New Mexico

Sat 3/12 – We had two days of fantastic riding through a variety of different kinds of terrain! We loved being out here in the ‘forest’, even though we were all by ourselves. We’ve had a great time dry camping, and have really enjoyed it more than we thought we would. I just wish it was a tiny bit warmer and less windy so that we could have enjoyed sitting outside.
On day one, we set out for adventure. I planned a route on our OnX app (that I had to run on my phone, because once again, we need wi-fi to download any maps or anything with Sammy the Samsung tablet). Here is the entrance to our route, and one of at least a dozen cattle gates that “gate-girl” (me) had to open and close. They were all different, from this pole and wire type, to ones with sticks holding the barbed wire to real aluminum tube gates.

3/11/22-Last night we had a really big windstorm. It started to rock the trailer about 7:00pm , and didn’t die down until after 11:00. I don’t know how hard it was blowing here in the desert, northwest of Carlsbad NM, but the report from Carlsbad was a peak of 44mph! 🌬 We did not see that coming, and it wasn’t in any of the forecasts! However, a 40% chance of snow this morning was in the forecast, and yes…. we got it. Just a light dusting, and it was down to 22 degrees last night! We ran the generator with the electric heat in the evening, and it was having a hard time getting/keeping the temperature above about 62. We switched to the propane heat when we went to bed. It would run for about 3 minutes at a time, and kept it about 54 degrees in here. We had it set low to try to save propane, not knowing how much it actually burns. Then it’d be off for about 3-5 minutes, then come on again. So it seemed like it was spending a lot of energy just heating back up again. 🧐. Hmm. Maybe we just need to let it run longer and be warmer. We were both chilly last night, probably because the wind kept robbing our heat! Kawi said he does not like snow, he does not like cold, said Sam-I-Am. (not a good picture taken through the screen)

Wed 3/9: We set the propane furnace to keep us just under 60 degrees inside last night, and we stayed nice and warm. However, propane tank #1 ran out of juice around 3:00 in the morning and it got a bit chilly, so Kenny had to get dressed and go out to switch the tank over to tank #2. We’ve been using tank #1 since we bought Limbo, so we don’t really know how much was in it at the beginning of the night. In any case, he decided that he would take a trip into town to fill tank #1, and purchase tank #3 to have as a spare. They are 4 gallon tanks?. We’ll set the thermostat a little lower tonight to try to conserve. We just need it to keep the frost off our noses, right? Oh! And by about 11:00am, our little solar panel had already charged our batteries back up to full!! That’s sweet!!

3/8/22-Tuesday was a VERY LONG DAY! It was just over 400 miles, thankfully not as much wind as yesterday, but a long day. It started out lovely, with a home cooked breakfast of eggs, sausage and toast. 😋 We enjoyed the morning, but had to hug goodbye, and we hit the road around 10:00. The Google said our route would take us just under seven hours. I had a non-interstate route all figured out, so we had to weave our way through the country side to get to the highway that would take us west. It was still cold, and we had a bit of GRAUPEL. Huh? 🤔. Yep – it’s a thing that Steve told us about. It is tiny frozen snow! It isn’t hail, but much smaller, softer, and easier to crunch, yet it is pellets and they bounce like hail. It isn’t sleet, which is clear frozen rain drops. Graupel is white, like tiny styrofoam pellets. Huh! Who knew? Well, we had some as we drove along. I told you it was cold!