Day 14: We come in peace: Oliver Lee State Park, NM to South of Whites City, NM

We waited and waited for the moon to rise over the mountains last night. That finally happened well past my bedtime.

It was a wee bit chilly last night. Got down to about 1 C. We did not have electricity at our site and one of us refuses to run the furnace on propane / battery. But it was a good night sleep excluding the cold induced need to get up and pee 4 times. It’s lovely having the washroom 6 inches from your spouses head. Privacy and modesty do not belong in #vanlife. The other day I said it was like living in a prison cell with someone you love. Mrs Milddogs said that was not true. So, I had to ask what part of my statement was not true? It’s not really like a prison cell other than it is a small space and you have to learn to choreograph certain moves. Like getting from the kitchen to the washroom when someone is in the living room. For clarity, Mrs Milddogs meant it is not like a prison cell. Whew!

Morning walk was quite nice, I followed some of the nature trails and doubled back. Trails were uneven so I was a bit slow. There was a trickle of water down in the creek alongside the trail. Had been a while since I saw water in the wild. Some pictures.

Our mission today was to setup our visit to the Carlsbad Caverns tomorrow. So, we took the very indirect route by going north side of the Lincoln Forest and over to Roswell, NM.

The scenery along the drive was lovely. There were significant elevation changes. From ~ 4000 feet at start up to 7800 feet at the highest and back down to ~4000 feet post mountains towards Roswell. It wasn’t a long drive at about 220 km but with me poking along it takes a bit longer than the rush down the 401. Roswell was Roswell. We went to the downtown and looked around. Amy was super freaked (but not like Rick James) because of all of the Aliens walking around. She was ok though. One dude, Wserbg JJHbccerd (he spelled it out, but his accent was think so apologies for spelling) really wanted to take her back to his planet cause she is so cute. He offered 190,984,000,121 of his monetary units. We declined. I did accept the obligatory free probing.

After departing Roswell (alive and still on us, I think), we started telling ghost stories. Mrs Milddogs said “you want to see something really scary?” and, oh wait, this is a scene from Pee Wee’s Big Adventure.

We stopped in Carlsbad to pick up some takeout at El Jimador. They had hats for sale and I though about getting one for Mr. Jim. But, I’d likely just keep it for myself so I didn’t do that.

We ate our takeout at the Chosa BLM site south of Whites City, NM. BLM is an acronym for Bureau of Land Management. Basically, the feds own the land and you can camp at many BLM locations for free for up to 14 days in most cases. There are no services and no reserving spots. We then relocated to wherever we are now one mile North of Chosa. I flew the discount drone for the first time in the wild. Here are some pictures.

That’s about it for today. Going to try to sleep in in the morning. Not much driving tomorrow. Up to the caverns and then probably back here for the night.

I have learned the following. When levelling the van with the tires hot from driving, the front will sag more as it cools. Front tires run at 65 psi cold and rear at 80 psi cold. Someone please to the PV=nRT math on that one. For levelling we just keep moving around until the iPhone app says we are level. If not possible, stage one is to get out the four short sections of deck board I brought along.

Even though today wasn’t a super long day, I was a bit tired of driving. Tomorrow will fix that.

All good here. Wait…Amy is turning into