Goodbye Texas, Hello New Mexico

Map of this blog's locations click this link to open the map

Our stay in Van Horn would be the last night in Texas for some time. We have had a good time for the past 35 nights while in the state but its time for us to move on. We don't have that many plans as we head into New Mexico but we will be there 9 nights. Eight of those nights will be in a very remote area of southwestern NM very close to the Arizona border. We need to stock up on groceries before heading there but it is Christmas Eve day so we need to be aware of store hours. We get a reasonably early start out of Van Horn and in just a few miles on I-10 we are in the Mountain Time Zone which gains us an additional hour.

We need to fill up the motor home with diesel. With a 100 gallon tank we can easily go between 600 to 800 miles if we need to. Fuel prices were quite high in the Big Bend area and won't be much better in the remote area of New Mexico we're heading to so we will fill up on this leg of the trip. We know we can easily fit the rig in any of the Flying J or Pilot truck stops but the fuel prices there are usually significantly higher so it is worth a little investigation to find a less expensive place that we can fit into.

Unlike when needing to fill up the Jeep, the planning for getting fuel for the motor home can take some upfront legwork. The price from state to state can very immensely so it is usually worth figuring out which state to plan on and which to avoid. My first go to place is GasBuddy.com because it has a trip calculator tab that the app doesn't have. I will put in a starting and ending location and put in 8 MPG for city and highway and tell it I only have a 20 gallon tank. This forces it to come up with much more frequent filling stops allowing me to see how the pricing will vary over the next several hundred miles. This especially works out well when in the smaller eastern states where we might have several states to choose from.

Map From Gas Buddy Trip Calculator

Gas Buddy Suggested Stop with Pricing - Stop in Texas not New Mexico!

In this case, it looks like I want to fill up while we are still in Texas. Next I switch to the GasBuddy app and pan along our route looking for stations that have both a decent price and what looks like a layout large enough to get the rig in and out of. Once I have a possibility or two, I switch to some other app that permits aerial views (boy I wish GasBuddy did that). If the aerial view looks good I might even drop into street view mode just to confirm the orientation of the pumps. In this case, I find a Shell station just north of El Paso off I-10 with separate diesel pumps and a clean approach in and out. It was 55 cents cheaper than the truck stop pricing just down the road.

Does the effort I put into finding the right fuel stop always pay off? Nope! Once the station was out of diesel but didn't even have a sign at the pumps. Another time, a construction crew was working in the parking lot that was to be my approach to the pumps. And other times there are too many cars in the lot to navigate. I suppose it is one of those mental challenges that I enjoy.

Our next stop was to be at another Escapees park in Deming NM - Dream Catcher RV Park. It was a bit further than we had planned to drive, originally thinking of staying near Las Cruses. But this would get us closer to our next stop where the park was putting on a Christmas feast and we didn't want to be late. Dream Catcher was a reasonable place although it is admittedly just one huge gravel lot with utilities poking out identifying the spots. Before we even set up, Chris was off to get groceries before places close for Christmas Eve.

As I was starting to setup, I realized this thing hadn't been washed in quite some time. So after getting permission from the office, I spent the next hour or so washing the rig. That night a weather front moved through and although it didn't get too cold, the wind was really strong. It continued into the next morning and was so bad that we didn't want to drive this thing. The warning on the weather app specifically mentioned high profile vehicles - I don't think they get much more high profile than this thing. We sat it out and by late morning the winds were down enough that I knew the drive wouldn't be too bad since we only had 90 miles to go.

Off of I-10, just before crossing into Arizona, Rusty's RV Park is about 25 miles or so south. There isn't much along this stretch of road in fact I joked with Chris that we might be the only others eating Christmas dinner with Rusty. We pulled in and found 15 to 20 rigs which meant there would be lots of sides and desserts to go along with the prime rib the owners were providing.

The campground and the immediately surrounding area is flat, but nearly every direction you look, there are some good sized mountains. The closest ones are just to the southwest across the border in Arizona - Coronado National Forest.  After getting setup and settled in, we head over to the small clubhouse to meet some of our neighbors and eat too much food. Some of the others camped here are just passing through, like us and others that were staying here for the rest of the season. One of the guys we talked to had come here to stay a week, liked it enough and extended to a month and has been here 5 years now!

View Looking Back at Camp with Distant Mountains

This area attracts lots of people for two reasons. One is birding although this isn't the best time of year for them. Apparently this is on the migration path for many types of birds. The second reason is for the dark skies. There aren't many people living around here so light pollution is at a minimum. In fact, the rules for this campground include some we have never come across before. At night you aren't allowed to have on any exterior lights. Plus you're not supposed to have any interior lights on without your shades pulled. Part of the reason for us being here is to be able to take advantage of the night skies. We even timed our trip to be here during the new moon.

After the dinner Xmas night, I came out and setup the camera and tripod to try my hand at photographing really dark skies. It is nice that I really don't need to got too far from the rig to setup for pictures. If the skies cooperate, I think this will be a fun stop.

The Milky Way (Click to see full resolution)

Our Dutch Star Amongst All the Stars  (Click to see full resolution)

Amazing Dark Skies  (Click to see full resolution)

We walked around the camp and discovered what had been making all sorts of noise. They have a couple geese and a bunch of ducks in a fenced in area with a pond. There are chairs inside but the two geese seemed so aggressive that we decided to leave them be. Just then one of the workers drove up in his cart and told us they would not bother us if we went in. We were less than convinced and just took pictures from our side.

Noisy Geese

One of Many Great Sunsets Over the Mountains