Land of Enchantment

As we hit the road to New Mexico this morning, the sign on I-10 read 529 miles to El Paso - a jarring reminder of exactly how big Texas is! At least Texas has an 80 mph speed limit which David is all in favor of for Virginia.

Fortunately we only had to go about half that distance on I-10 before turning north at Fort Stockton and heading through the oil fields of West Texas. We rolled through Pecos, TX - home of the first rodeo in the world which actually occurred on July 4, 1883.

We also saw hundreds of oil rigs and lots of “workforce housing” (rental camper parks and modular homes) randomly scattered through the desert land.

As we crossed the state line (and time zone) into New Mexico, the temperature gauge on our Win VA read a balmy 103 degrees. We pulled into the cute little town of Carlsbad NM where we had dinner - at the all-American BWW after trying several local restaurants that were all closed. We closed out the evening seeing an amazing Fourth of July festival and fireworks near the Carlsbad riverfront on the Pecos River.

Interesting fact found on a poster at the KOA. On January 10th (both David’s and my birthday) in 1891, the first train came to Carlsbad.

Tomorrow starts the national parks swing and we kick it off with a tour of Carlsbad Caverns in the morning!