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| Irrigated pecan trees |
We had stopped at Santa Rosa last year,
and since it was on our way to Bluewater Lake, it was a good fit. On
our way, Rich noticed one of the trailer tires was low, so we stopped
in a little town called Artesia to get it fixed. Artesia was named in
1903 for the artesian aquifer benneath the town. This water helped
the town thrive until the 1920's, when the aquifer was significantly
depleted. Now, the major draw is oil, but we saw fields of what I
believe are pecan trees – some fields flooded and some waiting for
irrigation. While at the tire store, one of the men there mentioned
that a meth lab in town had blown up the night before, but we saw no
evidence of it. We stopped at a little Mexican cafe restaurant called
La
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| La Herradura |
Herradura on our way out of town – it was in a neighborhood that
had seen hard times, and the cafe was in a metal building. We
persisted because of the great reviews on TripAdvisor and Yelp and
one of the fellows at the tire store and we were happy we had. We had
some wonderful chorizo and egg burritos and the best (and spiciest)
red sauce either of us have ever had.
After leaving Artesia, we drove through
what seemed like a pump-jack forest in the middle of the desert –
and it appeared that they were all
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| Big feed lot |
pumping oil for all they were
worth, and one of the largest feed lots I've ever seen. Roswell was a
hoot - all sorts of extraterrestrial figures and the like. I almost
wished we had been able to stop and take more photos! After Roswell
we drove across more desert, one spot had an irrigated field that had
a crop of some sort growing and that was quite a contrast to the
surroundings. Eventually mountains began to show on the horizon, then
nothing but desert again with a snow fence along the road. As we
neared Santa Rosa, the dark clouds began to pile up and we expected
at least a gully washer if not a tornado, but nary a drop of water
fell to the ground. These dry thunderstorms are often the culprits in
wildfires.
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| Roswell signs |
We arrived at Santa Rosa Lake with no
further problems and set up quickly as storm clouds began to bear
down on us. Just as we finished, it started to sprinkle, winds
whipped up and the temperature dropped from the high 80's to 56. In
spite of the questionable weather, there was little rain and the
storm seemed to blow over within minutes. We had a nice, wide-open
site this time and I realized why I hadn't really liked the place
before: there was a big berm across the back of our small site and
because we were in a pull-through site, I felt claustrophobic! Go
figure. We arrived fairly late (for us), and since we
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| Roswell signs |
had to unhook
because of the amount of leveling we had to do we decided to try
Almanza's Mexican restaurant since it had fairly good reviews on
TripAdvisor, and there isn't much to choose from in Santa Rosa.
Unfortunately, the reviews were about two stars too high and our meal
was lousy. Of course, we won't waste away without dinner one evening!
After a good night's sleep, we'll head
out to Bluewater Lake in Prewitt, NM.
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| See the two store signs? Notice the street light |
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| Little green man outside a cell phone store |
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| A normal-looking building in Roswell |
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| Roswell |
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Roswell little green men
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