Apologies to anyone who might be following us on our adventures. Time has gotten away from me and now I’m playing catch up with keeping you updated! I am not going to try to provide a daily recap, but here is a summary of where we’ve been since we left Oasis State Park in NM! (I also really dislike how this blogging platform randomly changes format and font depending on how it is being viewed. Apologies if it ever looks wonky. It starts off looking great on my end!)

Roswell, NM

Stayed at a small, privately run RV park for just one night. When we got set up we ran out to do the 6-mile drive around Bitter Lake National Wildlife Refuge which was right down the road. Wow! Thousands of Snow Geese and Sandhill Cranes! What an incredible place!

Alamogordo, NM

We stayed one night for free in the parking lot of a cat rescue called Kitty City. They participate in the Harvest Host program which allows self-contained RV’s to boondock with no hookups (typically) in exchange for a donation or a purchase. We have stayed at wineries, farms, etc., and it has always been an amazing experience. At Kitty City we had stunning mountain views and a peaceful stay.

We got a tour of the rescue and swapped stories with awesome director of the rescue. I shared with her some things I did while I worked at Cat Welfare which included developing a program for kids who were struggling socially or lagging in their reading skills. In a nutshell, they would come in and read out loud to the cats in the shy cat room with no one telling them they weren’t reading correctly or anything like that. Just non-judgmental cats who needed to feel the love of humans and kids who needed that interaction and reading practice. It was beautiful and actually resulted in the adoption rate of these poorly socialized cats increasing by 4 times and the kiddos didn’t want it to end!

White Sands Missile Range, NM (Right between Las Cruces and Alamogordo)

Having access to military bases is such a huge advantage in this lifestyle. When we are near popular tourist sites we have access to a campground without having to overpay or be in a crowd of tourons. We stayed at White Sands Missile Range which is only about an hour from our last stop. Our campsite was at the base of the Organ Mountains…stunning…and oh, so very windy! One night I thought our camper was going to roll over from the downslope gusts that were over 45 mph! Yikes. We busied ourselves asking the Google gods questions that amounted to a quick physics lesson and the conclusion that it would take a lot more than that to roll us when we are stationary. We also took advantage of the commissary and enjoyed seeing coyotes while we were on our walks. Kind of scary if you’re a small dog or cat, but they were pretty skittish around people. They are so smart and such survivors.

We drove back towards Alamogordo and spent a day at White Sands National Park. It is vast and white. Our photos almost look like we were in snow. We were the only two people watching the video about the park and we learned that the sand is gypsum! The mountains that surround the park are gypsum. Rain washes chunks into a lake bed and the wind breaks down the gypsum until it is powdery. So the further you are from that lake bed, the finer the sand is. It start off coarse and the wind just keeps breaking it down. It is silent and otherworldly. Definitely an experience you can’t get anywhere else.

Las Cruces is full of friendly people and so much culture! And being a desert SW newbie, seeing mountains from every angle is still blowing my mind! Because Kohl’s accepts Amazon returns we have been getting the non-touristy vibe at many larger cities by having to mingle with the locals to make these returns. That’s how we know how friendly (or not in some cases) certain areas are. I guess we can call it the Kohl’s Friendliness Factor (KFF?).

Dripping Springs Natural Area in Las Cruces is AMAZING. It is in the Organ Mountains directly on the opposite side of our camper about 20 miles away. The name, Organ Mountains, comes from their jagged peaks that look like a pipe organ’s pipes. We spent about three hours hiking a trail that greets you with a sign telling you that people have died on the trail and to watch out for so many things and to make sure you have water and people know where you are and you are not alone and stay on the trail and…it wasn’t that bad! Not in December, anyway. July? It would be a horror show. The hike surrounds you with the most picturesque scenery and culminates with ruins from a camp, resort and sanatorium from the 1800’s. 

Birds!! So many new birds to us! Rock Wren, Canyon Towhee, Spotted Towhee, Vermillion Flycatcher, Curve-Billed Thrasher, Verdin, Black-throated Sparrow, Sagebrush Sparrow, Pyrrhuloxia…and so many more! When you live in one place for awhile the birds become part of your usual daily sounds. When you go to other areas, the birds stand out as completely unique sounds that require us to stop everything, fumble for our binoculars and wander around in awe! Our visual favorites so far have been the Vermillion Flycatcher and the Pyrrhuloxia (basically a fancy gray and maroon-colored cardinal).

Lordsburg, NM

One-night stay at a KOA, which is a last resort stay for full-timers. They are overpriced and very inconsistent.  This one did have a good laundry at a good price. This area is kind of a campground desert. Lordsburg is a town that appears on the surface to have enjoyed its peak years long ago. It now looks like a ghost town with a few people still wandering around. There are some really cool buildings that are now fading into history…restaurants that you can easily picture as once bustling in the evenings and still even have signs for cocktail lounges that were probably music and smoke-filled long ago.

Boneyard Vista RV Park at Davis-Monthan AFB in Tucson, AZ

Holy cow! This was a big RV park with over 300 sites! And it is a first-come, first-served situation with no reservations. Full hookups, level sites, $1 laundry with great dryers…and most importantly, we were within site of the famous military plane boneyard. Because there is virtually no humidity here to cause rust and hardly any rain, all branches of the military park their surplus aircraft there so they can scavenge them for parts. So if a plane is still active in the fleet and it has a “twin” that is parked in the boneyard, there will always be parts for it for repairs. The boneyard is EXPANSIVE. The best way to view it is from Google Earth or Maps. There are thousands of aircraft in the desert, and we were right next to it! This base is also very active with lots of planes flying and things getting done. Fun to stay there. A-10’s (Warthog) and C-130’s (Hercules) flew over our campground regularly.

There are so many wonderful restaurants in Tucson. Just when we decided to save money by eating out less! Delicious vegan options throughout. Yummo.

The Tucson Botanical Gardens is lovely and fascinating. I feel pretty confident saying that most plants in Arizona do not exist in Ohio. Total sensory overload! And being the holiday season, they had it adorned with lots of decorative extras. They had a nighttime program going on, as well, that involved lights and I’m sure it is stunning.

On our way out we used the RV wash on the base. Only $1.75 and our camper looks new again! Have I mentioned that it’s dusty here?

We really liked Tucson and plan on returning. Three nights was not enough.

Gila Bend, AZ (Gila Bend Air Force Auxiliary Airport, RV Park)

COMPLETELY opposite experience…still great, just quiet and calm. No planes, spacious RV sites, full hookups for only $12/night! And free laundry! This little base has absolutely no services, no commissary, no BX, none of that convenience stuff. It is right between Phoenix and the Mexican border. (We leaned south to avoid snow.) As one reviewer said, “If you’re from the Air Force, you’ll hate it. If you’re from the Marines, you’ll love it.”

And they don’t recommend that you cook with or drink the water due to arsenic (apparently all of southern Arizona has this problem). They have reverse osmosis cabinets at each site where you can fill a pitcher with drinking water. I don’t trust it.

The starry sky is vast and beautiful. The desert and mountain view out our back window is such an incredible treat. We love this quiet type of campground. Also, it’s December, so the temps are in the 60’s and 70’s. In the summer, this would be a nightmare. It is the place you hear about on the news as having the hottest temps in the country. No exaggeration. Starting in June the AVERAGE temperatures are 106, 109, 108, 103. Yikes. We are definitely Air Force, not Marines.