No Dawdling! Missed Opportunity and 4 States

Bottomless Lakes State Park, Roswell, NM

On Friday, Oct. 27^th we woke up to a complete turnaround in weather. It did drop as it was forecasted to do but with the wind, the 35F felt even worse. From shorts and tanks to jeans, socks and a sweater – now that is quite a change! We had already planned to get moving by 8 so when Gibbs let us sleep until 6, it was perfect timing. We don’t want to dawdle, it’s too cold!

I made my to-go mug of tea and then ran into the store for a new retractable leash for Gibbs. His is starting to fall apart. Plus, I forgot to check last night to see what my yogourt options are. I stocked up as much as I could (reasonably) in Canada as I knew I’d never find my brand once we crossed into the US. ☹ It’s the expiry dates I’m watching for. I did find one to try but we’ll see.

Entering Oklahoma on a beautiful day.
Chilly but bright.

We pulled out at 2 minutes to 8 and just down the street, before catching US-54, we topped up with fuel at the Toot’nTotum station. Cute name, not sure I want to know the meaning! 😊 Fuel price was higher than we’ve paid yet at $4.85/gal but we wanted to top up since we were hovering around ½ tank. At 8:25, we crossed the state line into Oklahoma! It just seems appropriate to put an exclamation mark after the name.

We're sorry we missed Don but ✋, we waved!

As we arrived in Guymon, OK, we looked for Hutch’s Phillips 66 fuel station. We were excited for the opportunity to meet with a true-blue, long time Blurker. There was a lot of construction on the main road, US54/64, which we were on but we managed to get into the truck stop and parked. We used the facilities and waited around for about 10 minutes before we had to head off. Sorry we missed you, Don! Too bad we didn’t have contact info, the outcome might have been different.

Then we're in Texas

Before I knew it, I saw the Welcome to Texas sign. It wasn’t long across the panhandle of OK so I’m glad I was aware and ready with my camera. 😊 It was a peaceful easy drive across US-54 and although our elevation is above 4200’, the plains look flat out my window. 

I sent the left picture to my sister-in-law, Liz.
She lives in Stratford, Ontario and got a kick out of it.
Flat plains, travelling US-54

That changed once we entered New Mexico, where rolling hills and grazing land took over.

Want a job?
Not sure what he is doing up there, but
man that is high! It was really windy too!

If you want extreme scenes and photo ops, this isn’t the road for you but we like it. Traffic is minimal on this 2-lane highway and we aren’t bothered with a lot of lane changing. We’ve seen a few gate entrances but none that match up to ours back at The Ridge. I’m a little biased, I guess. Who me? At 11:11, crossing the state line, we also gained another hour. I texted my sister, Donna, back home to let her know. She’ll expect it eventually but she admits that it is hard to keep track of what time it is for us. 😊  I like to keep her on her toes!

Seeing some distant mountains in
New Mexico
Lower picture: free range cattle looking content
in amongst the staghorn cacti

Temperature has increased to 48F/9C and the cold wind is now behind us giving us a push. ♥ Bill found a place to turn off, there are no rest areas but lots of pull off areas, and was able to slow down to get into it. No notice is given for these but they are important for truckers and the likes of us! We all needed the piddle  break.

Abandoned residences and businesses
always break my heart.
Like, who owns the property now?
Then, we entered Roswell,
the home of the aliens.

In Logan, we stopped at a Valero for fuel at $4.59/gal. Since we left the Walmart, we’ve passed the people in the class C who were parked beside us last night a couple of times. 😉 We now call them our neighbours. They are heading to Quartzsite so we may bump into them again. After our fuel up, I could tell we were in NM by all the staghorn cacti we’re seeing. Yay!

There were a few mountains but they disappeared along the way. We’ll see lots of those in the days to come. We pass through many small towns on this route, some that are in desperate states and others much more prosperous. It truly makes me feel fortunate and blessed. We caught I-40W for a brief jaunt and then US-209 to NM268, 267 and 330. Seems like we’re the only ones out here with very few residential properties.

They were paving the 2 lane Highway NM380
which led us up the hill to Bottomless Lakes Rd.
It was all single lane and quite a line up from the opposite
direction. We timed it right!

In Elida, we turned onto US-70 on which we travelled for 61 miles. We were happy to get off NM330, it was a bouncy ride. At Roswell, we followed our GPS to avoid the main business section and caught NM380 to Bottomless Lakes Rd/NM409. It is a winding 5+ mile trek back through Bottomless Lakes State Park. We soon enough arrived at a boondocking site, checked the time and it was just a few minutes past 3. Short(er) day! 😊

The drive back to the camping areas

Our site was big enough for two
so after supper, when I was taking sunset pics,
a lone motorcyclist was looking for a place to camp.
We invited him in to share our space.
He was very grateful and set up his little tent for the night.
Nice young fellow from Detroit, MI.

In this state park, you can pick an off grid site with a pavilion and pay $10/night, make a reservation for a full hook up site or perhaps dry camp. We settled for the first option because it was in off the main road, easy to get in and out of and lots of room. We’re only here for one night so we’re more than happy. We are sitting facing south and it is a balmy 68F/20C, the wind has died off and it is only dropping to 11C overnight.

Gibbs approves of the area.

For supper, I reheated my leftover ribs (Bill turned the genny on), fried leftover potatoes, a veggie and bacon for Bill’s meal. Gibbs was a better boy today than he has been, and that was tough to beat! He slept a lot so I do believe he is getting used to this daily travel thing. ♥ This was a good time to stop, allowing us both to get our blogs done early and spend more wakeful hours before hitting the sack.

it was a good supper.
We ate the last of the apple crisp for dessert.

A pretty sunset

I love the colour it paints on the rocky hills
behind us.

I’m getting into a book about Stratford, ON so would like to read a few chapters this evening. It has been a wonderful day with even more views and roads that we’ve never seen or been on before. We aren't here to sightsee, been there, done that so a short stay. You can check out the day in March, 2018 when we explored the seven lakes here. I hope your days are going well too. Too bad we missed out on meeting Don this morning, that would have been a treat!

And the moon rises in the east.
Our neighbour is utilizing the picnic table.😁
Good night!

Thank you for the visit. (PS – Bill’s blog update)