Santa Rosa Lake State Park, New Mexico

Just like we usually do after boondocking, we look for a place to empty our tanks and fill our fresh water. The fresh water fill was just two sites away from ours at Bluewater. The dump, however, was at the entrance to the park. We got Sol's fresh water filled and were off to dump--or so we thought. Bob got Sol lined up just right, connected the sewer hose to the dump, I put my foot on the hose to keep it in the hole and then Bob opened the valve. UGH! The dump was full or clogged and everything backflowed. I yelled for Bob to shut the valve which, thankfully, he did immediately. Not only was 'stuff' oozing out of the ground where we were, it was also coming out of the other sewer hose connection on the the other side of Sol! We got our hose rinsed out and put away, but the dump was YUCKY! Bob and I made sure there was nothing on our shoes before going in Sol. I got my sticky notes out and wrote signs for the dump to warn others. I hope those signs didn't blow off in the wind.....

Then it was on to Santa Rosa Lake State Park. On the way we needed to find a place fill Sol with propane. When you are boondocking and you have a residential refrigerator, you don't use nearly as much propane! Sol hadn't had her tank refilled since we picked her up over a year ago! Bob also wanted to top off the diesel. We found a place that sold propane in Moriarty, New Mexico--King Butane. After that, it was off to get some diesel. Using GasBuddy we decided to try Lisa's Truck Services on the east end of town. Their diesel was priced quite a bit lower than the other stations. While I was waiting for Bob to fill the tank, the cashier asked it we were new to the area and told me the restaurant was really good. I had been watching people come and go as I waited to pay for the fuel and it seemed to be quite a popular spot for locals. Bob and I decided to eat at Lisa's and we really enjoyed it. His hamburger was almost too big to eat and my Albuquerque Turkey was excellent. We recommend Lisa's to anyone traveling through Moriarty.

We finally made it to Santa Rosa, got set up and the rains came. Unfortunately, with the rain came hail! Bob and I hunkered down and watched the weather. The hail was relatively small and didn't do any damage to Sol or the car. As you can see we have a nice spot--no hook-ups, but that was fine with us.

The next day we drove into Santa Rosa to see what had changed. I think a lot of the local restaurants have closed and there are more fast food chain places. We drove through one of the local parks, the area is known for its lakes, especially The Blue Hole. The weather was holding and we wanted to hike the lakeside trail back at the park so we headed back toward the campground.

First we went to the dam overlook.

 Then we walked the upper level nature trail.

Along the way we saw some different flowers on the trail.

We also had a good view of the control tower for the dam.

This lake was made when the Pecos River was dammed. As with most of the lakes in New Mexico, this one has a low water level. This is the Pecos as it leaves Santa Rosa Lake. This was taken at on overlook on the upper nature trail.

Then it was on to the lakeside trail. It wandered around the rocky shore for about 2 1/2 miles. In several places we saw people fishing, but we didn't see them catch anything.

We enjoyed our hike, but as you can see, the clouds are building in this photo. We made it back to Sol before the rains arrived.

Once again, it rained for most of the afternoon and evening. And yes, once again there was hail. Thankfully, there was no damage to Sol or the car. The next day would be a travel day. We were headed toward Amarillo, Texas, but weren't sure where we were going to park. Stay tuned to find out where we landed.