Eastward Bound

Saturday, March 9, 2013

Today we are sitting in the campground at Pancho Villa State Park in Columbus, New Mexico, three miles from the Mexican border. The 45 mph wind gusts are hitting us broadside and making it feel like a rolling deck, but, at least we did not get caught in the snow as other campers did!

How did we get here? Re-wind to Rainbow Basin... we spent three nights in the Bureau of Land Management campground. We had no hook-ups, but for $6 a night we had beautiful desert surroundings and rarely a neighbor. Our second day there, Tuesday, Greg caught up on camper maintenance, like checking the water in the batteries, and I caught up with blog posts and relaxed. The only time the day got a little crazy was when two families showed up and used the campground as a picnic area and their four dogs, three little things and a pit bull, were off-leash and running through our campsite. This is a remote campsite, no ranger or camp host to police it, so we just kept shooing away doggie visitors until they left.

Wednesday morning it was time to brave the washboard road again, and we made extra sure that nothing was going to fall down or vibrate out of its spot. Back to Barstow and a stop at WalMart. We are still finding odds and ends to make life easier in the RV. We drove for a while and got off at Ludlow and onto old Route 66. We wanted to see the Amboy Crater National Natural Landmark. At Ludlow, just a gas station and a cafe across the street, we came across a “herd” of young Japanese tourists. Okay, I understand cultural differences, after all I studied at Fuller Seminary and was steeped in cross cultural understandings, but I fail to get why a dozen of them were standing in the middle of the intersection! They crossed over from the cafe, stood in the road, put their cameras on the pavement in one direction, turned and put them in the other direction, picked them up, and walked down the ramp we had just come up from the interstate. We filled up with diesel and watched as they drove the rental car into the intersection. The herd came back from the off ramp, the driver got out and everyone just stood around it in the road. As we drove by, working at not hitting anyone, I rolled down my window and said, “Why are you in the road!?!” and we drove on to the crater. Not the first odd behavior we observed. Someday I'll tell you more...

Amboy Crater was a fun find. Few other visitors and no one else at the crater with us. It was a mile hike across the desert to get to it. On the way was a lava field and the wildflowers were starting to bloom; purple sand verbena and desert lilies. The most recent eruption was 10,000 years ago and it is one of the youngest volcanic fields in the US. Although the temperature was only in the 70's, the sun was very intense. We hiked to the breached (lower) wall and entered the crater. There an outer crater, where someone had spelled Mt. Doom with rocks, and an inner crater where someone had built a small labyrinth out of rocks. Greg wanted to climb up and over the higher front section and back down that way. I waited inside the crater while he clambered up and back into the crater again. It looked a lot steeper from the top than the bottom looking up. We worked our way back down the easier but still steep side we came in. By the time we got back to the RV, we realized that we were not going to be able to drive all the way to Quartzsite, AZ for the night. We drove across the desert to Twenty-Nine Palms and Joshua Tree National Park. We were able to get into the Black Canyon Campground just before sundown.

We knew that there was rain expected west of there and snow in the higher elevations the next day, so we were anxious to get east. Thursday morning we awoke to colder temperatures and wind. Wednesday was the last warm, sunny day we were going to see for a while. The road through Joshua Tree took us from the north side of the park to the south. We enjoyed the scenery, but the day was gloomy and overcast. We made a few quick stops to photograph the desert plants, and reached I-10 and the southern park boundary. We drove on to the interstate and made good time leaving California. We crossed over into Arizona just before dark and made the short drive to Quartzsite.

This time we boondocked off of Dome Rock Road, a much nicer, more scenic and spread out area than the Plomona Road area where we stayed on our way west. There were a few other RVs already parked and we were able to keep our distance. We were still within sight and sound of the interstate, but nestled in amongst the Saguaro cacti on a nice level spot. The clouds were rolling in as the sun set. We thought we might stay another day and ride out the weather. We heard the rain starting during the night.

