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Wallace Hughes 5/15/25 Wallace Hughes 5/15/25

Back to New Mexico

We left the Carolinas in mid March. We spent a week at a Village Creek State Park in Arkansas. It’s a nice park that is well cared for and has a nice quiet campground. After that, we stopped back in at the Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge. We really enjoyed our stay back here in the fall and it was even better with cooler weather for this stop. We explored some new parts of the refuge and will likely stop here again one day.

In the fall we had visited northern New Mexico. On this trip we would stop in central and western NM. Our first stop was in Clovis at an alpaca farm. It was just a quick one night stop but enjoyed hanging out with the alpacas and learning a bit about them. Our first week long stop was in Oliver Lee State Park, just outside Alamogorda, NM. It’s a nice little park backed right up against the mountains. It’s a typical desert environment. There were several trails to hike and the cactus and chollas were starting to bloom. While were we here we did visit the White Sands National Park.

One of the chollas in bloom. It’s surprising to see such bright colors in the desert.

While driving to go to the Organ Mountains NM, we ran across several of these Oryx. They were brought here from Africa for hunting purposes and they have thrived in this environment.

The state park adjoins the national forest and adds to the seclusion of the park.

We’re not sure why but Nika loves sand. She prances even more than usual in it.

We borrowed some saucers from the camp host and all went sledding on the sand.

Our next stop for the week would be near Silver City but we would make a one night visit to City Of Rocks State Park along the way. This giant pile of rocks just seems to pop up out of nowhere amidst the scrubland in central NM. The campsites tuck into the nooks and crannies of the rocks. Silver City is a cute little city that seems to be having a rebirth of it’s downtown area.

Quite an unusual little park with these racks that seemed to have been dumped in a random place.

A nice quiet spot for the night at City of Rocks.

Downtown Silver City, before anyone is up.

We then headed up the road to Cosmic Campground. It is in the Gila National Forest and is a primitive camp, with no electric or water. We camped at one of the dispersed sites off the road into the campground. While we stayed here we visited the Mogollon ghost town, Mineral Creek canyon and the Catwalk Recreation area.

Back in the mining days, they used catwalks to move supplies and materials up and down the canyon. Some of that hardware is still in the rock. The forest service added this catwalk for the public to have an interesting way to get into this tight canyon. We visited this twice and the second time, it started snowing on us.

We really enjoyed the Catwalk with the different views of the creek and canyon walls.

The Mineral creek canyon had to be explored on foot, repeatedly crossing the creek and getting wet feet. It had lots of different colors in the rock walls and had this small arch in one of the walls.

Wallace Hughes 4/5/25 Wallace Hughes 4/5/25

Home Again

Well, sort of. Although we don’t have a fixed home, the Carolinas do feel like home for us. After we left the Wichitas we did stop in Tennessee for a week as we made our way back. We stopped at an Army Corps campground along Caney Fork River. It was late October and the trees were showing the fall colors. We spent the winter in the Carolinas and got to visit with family and friends, Our other goal was to get medical stuff all taken care of while in a familiar area. The critters went to the vet while we took care of dentist and doctor visits.

November 2024. This maple was showing off right behind our camper when we stopped at a state park in Arkansas for one night on our way back.

This lookout tower was at a state park next to the Army Corps campground we stayed at in Tennessee.

For most of the time, we stayed with family or friends, parking in their yard for a week at a time. Then we would dump tanks and move to a different yard. We did spend one week at Lake Hartwell, near Clemson, SC and also went down to the coast for 2 weeks. We stayed at the Buck hall campground, right on the intracoastal waterway. Both of these were nice, quiet campgrounds. They had quite a few campers on the weekend, but most left on Sunday or Monday. Over the winter we did get snowed on twice.

The camper’s first snow was only a couple of inches.

When we sold our home, we loaded up and set off in the camper we had bought about a year before. We got this one intending to use it for weekend trips and for spending 2-4 weeks at a time in it. We didn’t have any plans of going full time when we bought it. After being in it for 2 months, we realized we needed some things that this camper didn’t have. The first was counter space in the kitchen. We rarely go out to eat and cook almost all our food. We really needed some space to prep without having to clear off the dish rack or move stuff off the dining table. We also needed to be able to stock up on enough food to go a week at a time between grocery runs. We want to go camp in the middle of nowhere at times but really couldn’t fit enough in with the typical RV fridge. Another major thing we needed was bigger holding tanks. If we want to go camp off grid for a week, we need to be able to have enough space for water.

