We stayed for two weeks and loved the serenity of the place. The check-in process is self-serve, and then you pick your own site from the available options. Everyone is nicely spaced out in the park, and they encourage arrivals to leave space on either side, if possible, so you get the lovely views of the desert instead of your neighbor’s rig. We were there over Thanksgiving, and everyone made us feel very welcome, inviting us to the neighborhood feast where we met some of the long-term residents, some of whom have been wintering there for decades. The amenities are basic, but they work. Between the scenery and the people, we’d definitely stay here again. We camped at Loma Paloma RV Park & Golf Course in a Motorhome.
An interactive map of the RV park:
Our site:
This is our first campground in Texas… so you know what that means — yep, we get to add another sticker (the last new one until August next year!):
This park is a bit unusual in that it doesn’t have a staffed office (more on that later). But we can still get packages delivered, as FedEx and UPS will deliver straight to our site:
The utilities weren’t ideally placed, but not too bad:
A video of three cats by our site at night from our front door cam:
A pleasant view out our dining window:
Sunsets:
This campground is away from big cities, and the nearby Big Bend Ranch State Park is a dark sky park, so we have a good view of stars at night (looked better in person):
A sign for the park:
The main entrance:
Slow adults at play; this is more of a long-term snowbird park than a kid-friendly one (which suits us just fine):
The office building:
As mentioned, it is unstaffed; it just has a small room with books and such, and a desk for self-registration, paying by cash or check in an honor box:
A map of the park on the wall:
The other half of the building is a single toilet and a laundry:
Other sites, including several long-term ones; people don’t live here year-round, but several people spend the winter here:
A bird feeder opposite our site:
Wilderness opposite our coach:
Cats peeking over a tub:
The Lizard Lounge is a gathering place in the center of the park:
Apparently once more people are here over winter they have regular gatherings there, but while we were here there was just one, a Thanksgiving feast:
A nice bunch of people, and a relaxed, quiet RV park. I can see why many people come back every year to spend the winter here. We probably won’t, as it wasn’t quite warm enough for our wintertime, but if we’re passing this way again, we wouldn’t hesitate to stay again.
We drove our coach 275 miles, about five hours of driving, from Carlsbad, New Mexico to Presidio, Texas.
That was about double what we normally aim for, but we felt we could handle it, since we had two week stays on either side. And yes, it was fine; it didn’t feel like twice as long, due to taking several stops, plus the drive was pretty easy (no significant mountains or other challenges).
The map route, heading south:
An interactive map, with our stops:
Leaving the RV park:
Our coach with the slides in while traveling:
Heading down the highway:
Carlsbad cavepeople in the median, and a mural of their historic aquaduct, the Pecos River Flume, which is also famous for being the only river that crosses itself:
National Parks Highway:
Entering Texas from New Mexico:
Paladin on the dash, approaching a rest area:
Continuing on down US-62, past the Guadalupe Mountains:
US-62 to SH-54:
A flood gauge:
We quite liked this region of Texas; nice mountains etc:
Dip:
Big dip:
Van Horn, Texas:
A fuel stop:
There wasn’t a great place to stop for lunch around the Love’s, but I had an alternative plan; I had spotted a good place to park our coach elsewhere in town:
Near a Pilot travel center (which we didn’t use for fuel, as we don’t get a discount there):
We went to Wendy’s for lunch:
A funky camera artifact:
Lunch (it’s pretty rare to have Wendy’s, but their fries are actually quite nice, for fast food; I like the skins-on style):
Birds on a wire:
Back to our coach:
Back on the road; we noticed cotton on the side of the road:
Probably from a cotton field:
Another stop:
To check out a roadside art installation, Prada Marfa:
We drove our coach 125 miles, about three hours of driving, from Ruidoso Downs, New Mexico to Carlsbad, New Mexico.
