Trip #2: Mountain Southwest Road Trip Day #2: McClellan Creek National Grassland to Moore's RV Park, Bloomfield NM

Day of Post: 6-30-2019
Day of Event: 6-9-2019

Mountain Southwest Road Trip 2019 Day 2

Highlights of this day included:
1. Where's my jacket??  45F Wind chill in West Texas in Mid June??
2. Palo Duro Canyon
3. Route 66 Auto Museum, Santa Rosa, NM
4. Drive through Albuquerque
5. Little Caesar's pizza in Bernalillo, NM
6. Setting up camp at Moore's RV park in Bloomfield, NM

So....let's get to some pictures...

Palo Duro Canyon, TX.  Largest canyon in Texas.  Beautiful site.  Wish the weather had been nicer.  Abandoned some of the shorter trails I planned taking for fear of being blown off the mountain.

View into the canyon after departing the pay window.

Cool!  A cave! Spelunkers we are. 

Samuel enjoys the cave!

I'm still standing at the cave taking a picture of Samuel in the distance.

Neat! An old abandoned cabin.

This view back into the canyon gives some indication of the weather that day.  And yet, a still image does not pick up the 45 mph winds.

Entering New Mexico. Land of Enchantment.

We were on this trip with just a loose itinerary.  No overnight sites were chosen in advance.  Samuel found out about this nice Route 66 Classic Car Museum in Santa Rosa, NM.  We went and enjoyed it.

This was one of my favorites.

Samuel likes the wood paneling.

Lots and lots and lots of classic cars.

We never got the story on this one, but it had something to do with FEMA in the post Katrina era, with shovel ready projects.

Setting up camp for night 2 at Moore's RV park, Bloomfield, NM.  A nice spot.  A little too pricy for just a tent site ($25!), but we pulled in late and procrastinators can't be picky.

Trip #2: Mountain Southwest Road Trip Day #1: Home to McClellan Creek National Grassland

Day of Post: 6-23-2019
Day of Event: 6-8-2019

Mountain Southwest Road Trip 2019

Well, we're off.  Similar idea as last year.  Road trip.  Little gas sipper car.  Go west.  See some sights.  Tent camp in National Parks, National Forests, and BLM Lands.  Nine days,eight nights.

Last year's trip came about indirectly via family vacation preventing us from attending Boy Scout summer camp with our troop, then plan B and C to attend Boy Scout camp with another troop fell apart due to forest fires all over New Mexico and Colorado during Summer 2018.

This year's trip also came about indirectly.  I requested the week off for purposes of Samuel and me entering the completing the Texas Water Safari, a 262-mile canoe marathon from San Marcos, TX to Seadrift, TX in the Gulf of Mexico.  We had even attended the day long orientation course back in February 2019.  However, the Texas Water Safari requires the canoe team to have a dedicated ground support crew, and that's one critical element we could not get completely organized.  So, we canceled that idea.

So, with a week off, Samuel and I went west again.

Now, I know that all three of my readers did not come here to read.  You want to see pictures.

Departure: 2:15pm Saturday June 8, 2019. 

Took highway 33 on a rural route to Western Oklahoma with intent to tour the Washita Battlefield.  Too late.  Visitor's center closed, gate shut and locked.  I still insisted on getting a picture and we viewed it from afar.  Samuel's getting hungry.....on to find some food for him.

Success!  A fuel up at the Love's.  Samuel got a sub sandwich at Subway.  Asked Samuel the highlight of day 1: "That Turkey Italiano was amazing!"

Night 1 place to camp:  Not original picture.  McClellan Creek National Grassland. This is in TX panhandle, east of Amarillo about 1 hr.  Close to I-40.  Nice place.  Apparently a site for ATV/UTV enthusiasts, so we didn't get to sleep until 1AM when the four-wheelers shut down for the night.

Night 1 campsite.  Samuel likes to hammock camp when he can.  I enjoy it also, but there weren't enough trees.  Sorry picture is blurry.