theboondork's RV blog

Comfortably ensconced

11/2/2022

Not many pics today, it was too windy.

Storrie Lake State Park, if you have to be someplace, this is one of the better places to be... Unless of course you have to be somewhere else.

It looks like the cold front caught up with me this morning because it was pretty windy when I left at 8 AM. In fact, it was windy enough, 30 mph with gusts to 40, so I probably wouldn't have left Trinidad if I had been in the Arctic Fox. But since it was a headwind, and I don't much worry about the truck turning over with the Lance in it, I decided to keep heading South even though I was getting 11 miles per gallon instead of 17 because I knew all the cold weather was right behind that wind. Also, I wanted to be someplace with inexpensive camping because it might take a few days for this front to blow over.

But despite the wind and my poor fuel mileage, I am now comfortably ensconced at Storrie Lake State Park, which is one of the places I like to be because there is enough boondocking at the Park that I can always depend on finding a spot to stay even if I show up on holiday.

The downside of Storrie Lake State Park is I've been here so many times I feel like I'm in a rut as soon as I drive through the gate. But it's got a lot of things going for it, a beautiful historic downtown, a Walmart a few miles away, and a large hardware store next door to the Walmart. Throw in the cheapest gas station in town located right in the Walmart parking lot, and for me, that's just about all the shopping I ever need.

And speaking of gas stations, I filled up with diesel fuel at that station when I got to town at $4.88 per gallon, which is the first time I've seen diesel under five dollars since I started this trip.

Theboondork

Storrie Lake state Park New Mexico Picture

My camping spot at Storrie Lake. I'm that dim white spot on the left side of the dirt road.

It looks like Autumn is still in full swing around here.

10 Comments

OFM

11/2/2022 06:04:09 pm

I like the layout of those campsites.

Tom

11/2/2022 07:51:51 pm

I like the layout to Barney, your not close together, everybody's kind of spread out. And most of the boondocking is anywhere you want to park around the lake, so there's plenty of room for everyone.

Good luck with your eyes tomorrow, I hope you have someone to drive you there and back, I'm assuming your son will, because driving will not be a safe thing to do for the next day or so.

Tom... Having toooo much fun waiting out the storm.

JUDITH

11/2/2022 07:35:45 pm

So, you're closer to warm weather now. And in a good spot, with a full tank of gas. Is there any water in the lake?

11/2/2022 08:00:24 pm

Not much Judith. Every time I come here the lake gets smaller and smaller. And even when I was here last Spring there was absolutely no water coming into the Lake.

But now the poor folks of Las Vegas have a bigger problem. Remember when I was here last time and I wrote about the forest fires they were having in the mountains outside of town? Well all that debris from the forest fire is now washing into one of the rivers and affecting the town's drinking water. Here's an article about it.

https://www.cnn.com/2022/09/03/us/las-vegas-new-mexico-water-crisis-climate/index.html

It seems like if it wasn't for bad luck they wouldn't have no luck at all.

Tom

Larry S Worsham

11/3/2022 05:08:11 am

We have stayed there several times over the years. It has been a convenient stop. Another CG we like is Oasis St. Park near Clovis, NM. Nice stop heading west as we leave TX. We've also stayed at Bottomless Lakes, Santa Rosa, Rockhound, City of the Rocks and Oliver Lee..............I guess we like NM.

Gas prices here in Central Texas are just under $3.00 but diesel is running at about $4.50+.

Any sign of fire damage around the park area?

11/3/2022 06:05:38 am

I've been to a lot of those New Mexico State Parks myself. There out of state annual camping permit is such a bargain for a full-timer like myself that it's hard to turn down. Unfortunately New Mexico is still a little chilly for my liking during the winter and that's the only thing that keeps me from spending even more time here.

All of the scary talk on the Internet about diesel fuel has got me to the point that I don't even think about the price of diesel anymore, I'm just glad it's available at any price. But I saw a glimmer of hope about the availability of diesel from some oil industry honcho that was on Fox news who gave several reasons for diesel being in short supply, but he explained how and why the situation was actually getting better, and we weren't really going to run out. It was only one guy, but he spoke with enough authority that it made me feel a little better about the situation.

I see no fire damage around the Storrie Lake area. The fire mostly stayed up in the mountains, but I can see some brown areas up there where the fire was heading downhill towards the Lake. But the fire brought other problems for the folks of Las Vegas New Mexico including this one.

https://www.krqe.com/news/city-of-las-vegas-water-crisis-averted-with-new-treatment-system/

Tom

KennyD

11/3/2022 09:09:00 am

Don't come to CA, diesel is $6.89 at our local station.

11/3/2022 09:50:04 am

Well that is a shame, but I've always assumed that California folks get used to prices like that and maybe their wages are appropriately higher to cover that increased cost-of-living. But as a tourist many years ago when I first moved to Colorado, my wages didn't allow me to spend much time in California finding it so expensive that I had to cut my vacation short, before I went broke, and have pretty much avoided the place since then.

I was discharged from the Air Force in 1969 at Travis Air Force Base near San Francisco and I spent some time being a tourist while I was there and found the place was really beautiful. But with the cost of visiting there, and news I've seen about the area I think California has lost me.

Tom

Linda

11/3/2022 01:57:16 pm

Having high winds while wanting to outrun bad weather makes decision making harder. I chose not to move if winds were higher than 25 mph but I was never outracing winter when that happened.

11/3/2022 03:52:59 pm

Yeah Linda, I knew this front was coming and I probably should've left on Halloween, but there was some Halloween celebrations at the grandkids school and I wanted to go and get some pictures of that.

If I had left town earlier I probably could've made it to the Bosque Del Apache before the winds got bad. But I'm in no hurry, I've got all winter to take pictures and I always enjoy my stay at Storrie Lake state Park.

I used to pay a lot more attention to the wind when I was pulling the Arctic Fox, and it didn't take much of a breeze to get me to pull off the road and wait for better weather. But with the Lance the wind is a lot less of a problem, but on the other hand New Mexico is famous for having winds that blow empty semi- trucks over.

Tom

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