Chihauhuan Desert

After a morning puttering around the University of Arizona bookstore I headed to New Mexico. Along the way I saw the best stormy skies of the entire trip, but I was on the Interstate with no chance of photos. Along the way I crossed the Continental Divide, elevation 5845 feet. The divide here “is scarcely discernable“ said my guidebook, “and there are no streams to separate. East of it the highway descends an imperceptible slope among scattered hills and small ranges that are again only the summits of deeply buried ranges.”

I was lucky to get a campsite at Rockhound State Park, in the Little Florida Mountains. I did nothing but camp, but got some great lighting and a great cloud. Nice sunset colors on the rocks. On the cars and tents for that matter.








The next morning I started at Deming Library, drove to Los Cruces and wasted an inordinate amount of time looking for coffee before going to that library, and didn‘t really hit the road until 2:00PM, having no idea where my next campground would be. Fortunately I stopped at the welcome to Texas Visitors Center - yes, I was in Texas - and learned that while I’d have trouble getting to the next campground at a reasonable time, there was a nice State Park Campground right outside El Paso. So I camped there, having gained all of 50 miles from my campground the night before.

Franklin Mountain State Park was a rugged park, mostly a climber’s place, and quite empty. It was primarily a day park, with the gates closing at 5:00 PM, leaving only the campers inside. They gave us the gate combination (6969 - very clever) in case we wanted to go out for pizza or something. Other than me there was one other party (of three), their tent perched about a quarter-mile up the hill from me, and they did go out that night, leaving me alone in a beautiful mountain park overlooking the lights of El Paso. More crazy evening light, some new vegetation, my first real look at the Chihuahuan Desert, though I didn‘t know it yet. It was a little spooky, but surreal and ultimately pretty sweet.

nearest campsite in distance

Sitting at Franklin State Park, reading my guidebooks for a change, I noted that one of my goals  - White Sands National Monument - was known to get terribly windy in the spring. So I made another change of plans. Rather than dash on to Big Bend, I would backtrack north into the Tularosa Basin Basin for the White Sands.