November 20-25,
The landscape never ceases to amaze us! We drove along lava beds for about 30 miles today- the lava on one side of the road and sandstone mesas on the other- “The Narrows”. Stopped at another free campground on the top of the mesa!
Albuquerque- Enchanted Trails RV Park- nice “retro/Rt 66” place but right on the interstate! Camping World is right next door and we had on order a reclining love seat. We do try to avoid cities, especially large metro areas, but sometimes we just gotta be there. We figured out months ago that any city with more than one Walmart Supercenter was going to be way to big for us, but what ya gonna do? Lots of errands to run- Mail had been shipped to a local UPS store for us- our new South Dakota trailer plate! We both needed new hiking shoes- (no LL Bean out here) Cabelas and REI, Home Depot and Walmart of course and then our new favorite bread store- Great Harvest- all the way across town, about 10 miles of stop and go, traffic lights and bumper to bumper, lunch in Old Town- really great southwest/Mexican food, and a chocolate shop for us and chocolate espresso beans to send to Derek. We did hike to three volcanoes, too and went to a city owned huge shooting range for a little target practice.

We also met some RVers with a trailer like ours- Outdoors RV- not many around as they are meant for off road. AND we met an older couple from Van Buren, Maine trailing a “tiny house” they had built! We have only met a few Mainers on the road and seen less than 6 ME license plates.
There is less federal open land in this area so finding dispersed camping sites and even state parks is a little tougher and most RV parks seem to be right on the interstate! San Lorenzo Canyon- the deepest we have been off the beaten path- 5 miles of dry river bed sandy “road” into a canyon- quiet and dark!

Getting in and out of the road to the canyon was also interesting:

Sandhill Cranes, which we saw in Colorado at Great Sands, are now migrating through here and we have seen several very large flocks. Water is at a premuim here- it is giving us another level of appreciation for our water and water back home- all animals cluster near any pooled water, even through the Rio Grande runs here, most of the creeks running into it are dry and have been for months.
White Sands Area- more lava and desert

, but warm- in the 70s. We went sledding in the sand dunes, which are gypsum, not sand, not silica.

It was a blast! We met a family from Houston (but from Venezuala before that) and we let them use our sled- lots of laughs and fun- Rhylee, too- check out his diary entry.

Our Campground is a the beginning of Dog Canyon, with a creek that actually has water in it this time of the year- a bit of an oasis here.

And some history- “Frenchy” lived here in the 1880s, built rock walls up the side of the canyon, made cement irrigation down the canyon so he could grow fruit trees, and built it 1.5 miles long to irrigate a neighbor’s ranch. Also indigenous peoples from way, way back lived here- mortar holes for grinding grain-