Leasburg Dam & Percha Dam–NM State Parks

We traveled from Lordsburg NM thru the country, avoiding I-10 & Las Cruces, to arrive at Leasburg Dam SP. The staff was super friendly & helpful, & we purchased an annual pass for $225. Since we bought the pass on March 1st, we get 13 months of free boondocking at NM State Parks. . .until the end of March 2015.

There was a reservable site (#24) available for one night ($4) so we took it, waiting for more developed sites (dry) to open up. It was really nice & we enjoyed our night there. We had to move the next day tho, but there was still only one boondocking site (#10) available for us. It was laid out strangely with parking on the east or north sides of a rock shelter with walls/windows on the east & west sides & a half wall on the north, facing away from any parking area. This left our trailer door on the opposite side from the shelter AND having to walk around to the south side to enter the shelter. It was just not comfortable nor convenient. And since Monday was cloudy & windy, we just didn’t like that spot. Besides, Jeff’s refill meds had already arrived at the Radium Springs post office, so we just moved on north up I-25 to check out more state parks.

We found our way to the Percha Dam State Park (actually part of the Caballo Lake State Park) & were thrilled. We were the only campers in the dry section & had a number of cottonwood trees around, some with brand new Spring-green leaves, & lots of birds singing. In fact, it must be dove mating season because they’ve been making lots of noise. Saw a robin & a western bluebird too.

We’ve meet up with & gone to lunch with Emily (of Emily’s Adventures in Retirement blog) & housemate Jim who moved from Ellis KS to the house Geri & Chuck sold them after moving back to Florida. It’s been fantastic talking with Emily about a half-dozen shared acquaintances (mostly Casita owners). Emily makes the most adorable ribbon wind catchers & she very graciously gave me one — in two-tone Casita blue colors. Since she says it will fade quickly from the sun, I found a way to hang it by the bathroom window. . .out of the sun.

Other than four vehicles with several adults & numerous children noisily arriving after dark on Friday night (& waking me up), we’ve had lots of peace & quiet. Thankfully, that group left early the next morning. We talked with Hank, a Scamp 5er resident, parked at the electric sites while walking his dog. Also have nearly daily conversations with the park host Ray. We also had a visit from Bill & Kathy who are staying in their camper while their house in Elephant Butte (next to Truth or Consequence) is having repairs. He is a retired electrical engineer & enjoys messing around with solar panels for boondocking. Ironically, he is the man who helped RVSue get her solar panel set up a couple of years ago. It’s indeed a very small world! And he thinks our current two-90W solar collectors & two 12v AGM batteries are configured correctly & doing a perfect job. Whew. . .we’ve really had to tweak this setup to get the most out of it as possible. But it’s worth all the effort because we enjoy boondocking (dry camping) so much more than being squeezed into an RV park.

The weather has been comfortable for the most part (a few windy days tho) while the US east of NM continues to have one winter storm after another. We’ll stay here at Percha Dam until Monday when our two weeks is up, then move over to the Riverside boondocking area below Caballo Dam. It’s just across the Rio Grande & I-25 from us & can almost be seen thru the bare trees.

We’ll hang out in NM using our Annual Pass until mid-to-late April (possibly even the first part of May) until winter has finally ended in MO & AR. I’ve gotten our taxes done & bank account reconciled & recorded in a spreadsheet, so now it’s time to kick back & read some e-books. Oh, have you noticed the price of propane has nearly doubled due to the high demand back East? Ech!!

Life is good!

No photos for this post, just been happy veggin’.