253 miles via I-20 and I-10. Cumlative distance: 3,346 miles.
GTW Hop 20: Pecos TX to Las Cruces NM
We stayed one night at the TRAPark in Pecos. This is an Escapees Rainbow Park, but it is a mere shadow of Rainbow’s End. We missed the social hour, which is a shame, but we had a good night’s sleep in the midst of the oil fields.
View from our TRAPark site
Patience at TRAPark
TRAPark
As I mentioned, it appears that this park has a lot of long-term residents, some of them oil field workers. It is not a beautiful park and we had no interest in staying for more than one night. But the price was right ($16.50) and I saw a beautiful sunrise.
Sunrise in Pecos
On this hop we left the prairie and re-entered the mountains. The transition, like the transition into prairie west of San Antonio, was abrupt; we traveled for miles on a treeless and nearly featureless plain and then, suddenly, a little 100-foot bump appeared. That bump was quickly followed by a series of increasingly larger bumps. Within 10 miles we were deep into rugged, jagged hills.
Post-prairie hills east of El Paso
We also climbed more than I expected on this hop: we topped out at over 4800′ elevation.
We stopped for lunch at a rest area shortly after we entered the Rio Grande Valley. Though it wasn’t quite New Mexico (which bills itself as “The Land of Enchantment”), it is either a tribute to the accuracy of their slogan or a symptom of our travel-addled brains that we found the rest area – and the area in general – to be enchanting.
Jett was entranced by the open-air bathrooms with ceramic wall mosaics. I liked the trees and the arid landscape.
Open-air bathroom
Bathroom mosaic
Rest area art shot
The picnic shelters showed some imagination, too.
Picnic shelter
Picnic teepee
And, though we couldn’t really see the Rio Grande, we knew that we were looking into Mexico on the other side of the valley. This was the first time either of us had seen the border between Mexico and the US.
Looking into Mexico
Jett was thrilled by the numerous Border Patrol vehicles on the road in the valley (“my heros!”). We thought El Paso was visually very interesting, with its colorful buildings and red mountain backdrop, but we were too busy threading our way through traffic to get photos.
We finally reached the New Mexico border (hasta la vista, Texas!) and had an easy drive into Las Cruces. We had no trouble finding the RV park and we got set up in no time. Then we went to dinner at Cracker Barrel.
Have I mentioned that we are becoming Cracker Barrel addicts? Love those chicken and dumplins (sic).