Waking up Friday morning, we checked the weather report. Quartzsite's weather was going to worsen, and there was a good chance of snow around Tucson and the higher elevations of I-10 in the southeastern corner of Arizona. If we could time it right and be out of the state before nightfall, we had a chance of avoiding the worst of it. If we went too far into New Mexico we were going to wind up in severe winds. We quickly dressed, stowed our gear and drove out of our boondocking site. We will definitely come back there in the future and stay longer.

Friday was a day of threading the needle through the state of Arizona. We managed to avoid severe thunderstorms and had only a little rain. The wide open spaces of the west allow you to view the weather occurring a long distance from you and for 360 degrees around you. We saw rainstorms that obscured mountain ranges, but they stayed in front of or behind us. I learned to make lunch while bracing myself against the counter as Greg drove down the road and fought the winds that were building during the day. We ate as we drove to save time. A few stops for fuel and we made it to Lordsburg, New Mexico at sundown. Our choices for the night were one of the two truck stops in the small town, or a visitor's center on the edge of town. We pulled into the closed center that allows 24 hour parking, and parked ourselves several spaces away from a travel trailer. They had the end spot and we didn't want to crowd them. What we didn't know was that trucks used this parking lot too, and were in and out all night. Some were idling their motors. We thought we had gotten away from the truck noise! At one point we looked out the window and in the next space was a car carrier with vintage cars in need of restoration. There was an old ambulance from the 50's, a woody station wagon, possibly a Studebaker, and five more vintage cars. That left a while later and was replaced by a trucker talking outside our window on his cellphone while his big dog ran around. More trucks came and went. The night was rounded out with 45 mph wind gusts and cold rain.

In the morning Greg discovered a water faucet, so while I was still in the bunk he drove across the parking lot to fill up. Boy did that feel odd! We hadn't filled up or dumped our tanks since Joshua Tree, so even though we had been careful with both, it was good to fill up our water tank again. We drove in to Lordsburg and went to Kranberry's for a hot breakfast. That tasted good after lots of cold meals. I try not to cook meals and dirty lots of dishes and pots when we dry camp in order to conserve our water, so, that means lots of cold meals and disposable dinnerware.

As we drove east on I-10 the clouds cleared out and the sun was shining on the vast flat expanse of desert on the way to Deming. The wind continued to blow us around. In Deming we made the decision to head south to Pancho Villa State Park. We agreed that if it felt unsafe, we would come back up the road to Deming and Rockhound State Park. The 37 mile drive to Columbus took us across flat desert interspersed with newly plowed cotton fields. I don't know where they get the water to irrigate there. The newly plowed fields created big dust storms that we could see advancing across the desert and rolling on into Mexico. We managed to avoid being caught in one.

The town of Columbus three miles from the Mexican Border was mobbed! There were people standing along the main street as if they were waiting for a parade. We drove into the campground and talked to a camper who told us that 100 Mexicans were riding on horses the three miles from Mexico to commemorate Pancho Villa raiding Columbus in 1916. This was the only foreign incursion on American soil since the War of 1812. General Pershing was training troops for WWI here and he chased them 400 miles into Mexico. Apparently, the small hill in the campground was the lookout, but Pancho Villa came around the west side of it unseen. Greg said he probably came through our campsite!

We saw the horses arrive up the main road as we were driving around looking for a site. The wind was gusting to 45 mph, but was pretty continuous at about 35mph with dust blowing around. The temperature was in the 40's to 50's, not a great day for standing around watching the event, so we decided to take showers and cocoon in the RV. The walk back from the showers with the wind gusting from the west gave Greg an interesting hairstyle! Wish I'd taken a picture of his hair spiked up on one side!

The afternoon was spent in the rocking trailer with the bright sunlight streaming in. We decided that we need to get into Texas and work our way east in order to be back in Maryland by the 20^th. We will be catching up on appointments, cat sitting, and visiting for a week or so. Then we will be off again. Tomorrow we head east from here and skirt the border over to El Paso, Texas. Then work our way over to the Texas Hill Country, unless the weather changes our route!