We left Arizona with the idea of driving through New Mexico and on to Colorado. We headed East and crossed the AZ/NM border. We had reservations at a NM SP., near Silver City, and another at Elephant Butte, south of Albuquerque.
New Mexico State Parks are the least expensive of any we’ve encountered $10-$14 per night. Unfortunately we weren’t able to encounter them up close as all 35 NM State Parks were closed until April 9th and it was assumed they’d stay closed for a lot longer. At the same time we’d heard through the RV community that RV parks were closing or limiting capacity. So we called Elephant Butte Lake RV Resort and snagged a site in their campground. It was either $50 per night or $375 per month, so sight unseen we booked for the month.
Time to hunker down and lay low for a while

 

We we’re given a lovely site, plenty of room, and the park was only half full.

Elephant Butte is a town purely for vacationing, full of boat sales and repair shops, all closed of course,  2 restaurants and a golf course.

its also only 2 and 3 hours away from Albuquerque and Santa Fe, so ideal for a weekend getaway or vacation home.

There’s only one way to get to the lake and that’s through the State Park, hence there’s very few people around

The State Park extends all along the west side of the lake, and no roads lead to the lake on the other side

A moving target. The Governer extended the closure until the end of April.

The lake or actually a reservoir was formed by the dam which controls the flow of the Rio Grande.

The town is named for a butte thought to resemble an elephant. We couldn’t see it, but maybe we were looking at the wrong butte.

yeah, maybe!

A monument dedicated to workers who built the dam

These cabins are part of the state park camping experience. We met a guy who said he’d been camping in this cabin since he was a child, I bet it wasn’t $85 a day then

,

 

A mile down the road is the town of Truth or Consequences, originally called Hot Springs as in the 1930 there were so many springs there was one for every 75 residents. In the 1980’s the name change as a result of a TV game show contest.

The local war memorial

The town was completely buttoned up except for Bullocks, the only grocery store, whose shelves were completely stocked, they even had TP and flour.

 

A little RV park we came across with little casittas attached

Some more geocaching activity.

This was a treasure trove

Took a drive to look at some possible boondocking areas like Sevilleta National Wildlife Reserve and San Lorenzo Canyon in Lemitar NM.

While we were looking, Chris stopped for a 10-100 in jeep terms for a bathroom break, 100 yards from a sign that warned there were 6 different species of rattle snakes in the area. OOPS..

Ok time for some maintenance.

The wooden band under our dinning table fell into Steves lap when he was fixing the cabinet door that needed to have plastic grommets glued

 

Next project. The kitchen faucet was leaking from the handle.

 

The new faucet, same lower profile pullout sprayer.

Had to go to the hardware store an pick up some 3/8 to 1/2 compression fittings for the water lines.

  

Then he sat down and made a mask

Time to go on a Jeep trail run

We got lost a couple of times on this 43 mile trail, but made it out in the end. We’re using a new trail app now Gaia GPS, which has helped.

40 miles south of us was the town of Hatch, the Chile capitol of the world.. Several restaurants along a small stretch of road, the most prominent being Sparky’s and all the accoutrements that surround it. Closed of course.

 

Driving back we passed a convoy of windmill blades

I don’t think we’ve come across any people in a month. The office wouldn’t let us in, all transactions are done by phone, never met our neighbors until the day we left, then 15 feet apart.
We did our best to occupy ourselves for a month, hard though it was sometimes.

We had thought about staying another month but heat set in and after 3 days of 90 degrees we decided to move a little further north