Sunrise at Buck Hall Recreation Area, near Charleston, SC. We spent almost two weeks here and it was a nice, quiet campground with less than 20 sites. They are supposed to renovate it this year. We hope it will be open next winter for us to visit again.

It did snow on us again while we were at the coast. Well, it was more like sleet. We got about 3” of sleet, all night. This was the same storm that dumped nearly 12” on New Orleans. It was quite chilly and it stuck around for several days.

Another sunrise at Buck Hall. We did get to see some dolphins in the intracoastal.

So, we did a bunch of research in those final weeks on the road and decided to get a Grand Design 2500RL. It has a nice kitchen with lots of cabinets and counters. The fridge runs off 12 volts, whereas a traditional RV runs off propane or typical house power. Those require more space for the mechanicals. This fridge has almost 50% more space in it. The holding tanks on it are large enough to allow us to go a week without dumping. I will need to refill the fresh water tank but that’s fairly easy to do. We use about 15 gallons per day.

Moving Day. Moving homes has never been so easy. We were completely moved in less than 2 hours.

We added 800 watts of solar on the roof and 4 lithium batteries. We should have plenty of power to go off grid for a week at a time.

The sofa was here. We pulled out the dinette and put the sofa over there. Then we built this cabinet and desktop. Shawna will have a good workspace where she can leave her computer out and still have room to eat. It is working nicely and gives us a nice view with our meals.

This layout works much better. This camper has lots of windows to make it bright and open feeling. If you’re curious, here’s a link without more details and layout on our camper.
https://www.granddesignrv.com/travel-trailers/imagine/2500rl

The truck we had was rated to haul the new camper but it didn’t feel like there was enough spare cushion in how the load felt for those instances when something unexpected happens. And it will. I can’t count how many times people have cut us off because they don’t want to be behind the trailer, even when they are about to get off the highway. So, we upgraded to a Ram 2500, that has tons of spare load rating for our trailer.

Yet another sunrise picture from Buck Hall.

Wallace Hughes 3/28/25 Wallace Hughes 3/28/25

The Wichitas

The Wichita Mountain National Wildlife Refuge covers almost 60,000 acres in southwestern Oklahoma. The mountains aren’t terribly tall, topping out at 2479 feet. What they lack in height, they do make up for in interesting features. They are made up of highly eroded Quanah granite. They have a very rough and lumpy texture with lots of boulders, with a reddish-orange color. In many cases, it seems like just piles of boulders dumped in large heaps. The mountains are mixed with prairies for plenty of grazing.

October 2024 From up on one of those rock piles, just above Heart Rock.

We got to explore some the trails here and visit some of the many lakes that are spread around . Just taking a drive on the roads was enjoyable as the scenery of the plains and mountains makes a wonderful backdrop. Heading out early in the morning would guarantee plenty of animals sightings on the drive. They do have bison jams but they are much smaller than Yellowstone’s. A herd here might have 20-30 bison, instead of hundreds. Even in mid day, you could find some bison somewhere on the drive. To find elk, we would have to go out early or closer to dusk. They tend to have a healthier fear of vehicles and people, so it is harder to get a good picture of them.

He’s busy munching on the grass. It must take a lot of grass to support that mass.

On a cool, drizzly morning there were quite a few elk around. There are about 1000 of them in the refuge, while the bison are under 500.

They eventually turned around and went back to the field they were in.

There are also longhorn cattle that roam the refuge. We’ve seen them in the campground.

In addition to these animals there is plenty of other wildlife. There are lots of turkeys with a large flock that seem to live in the campground. One morning we had a coyote cross the road just in front of us and then stalk through the high grass and occasionally pounce on things. There is an area that has a small prairie dog colony. We did see them but didn’t get near enough for any pictures. They are prone to carrying diseases. We did not get to see any river otters or burrowing owls that they are supposed to have.

This guy is an Eastern Collared Lizard, also known as a mountain boomer. He is laying on a log near our firepit.

This is the dam on the south side of Quanah Parker lake. The campground is on the west side of the lake.

One of the small lakes, early in the morning.

One of the trails leads to this small canyon, called 40 Foot Hole.

Several of the hikes lead to or go around lakes in the refuge. This is the dam for Post Oak Lake.

This is zoomed in with the phone so the quality isn’t great but you can see the Crab Eyes.

The relief gate from French Lake drops into this cool spiral drain.

