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| Scenic Drive | 584.00 Miles |
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| | Scenic Drive | 584.00 Miles | | | |
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| no partners | | The first day of my road trip featured a long 584 mile drive to camp at Santa Rosa Lake State Park in east central New Mexico. I had never been there before and wanted to see something new. The next two nights I had motel reservations, so I figured a night of camping would help keep trip costs down, and since the price for a night of camping was $10, what's not to like?  I did lock down a site on ReserveAmerica, which included a $4 reservation fee (for a total of $14), and the reason I did that was since it was a Saturday, I didn't want to drive that far and be SOL. Turns out the campground was pretty full, but there were sites available.
The other thing about this trip is that I wanted to be sure the weather would not be crazy enough to ruin my plans. I had to wait until the heavy monsoonal bombardment we have been experiencing was taking a break. This is especially true for the eastern plains, where I camped that first night, as out there things can get a lot more intense than some of our Arizona events, especially with regard to damaging hail.  It all worked out well, and the only thunderstorms I encountered were in Colorado, and those occurred after I finished the most remote sections of mountain driving. 
I did my usual departure from I-25 north of Socorro to head east on US 60, which I like to do to avoid the busy Albuquerque-Santa Fe corridor, if I am not going to those places. Plus, if you a train junkie like me, there isn't a much better area than the Belen cutoff through Mountainair and on to Vaughn and beyond to see lots of trains. 
A side note: My usual stop for a green chile cheeseburger in San Antonio (NM) is the Owl, but the Buckhorn is also there and has a loyal following too. I ate there once years ago and didn't like the vibe, but it has since been purchased by the Sichler family after Bobby Olguin retired and put it up for sale. The Sichler's run a produce stand that is right across the street from the Owl that I have stopped at many times over the years to buy green chiles and have them roasted. They are long standing residents/farmers in the area, so on my next trip over that way (which won't be too far in the future) I will stop in and try one of their burgers. You can't go wrong either way. 
And yeah, I did stop at their produce stand this trip to buy some frozen roasted chiles to take home.  |
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