Lots of Boondocking, and Back to Texas!

We’ve been in Colorado for about 5 weeks now, and it’s absolutely gorgeous here. I’d be remiss if I didn’t catch up on the rest of our travels, though, so here goes back to October in New Mexico!

After we left Albuquerque, we met up with friends who were also RVing. They had gone all the way up to Alaska(!) and were on their way back to Oklahoma, so we decided to meet and boondock in a park outside of Albuquerque. The area was so nice and peaceful, and we got to see so many stars at night.

It was our first time really boondocking (more than just overnight), so we got to use our gas generator to run our microwave and A/C for a bit during the day. Kudos to Rueben for setting that up!

Hanging out with our friends Cody and Michelle (and their dogs!) was awesome. It’s tough to meet others who are RVing that are actually our age, so cooking and having meals together, talking about travel…it was all so great.

This little guy (gal?) was on our hitch waiting for us to leave his spot!

After a couple of nights we decided to venture out and see where else we could stay, so we took off for the Santa Fe National Forest. It was gorgeous. I love being surrounded by trees, and being there at sunset was beautiful.

Since we were up in the mountains surrounded by trees, it was hard to actually get a cell signal for work, which is a dealbreaker for us. So, Rueben and I decided to leave the area and headed back into Albuquerque. That night we ‘camped’ at Cracker Barrel, which people call crackerdocking instead of boondocking! They have parking spots long enough for RVs and busses, so we were able to grab dinner and have a well-lit place to park overnight.

The next morning, we drove to Fort Stanton-Snowy River Cave National Conservation Area, a BLM space. BLM is Bureau of Land & Management, and they have spots all over the country (mainly on the west coast) where you can camp overnight, usually for free and without hookups. We picked a spot where we were surrounded by zero people, but a whole herd of cows!

One of the cows took an interest in our truck…

The spot was super peaceful, but we knew we couldn’t stay there long, so off we went again. We tried to camp in a couple of places on the way back to Texas (we wanted to go back to vote in the November election), but honestly…the smell of the oil rigs was too much for us. So, we drove all day and ended up in San Angelo, TX.

   

We once again boondocked, this time for a week at Twin Buttes Park. It’s quiet, right on the water, and people were coming in and out during the day to dirt bike and fish, so we weren’t completely by ourselves. The sunsets over the water were great, but the bugs…not so much.

One of the buttes

While we were somewhat excited to go ‘off-grid’ that week, it was a lot of work. Our RV’s tanks are really small, so we would run out of water after one shower. We have this huge water bladder that holds 30 gallons, so we would connect that to the RV and pump water in for showers and washing dishes, then go to town and fill the bladder up again (usually at Walmart). We also had to make sure we had enough propane to heat up our water, and figure out where to empty our black and grey tanks. A lot of work! It was still kind of fun, but having an RV with bigger tanks would have made it SO much easier.

We did get to use our solar panels and generator a lot! The solar generator lets you hook up all your devices and charge them, so we were able to work, have power, and even watch shows at night on our laptops – all with solar power.

After about 9 days of boondocking, we were ready for some really hot showers and A/C again. On to our next stop in Seguin, TX!