Finding my way to Carlsbad

For the most part, I spent the day driving. After my morning workload, I left the truck stop which I stayed at last night and drove only an hour before stopping for lunch near Fort Sumner, NM.

Bosque Redondo Lake showed up on my GPS not far out of town so I went there to hang out for lunch and my afternoon workload. Without being too vulgar, this place is a piece of shit. Dead grass, dead trees, murky water, lazy ducks, and have-never-been-serviced porta-potties gave this park an aura of neglect. Maybe it looks nice in spring or summer (no swimming allowed) but in December it was… well, shit. I stuck around long enough to do what I needed to do, but was all too happy to leave.

Let me state, there has not been a single thing today that I enjoyed. New Mexico is an ugly state… and it stinks of cow ass too. I do not know why anyone lives here. I was thinking I may stop in at Roswell to do the tourist stuff, but that place scared me away so fast. I do not even want to drive through it again, let alone get out and walk around. Again, why do people live here?

Though I was not planning on making the drive all the way into Carlsbad today, I was somewhat forced into continuing south as my Verizon connection eluded me for hundreds of miles. Though I only drove a few hundred miles, it was an all-day process and I am beat.

It was not until Carlsbad that I was able to sneak some WiFi from a local motel to make a Skype call to Verizon to ask them about the “roaming” network I had the option to connect too. It was confirmed I could use that roaming network without additional charge. This was a good thing, otherwise I would have had to leave Carlsbad ASAP for me to be able to work, and I really wanted to see both National Parks here as well as a good helping of boondocking in the BLM land nearby.

Weather looks good for the next 10 days. Nothing to extreme though a slight cold snap over the early part of the week. The van has been holding up well in the cold. Though I have not had to spend nights in the teens, the first night was slated to go mid-20s though the van only got into the mid-40s. Same with last night and I expect nothing lower than high 40’s tonight as it is only suppose to get into the high 30’s here. Basically, even without a heater going the van keeps me about 15 degrees above the outside temp. I can crank up the furnace if it gets super-cold one night.

I stay tonight at Walmart. Just had a nice dinner and plan to read up on the parks before crashing again. Tomorrow I will get just outside of town and focus on work and chores for the day. Sunday, I hope to go into the caverns with a full day Monday hiking in Guadalupe Ntnl Park.