman was nice enough and we bought 2 reds and 1 Moscato (sweet for me). No wifi access so again, no way to add to my blog. Bummer.
The site is quite spacious and on a nice day I can see how a lot of entertainment is done outside. Maybe on our next trip we can see how it does. Apparently new owners, one of whom is into marketing. Maybe just a small light (well and also a sign) at the driveway would be a good first step.
With nothing much else to do, Eldon walked Moreno around the property then we had our meal and early to bed.
I am getting a bit nostalgic as we approach the end of our adventure. We'll skip the planned Tucson, AZ stop for tomorrow and head to a campsite in a town called Silver City, NM. Eldon wants to see the copper mine. More about that tomorrow.
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