Our stay at Wichita Mountains NWR was very enjoyable. There was lots to see and do. The campground was very nice and it was nearly silent at night. During the day we could hear artillery rounds sometimes, as Fort Sill shares a border with the refuge. At the other end of the refuge you could frequently hear fighter jets on maneuvers during the day. Our biggest complaint would be the heat. In October it was still pretty hot and we needed AC on most afternoons. Our only other complaint would be the wildfire.

On Thursday afternoon I noticed smoke as I headed back to camp from a hike. It wasn’t thick but it was there. The camp host said there was brush fire north of the main road, a couple miles from the campground. In the morning I spoke to one of the staff and they said the fire was blowing back over an area that already burned so it shouldn’t pose a threat. By noon the wind had changed again and we started having a forest service helicopter coming in and picking up water from the lake nearby. The smoke was definitely getting thicker and the smell was quite strong. By 2:00, we were all told to evacuate the campground. It wasn’t a rush but they wanted everyone gone. Two of the entrances to the refuge were cut off by now so we had to leave by a different route than we wanted and make a wide trip around that added about 2 hours to our drive that day. The Rush fire burned over 12,000 acres before it was contained. We were going to be heading out the next morning so it only cut short our visit by one day. It’s time for us to head back to the Carolinas for winter.

Sunrise on Friday morning. The smoke adds some color to it.

I took this picture as we were leaving the refuge. We are actually back at the refuge as I type this(late March). The wildfire was mainly a brush fire and only burned fallen leaves, grass and low brush. Since October grasses have grown back and you can hardly tell that 12,000 acres.

Wallace Hughes 3/5/25 Wallace Hughes 3/5/25

Oklahoma……………Who Knew?

Back in October of 2022, we took our camper and the dogs to Texas and visited Big Bend National Park. Big Bend was a wonderful place to visit with lots of different landscapes and what might be the darkest sky in the Lower 48. The night sky was truly amazing there. On the drive out to Texas we took I-10, and absolutely hated that stretch of road. It is more boring than driving through hours of cornfields in Iowa. Then you hit that damn causeway over the swamp in Louisiana and that will make anyone seasick. To avoid that on our way back, we went north and took a right on I-40, heading East to get back to NC.

After visiting Big Bend NP, we headed north. Driving up through the oilfields of central Texas is no treat, either. It is flat and desolate with nothing on the horizon but oil equipment and smells atrocious, as oil refining always does. I can’t imagine living near that. We thought it would go on forever and figured that Oklahoma would be much of the same. We were pleasantly surprised that the terrain changed fairly soon after entering OK, with actual trees and pastures. As we headed east we even saw some fall color. Not like we’d see back home but it was a nice taste and quite a relief after the oilfields of TX.

When planning this trip we did some research as we knew we would probably be spending a week in OK, while Shawna worked, on our return trip. One of the Youtube channels we came across had some nice trips from his time in the Wichita Mountains. Yes, mountains in OK. As we did more looking we found a couple of spots that we would like to explore so we made some reservations and our first stop would be Quartz Mountain State Park.

Quartz Mountain is a very well cared for park in Wichita Mountain range. It is nestled in between the mountains and Lake Altus-Lugert. It’s not very big but it has plenty of trails and packs a lot of scenery in, especially when you didn’t expect much. In the week we were there we did hike most of the trails they have. These mountains are fairly low and are mainly rocky bumps with patches of dirt. It makes for an interesting landscape, particularly with the lake as an ever present neighbor.

Overlooking the lake on the Twin Peaks Trail.

With Shawna’s somewhat recent foot surgeries, the trails here were great for her. They are rugged enough to get you a workout and the terrain is challenging but they are not terribly long or so steep as to be a problem with some of the stiffness that she still has. We got to hike a couple of times in the evening and enjoyed more of them on the weekend.

The girls looking over the lodge and the lake.

There are several different campgrounds in the park. There are some by the lake and more along the river. By the time we made reservations we got a spot that backed up to the hills. There is a lot of wildlife in the park. There are lots of deer that are almost tame from the constant exposure to traffic and people. There were 6 that spent most of their time in our camping loop or across the street in the picnic area. This did not sit well with the girls. There was quite a bit of barking and whining going on. We saw some armadillos on the trails and even a porcupine crossing the road.

The view from the Cedar Valley Trail. The old Wallace Ranch below. You can also see the dam and river.

Us on a sunrise hike. This is our favorite time of day. The light is great for pictures and we beat the crowds, not that there were many people here.