The map route, heading east then south:
An interactive version from my trip planning, with potential stops marked; we only stopped at the first one, “Atlas Missile Silos Official Scenic Historic Marker”:
The first part of the drive along US-70 was quite pretty:
Fox Cave:
Buildings:
There are several places named Picacho, though I always think of Pikachu from Pokémon:
Nice hills and trees:
US-70 becomes fairly flat and barren:
We stopped for lunch at a “roadside table” area; like a rest stop, but no bathroom facilities (which is fine for us):
On the opposite side, a motorhome with an interesting trailer configuration, carrying a side-by-side and towing a car like a dolly:
We killed half an hour while having lunch, to avoid arriving before check-in time. When we got underway again, Paladin remained on the back of the couch, looking out the window:
Apparently towing vehicles like this is quite common in New Mexico:
After Roswell, the highway is super flat and boring, so I didn’t bother taking many pictures:
There’s a mix of long-term residents and short stays in this campground, but it was pretty nicely laid out overall. We had a pull-through site in one of the “buddy” rows, but since it was late in the season, it wasn’t super busy. If I did it again, I’d book one of the non-buddy pull-through sites on the outer edge. The staff were very helpful, even going so far as to call and warn us they were expecting some bad weather (up to 100mph gusty winds) the day we were supposed to arrive. We decided not to risk the weather, and they were very accommodating in letting us come a day later and gave us a refund for the lost day. We were escorted to our site and given some good instructions on navigating some of the harder turns, which made it easy to pull in. The one major downside was that there was not a level square inch to be found on the site. We tried different positions on the site and different configurations of leveling blocks to no avail and decided to live with an end-to-end tilt. In retrospect, I would have asked if we could move to a different site, but was too tired and cranky to deal with it at the time. We camped at Slow Play RV Park in a Motorhome.
The RV park map:
When we arrived, it was lightly snowing, including some graupel:
Jenn and Paladin looking out the driver window while working on leveling the coach:
We couldn’t get it completely level, due to the slope of the site; we ended up with two jack pads plus a plastic pad to try to get the front high enough:
Our site:
The utilities were not conveniently placed:
One morning we woke up to a light dusting of snow:
I filled the water tank and disconnected the water hose overnight, since the temperatures were below freezing most nights. However I foolishly left the hose outside (after ensuring it was empty), which broke the pressure regulator and gauge; they really don’t like being frozen, so now don’t give accurate readings, and will have to be replaced:
On the upside, our Christmas cactus is looking really happy, with lots of buds and flowers coming on:
And Paladin is happy to snuggle with his girlfriend, the heated tile floors:
Let’s tour the RV park; here’s the entrance:
The office:
Carved bears:
Amusing signs:
Swing seat:
Gazebo:
Street signs:
Bathrooms:
Pet sign:
Other sites:
So cute:
Much of the park is long term residents:
Food bonus: we had dinner at a classic Denny’s diner in town:
They were rather understaffed, with one cook and one server. But the food was tasty.
We drove our coach 176 miles, about 3 hours of driving, from Albuquerque, New Mexico to Truth or Consequences, New Mexico.
The map route, heading south:
The Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta finished on a Sunday morning, and we were scheduled to leave the following day, but I noticed that our next site was available on Sunday, so we decided to grab that and leave a day early:
A view of the mountains by Albuquerque:
Freeways:
Downtown Albuquerque:
Heading south on I-25:
Wide load of the side of the road:
It wasn’t a particularly long drive, but we had an early start to the day for the fiesta, so we stopped at both of the rest areas on the route; here’s the first:
Interesting collection of elevated picnic shelters:
Onward:
The second rest area:
Paladin asleep:
I-25:
Truth or Consequences:
Paladin climbed on the back of Jenn’s chair while she was driving:
Back in a more normal place:
Interesting clouds:
A glimpse of Caballo Lake:
Our destination, Caballo Lake State Park:
Palomino Campground, one of a few in the state park, but the only one with full hookups, which we really needed after dry camping at the fiesta:
Their claim to fame is the oldest continuously occupied town in Colorado, which they declare on a hillside:
This journey was rather rainy:
Horses open range:
An interesting trailer:
Welcome to New Mexico:
A lunch stop in a wide area on the side of the road; I look for such places when planning the trip, if I can’t find proper rest areas (I’ll do a post about trip planning sometime soonish):
Paladin on the back of the driver chair during the lunch stop:
Onward in the rain:
Our destination was in Taos, an interesting town with lots of adobe-style buildings, founded in 1615. We might want to explore it some more in the future:
