We said goodbye to the Armadillo… Hello New Mexico!

After nearly three months we have finally escaped the state of Texas!  We said goodbye to the armadillo, Texas BBQ, Tex-Mex, HEB’s and all of its wildflowers. It was great to take our time enjoying our former home state. However it was time to leave Monahans Sandhills State Park to make a longer than normal drive of over 150 miles. We crossed into the Chihuahuan Desert and into New Mexico. We also left Central Time behind and entered into Mountain Time.

After passing through the small towns of Kermit, Texas and Jal, New Mexico we drove through the heart of Carlsbad, New Mexico. Many come here to visit the Carlsbad Caverns National Park but we visited there before so we were moving on about 20 miles north of town to an Escapees Park In Lakewood, New Mexico. We plan to stay there a week and explore the towns of Carlsbad to our south and Artesia to our north. We may even make a foray into the mountains near Cloudcroft.

As we passed Brantley Lake State Park we turned off of state highway 285 and drove about 1.5 miles to “The Ranch” an Escapees Park. As we checked in they rang the bell to let others know that “newbies” had arrived at The Ranch. We backed into site number 9 that is a rather large site on a gravel pad with a storage building on the pad. We decided not to put out our outdoor carpet since the office cautioned about rattlesnake and scorpion sightings in the park. That made Sharon a little jumpy.

  

We figure that since we are out in the middle of nowhere that we may be spending more time in the park than out of it as we normally do. We are biding our time before heading to Albuquerque where I have a doctor’s appointment on June 9th so we have some time to kill…

We were told that they have a daily happy hour here at The Ranch at four in the afternoon so since it was nearly four we made happy hour our first day. We met a lot a very friendly escapees and although the happy hour was a short one (everyone had  a previously planned eating out event) we enjoyed the friendliness of the park’s patrons. 

Already we have noticed hummingbirds, scaled quails and a ladder back woodpecker near our site along with expansive desert views.  Though it will be a little hot here and not a lot to do at least the coyotes will serenade us to sleep at night… I think we will mostly just relax this week here in Lakewood, New Mexico.