Monday June 19, 2023 - Taos NM to Cabello State Park NM

There was no hot water for a shower so good thing we showered last night. Breakfast was an amazing buffet and we’d recommend El Pueblo Lodge in Taos. Gas and coffee in Taos, then off to Santa Fe. We bypassed Santa Fe (it’s too busy) and made the turn for the Turquoise Highway, which goes through Madrid, NM. The movie Wild Hogs was partially shot here and it was a surprisingly busy place on a Monday. It’s also Juneteeth, so I assume the business is partly due to that. 

We’d texted our old friends from Bisbee, Sharon and Steve Barton, that we would stop by today, so we wiggled through the back streets of Albuquerque to their house that they just bought. They moved from Bisbee to ABQ in May, and the new town seems to fit them with more music and more sport opportunities. Steve bought a red 1978 Dodge truck that is beautiful, and he gets daily kudos driving it around. They just adopted a sweet dog named Juice who  was very excited to meet us.

Sharon made a tasty lunch and we spent a couple of hours catching up before getting back on the road south. The sky’s very blue again which we’ve not seen for most of the seven weeks we have been gone due to the fires in Canada. It is starting to feel like home.

Deb found a Caballo Lake State Park, a New Mexico state park on a reservoir. A big park with not too many campers so plenty of spots with the added bonus of hot showers.

It hit 98 degrees this afternoon and it was down to 90 when we set up camp. We ran the max-air fans with the windows open and opened things up since there was a nice breeze. Salad and sandwich tonight since it is too hot to cook inside. We have done no outside cooking since the induction stove works so well and it has been either windy, cool,  or buggy during our 7 week adventure.

We took some good pictures of the sunset on the mountain across the reservoir and turned in for the night, with 85 degrees inside the van.