Caballo Lake State Park – Caballo, New Mexico

The drive to Caballo was one of the most interesting and educational drives we’ve had so far in our journey. I enjoy our drives to our next locations because I always find things I’m not expecting. This particular drive I spent the majority of my time on Google researching all the interesting things we’ve found. Our first interesting place we passed was Corona, New Mexico. There was nothing impressive about the town other than the fact that there were alien statues outside stores, similar to what we saw in Roswell. Out of curiosity I googled the town and discovered that the Roswell UFO incident actually happened closer to the town of Corona, but Roswell took the credit. Complete news to me. Another interesting thing we saw on our drive was a place called Valley of Fires outside Carrizozo. The land was covered in black rocks that were nothing like we had ever seen. The pictures I took do not do the sight justice. I again had to check with google and discovered that we were driving though the Malpais Lava Flow. Approximately 5,000 years ago Little Black Peak erupted and flowed into the area filling it with molten rock. At this point I said, there is a volcano in New Mexico? Back to Google search to find out that New Mexico is known as “The Land of Volcanoes”. This state has the largest number, range of ages, diversity of types and range preservations of volcanoes. To make our drive even more interesting, not far after we passed the molten lava plains, our GPS blocked out a portion of our map. Again, I went into Google search to find out we were driving next to the Trinity Site, where the world’s first nuclear explosion occurred in 1945. We also stopped at a truck stop that felt like it was straight out of a slasher horror movie. The kids thought it was a neat stop because of the fun vehicles in the parking lot, but Colton and I were on guard the entire time. After we left I checked the reviews on the truck stop and we were not the only ones that had the teen slasher film vibes. Great stop if you’re into that. The owner was super friendly, but Colton and I both looked at each other and said, I’ve seen this movie and it didn’t end well. We discovered all of this on our way to our next destination and we learned so much more after we arrived to our campsite at Caballo Lake State Park.

Caballo Lake State Park was an adventure. We had a lovely mountain view and were next to the Rio Grande. Our second day there it snowed, but Colton was the only one awake early enough to see it. The snow was completely melted by the time the rest of us got out of bed. We enjoyed the campground, other than the cold showers, but there was a fun playground for the kids and a lot of people coming through. A number of fulltime RVers and fulltime RV kids to play with. Unfortunately, while Lylah was testing out her brand new bike, she ran over another goat head and flattened her tire. So we had to get that fixed during our stay. If you are ever in New Mexico, watch out for those!!

Over the weekend we took a trip to White Sands National Park. The park is next to the White Sands missile range and the San Andres Mountain range. On the way there we saw our first road runner and oryx. Colton was just in complete shock when he saw the oryx, so we had to do a little research on it. Apparently, they are native to the Kalahari Desert in Africa, and in the late 60’s early 70’s a few were released in the White Sands Missile Range. Since then, they have thrived and have greatly increased in number to the point where you can now get a tag and hunt them. To be honest, I had no idea that they existed in New Mexico, so that was a neat discovery. After we arrived at the nation park, we had fun hiking and exploring the area. Another interesting fact about the White Sands, after the kids and I did some research, we found out that some of the earliest human footprints were discovered in this area, alongside wooly mammoths and giant sloths. Their footprints remained intact because the sand is gypsum, which is what makes the white sands so unique. Unfortunately, the exact location of the prints are a secret to keep them safe. Learning new things every day.

The next day, we took a trip in the opposite direction to Albuquerque to ride the Sandia Sky Tram. The view on the tram was beautiful, but both kids were terrified. Lylah talked a big game on the way there, but as soon as the tram gained some elevation she burst into tears. Rylen, who was terrified the entire drive to Albuquerque, handled the ride like a champ. When we reached the top, the wind was cold and ridiculous, so we took a few quick pictures and ran into the restaurant for dinner. We took a few more pictures after dinner, but the kids were not enjoying the cold wind, so we didn’t spend a whole lot of time exploring. On the drive back to our RV, Rylen told us he had a loose tooth. Not 15 minutes later, we hear from the backseat “Where’d my tooth go?” Rylen’s tooth just popped right out. Don’t worry, he found it.