Sunrise over the lake. It was windy most of the time while we were here. I think it kicks up dust and sand and adds to the orange glow on the horizon.

Shawna heading back down the New Horizons Trail.

The dam that creates Lake Altus-Lugert was finished in 1947 after being delayed during WW II. There was a smaller dam at the site that was built after the town of Altus was razed by a tornado in 1902.

These deer were quite happy to hang out nearby all day.

This trail is just under the Baldy Point climbing area.

I was able to catch a picture of the porcupine with my phone.

The Lodge at Quartz Mountain is very nice and reminiscent of a national park lodge. Just on a smaller scale. It has very interesting architecture and they display sculptures and art in the hallways and gathering areas. The hotel rooms have an excellent view by the edge of the lake. The original lodge was built by the CCC but it burned down in 1995. The park has art studios and offers programs and scholarships for students. There is a very cool stone amphitheater and they have a large preforming arts hall. Quite the treasure they have here.

While we were here, Comet A3 Atlas was making it’s approach, so we got another astronomical treat on this trip. I should have gotten the good camera out and set it up but the iphone took some pretty decent shots of it. It has a tail that is 80 million miles long and won’t be back again for 80,000 years.

Comet Atlas A3 over the Red River. I was hoping to get a reflection but it didn’t work out.

Quartz Mountain State Park is definitely an underrated destination. It is a wonderful park and we truly enjoyed our stay here. So far, Oklahoma showed us that there are some real treasures where you don’t expect them. Let’s wander down the road and explore these Wichita Mountains some more.

Wallace Hughes 2/22/25 Wallace Hughes 2/22/25

Northern Lights

As we made our way back to the Carolinas, our next stop was at Santa Rosa Lake State Park. This would be our final stop in New Mexico for this trip. The lake was created by damming up the Pecos River and is another lake that is seriously low due to drought conditions. We spent a week here and there were several trails to hike on. Getting out at sunrise always presents some interesting views. There are always some unique plants to find in a new place.

Sunrise over Santa Rosa Lake. October 2024

A canyon on the Pecos River, below the dam.

A unique plant that was covered with tiny purple flowers. I had to zoom in because they are so small and then the camera couldn’t focus too well.

An interesting silhouette of this spiky plant. It seems most plants in NM are spiky. I think this one is called staghorn cholla.

A picture of the same plant with some good light. You can see how the ends get some yellow growth. Almost looks like clusters of bananas.

One day we went to see the sights in the small town of Santa Rosa. It lies in a pretty barren area that once had the thriving Route 66 come right through town. Now Interstate 40 runs parallel and across the main drag in a lazy X. Back in it’s day, it was busy little town during tourist season, as evidenced by all of the motels that were here. A few motels are still in use but most have fell into disrepair or have been converted to apartments or other uses. Near the interstate exchanges are the modern hotels like Hampton and Econolodge. It is still a cute town but it’s definitely past it’s prime. The most popular attraction these days is the classic car museum. Another interesting place is the Blue Hole. It is a spring and pond, 80’ across and 80’ deep with incredibly clear water. It’s a popular spot for scuba training and several state police showed up the morning we were there to do some diving but we had to go before they were ready to get in.

Some very interesting details on this church. St Rose of Lima Catholic Church.

Cool monument on the courthouse square lawn.

The crystal clear water of the Blue Hole.

By far though, the highlight of this stop was getting to see the Northern Lights. We knew that there was a chance of seeing them pretty far south on this night but we didn’t expect to really see them this far down in central NM. We waited a while after the sun went down and it was quite dark to look. We couldn’t see anything visible but the camera on our phones could pick it up. Since we were on Eastern time we went to bed thinking we got shut out and the show wasn’t going to get to us. Shortly after we had been in bed, one of the camping neighbors was calling out like Paul Revere, as she went down the road, that you could see the Lights now.

This was the shot taken early when we couldn’t see any of the color.

I ran out quick to see and they were easily visible. So, we got back out of bed and stayed outside for over an hour watching the lights. I think all of the campers were out enjoying the wonderful colors in the sky, too.

We were thrilled that we got such a good show.

Shawna taking a picture from our campsite as it started to dwindle.

Seeing the Northern Lights is something that has been high on our list for years but we just haven’t gone far enough north to see them yet. We were amazed that they came so far down to give us this excellent show. One day we’ll make it to Alaska or Iceland to see the Aurora in full display but we’re quite satisfied for now.