Santa Rosa Lake State Park

 

Yesterday I mentioned a picture of the $2.90 gas price...well, there it is.  This was at the Flying J just east of Gallup by 20 miles or so.  Of course, I get a 5 cent discount due to the discount card, but still, $2.95 is WAY better than the $4.20 I payed at Sams Club in Citrus Heights just days before we headed back for home.

New Mexico State Parks are a GREAT deal.  We have water and electricity for only $18, $14 for the site, and $4 for the online registrations fee which can not be avoided.  But if you were to stay a week, that $4 applied to the reservation, so for seven days, it would be $98 for the site and $4 for the reservation, so $102 for the week...not bad at all.  Of course, most of the sites at this park don't have electricity, but this time of year it was easy to find a spot and then register online for it.

My lower back is much better today, but still a bit sore.  Thursday we will try and get into Oklahoma, though it might be just a mile or two over the boarder. 

Santa Rosa Lake State Park–Could You Believe Another Tornadic Storm?

So we have slowed way down with our miles now…352 miles in two days of traveling with one day of having a day trip to the canyon.  Today we drove over to Santa Rosa, New Mexico, turned northeast for 10 miles and ended up at Santa Rosa Lake State Park.  $14 for electric and water and fairly good view.  If one wants a super view of the lake, then just dry camp down at the shoreline.  But it was in the mid-80’s, and we wanted electric over view.

No TV, but 2-3 bars of 4G with our booster on our Verizon Aircard, and loads of music on the Kendal and movies if we choose to watch any.  And for a few hours, peace and quiet…how nice that was.

   

Around 4:30 the storm started to descend upon the area…and more and more RVs entered the park to hunker down for the night. 

Around 6:40 a State Park worker came by to let everyone know that a tornado was spotted about 10-15 miles to our east.  “If you see a bad cloud coming over that lake, just head for the bathrooms,” he said.  Well, I had been following the radar very close…the storm was headed north to northeast…the lake is to our east, the storm was not coming our way.  In fact, other then a few sprinkles, all we had was some wind and some mighty views.  I was happy that we did not “spend the night in Tucumcari” as we have a few times in the past at a Passport America park…Tucumcari looked to be getting it hard at this point.

The view to the west was amazing as the sun started to go down over the horizon.  Made me wish we were on the other side of the lake so we would have an unobstructed view.

Not too much later the clouds to the west had moved out, and sun was setting.

But the skies to our east never did get pink.

Even as I write this, 8:45 mountain time, severe storms are passing to our east by about 5 miles.   Tomorrow, assuming we don’t get blown away, we will be at another New Mexico State Park, this time over by Grants…hoping we can get one of the 14 electric sites in that park too.

   

Of course, before the storm I did get a chance to take the dogs for a walk or two. Don’t know what is up with Bubba’s tongue, this is the second time he stuck his tongue out at me when I took his picture on this trip.

     

   

Also had a chance to get some pictures of the desert flowers which were still blooming.  The first one is called by either the Indian Blanketflower or the Firewheel, both names are common.  Not sure about the other ones.

PS:  The last storm blew through just before posting this at 9:25...some light hail, some wind, not too bad, only 5 minutes long.