Day 13: Boat Soap: Las Cruces, NM to Alamogordo, NM

Back when we had our boat, we got it full of stuff for years of sailing the Great Lakes. When we sold the boat we removed all of that stuff. The removal included one innocent bar of Ivory soap in a ziplock freezer bag. Boats can have a smell. Diesel, bilge, a bit musty. Ours was more diesel / bilgy smelling. That smell penetrated all items we had on the boat. Once we removed stuff, it sat laid out in our garage for about a month. Some things outside. Even with that airing out, the one, innocent bag of Ivory soap still smells like boat. That is the bar of soap I have been using on this trip. So every shower (like the one today) I smell boat and smell of boat. That smell is not quite what Old Spice was after. Not really what anyone is after. Perhaps I should just set it free.

Morning walk. Wasn’t sure so just headed out to see what roads or trails I could find near the Las Cruces KOA. First path was a dirt road beside the secondary highway, past the fenced guard dogs to the dead end and turn around. Well, that was 500 meters. Up the hill we go. Forgo turning into the “Organ View” (Organ is one of the mountain ranges here, but I am unsure that is what the name referred to) trailer park and turn right into another neighbourhood. Nice hilly neighbourhood free of broken down trailer homes. Stopped to take a sunrise picture and one of the Delorean.

The neighbourhood was full of the types of western style homes Mrs Milddogs would love to have. Walk ended at 3.87 km as I had to get back to prep for the day.

Uneventful draining of the tanks, still not the one covered in feces! Even did a black tank flush! While I was not messing about, Mrs Milddogs did the walk over to the garbage area. She came back with 2 metal Clark Griswold style saucer sleds. A fellow camper gave them to us, that’s the story. We were on the road around 0930 (all times local). This time we went through Las Cruces and we saw the giant chilli pepper hotel.

Mission #1: White Sands National Monument. Only 80 km away. As we arrived it looked busy. The gate dude was just waving people through so we did not have to pay. I was afraid maybe they would just use us for missile tests from the nearby base. This place is amazing.

We had a lovely time at White Sands. We drove on the White Sand. It was rather washboard like after the pavement ended. Nothing fell off of the van so we were good. We exited through the gift shop and headed towards our final destination for the day: Oliver Lee Memorial State Park.

A brief word about our dinner last night from La Posta. We have been spoiled. The best Mexican dinner we have ever had was at Coyote Cafe in old town San Diego, CA. Like, it was amazing! 10 out of 10. My friend Senor Victor speaks Spanish so that makes him an expert. He agrees that Coyote Cafe is the best. Mrs Milddogs has been search for similar Rellenos ever since. No luck. The ones from La Posta were pretty good. I ordered steak fajitas (all of this is take out). The steak was blah and they forgot my tortillas! Fortunately, in a recent round of me checking our food inventory before a provisioning run where I failed to find the package or tortillas we had, we now had a lot of tortillas in the van. So, it was OK, but no Coyote Cafe.

As you drive to Oliver Lee south from Alamogordo you are on a very straight road. Then, you turn left and go down another very straight road to the base of the mountains. You can see glimmers off of campers in the distance so you know you are going in the right direction. We are camped at the base of whatever these mountains are called. Our elevation is still ~4000 feet. Wow, this is breath taking. As you look back it is just flat plains until the next mountain range way off in the distance.

For dinner we had veggies, chicken and cord done on the Blackstone. This followed by some of the remaining, and more droopy, birthday cake.

I then went up for a shower. It was lovely.

After staring at the mountains for a while longer, I went on a garbage deposit walk using the trail over to the comfort station. I was staring at the sunset on my way back and perhaps should have paid more attention to where I was walking.

So, all of this scenery is just so foreign to us, it is magic. I expect you would get numbed to the beauty of it the way we get numbed to the beauty of freezing cold, snow falls and mosquito season. OK, in fairness, we get real seasons and have water. Those are good things.

We crossed over the Rio Grande today in Las Cruces. Well, the bed of the Rio Grande. It was bone dry. Pretty much everything is bone dry. We joked that we should get out and walk across the Rio Grande. We did not do this.

The Garmin has behaved well lately. It is nice to use as an offline route planner as we don’t always have cell service.

Shaving: I bought an Amazon electric shaver as water use is precious in a van in the desert. My cousin Otis taught me years ago that a bar of shaving soap, a brush and a razor is the way to go. That’s true and I have been doing that for decades. This electric shaving thing sucks.

Peace!