Las Cruces To Gold Canyon

When we made the decision a week ago to change the routing I was a little sceptical about what the weather would turn out to be and what affect it might have on the route.  I was overly cautious in making the change as I did not know what to expect in travelling through the mountains in rain or snow and high winds, and figured if nothing else we would be travelling through the mountains further south so if we got anything it would likely be rain.

I mentioned I use some software products from when we had the boat and I have come to rely on one in particular.  It is called Windy.  There is a website or an app.  I use the app and once you get used to it I find it very accurate.  In any event, what was forecast did end up happening and is now the basis for the series of storms moving through Texas and Oklahoma this morning.  It has turned out to be a fairly intense cold front as you can see on the picture below and we are glad we are through that section of country.

When we left Las Cruces yesterday morning the wind and rain had picked up overnight and it was raining pretty hard.  The forecast with Windy was for it to rain for about an hour before moving further East.  All in all a good decision, and other than changing some reservations and such at places it all worked out.

Not long after we departed we saw signs indicating all traffic had to move over into an inspection station.  This was the second station we saw although the first on our side of the highway.  The day before we saw one on the Eastbound lanes East of El Paso.  As it turns out they are stations for all vehicles that allow US Customs Border agents to inspect vehicles for, I presume, trucks or vehicles transporting things or people that don't belong there.  The light for us stayed green so we kept on going.

The weather cleared up shortly after and we entered a high plain that was vacant of just about everything but scrub brush and signs warning of dust storms and what to do in the event…

I am not sure I would want to be stuck in one of those storms as I think the experience would be similar to being stuck in a whiteout created by a streamer off the lakes you get in early winter.  Interesting they post those signs though.

I mentioned the trains the other day.  In three days of travelling we saw no Westbound trains at all, and sometimes the Eastbound trains were passing as frequently as 45 minutes apart.  In most cases they were container trains.  Based on my timing as we passed by they were likely two or thee miles long.  There were a few trains with general cargo and in almost every case the rail cars were very graphically painted with graffiti.  Although this picture is not that clear, as the internet has become nowadays you can google Homer Simpson Railcar Graffiti to see better pictures of the same rail car.

Mmmmmm…….Chocolate………..

I think the pictures below demonstrate the angle of the grade - we had just passed the summit of a hill and were on what seemed like a four mile down grade.  You could see the train extending into the distance and see clearly the grade it was on was similar to ours and the picture of the mountains in the background are more or less horizontal.  It was heading up hill and moving real slow, even with four engines in the front and two in the middle all running at what sounded like full throttle.

We are now at Gold Canyon RV Resort.  This resort caters to 55+ and although we have not had chance to poke around yet, I selected this one purely by chance as it has a 9 hole executive course on the property, pool, gym, pickle ball and tennis.  Not that we do much of any of those other than the pool, there is enough to do around this area we felt it would be a good trial in case family or friends want to visit.  We are currently here for a week before moving on to our destination.  We have asked the resort manager to keep us on the wait list for the month of February.  If it clears and we can come back we will be here for the full month before resuming our return home.

During this trip so far we have identified all kinds of places to stop on the way back.  It is one thing to do research on trip planning web site and such, but nothing beats seeing signs for various interesting stops as you travel along.