Dry camping at elephant Butte State Park New Mexico

You can camp right on the beach if you want to for eight dollars a night

I got to elephant Butte State Park this morning after about a half hour drive. It's been many years since I stayed here and I had forgotten how nice it was. Like all New Mexico State Parks it's very reasonably priced. There's basically three price levels of camping here, primitive, developed, and hookups. Primitive is eight dollars a night, developed is $10 a night, and hookups I believe is $18 a night.

 I'm in a developed site which has drinking water close by if I need some, a little Adobe building with a picnic table in it, and a great view. The weather is perfect I don't see how it could be any nicer. In fact its the kind of weather that makes you want to get outside and do something, so I believe I'll sit here for a while and think about what I would like to do.

This is my Dry camping Site at Elephant Butte state Park New Mexico

I dropped off the trailer at my campsite and went into town to the Walmart and got a few things that I might need, because if my plans work out I might not see another Walmart for two or three days, and for me that's a long time to go without a Walmart.

This Walmart is one of the ones with covered parking areas. I'm starting to see more and more of these in the West. They build covers to shade the areas where the cars Park and on top of the covers there are solar panels. I don't know how these systems work but it wouldn't surprise me if they didn't store the electricity to use at night but just sold it back to the power company to reduce their monthly bill. But however it works it's a win-win because the customer gets to park in the shade and Walmart gets electricity.

The view from my window

There is a lot of beach to boondock on at elephant Butte state Park

I've been thinking of where I want to go tomorrow and I have narrowed it down to three places. One is the Very Large Array,  which I've always wanted to see but it's kind of out in the middle of nowhere in the opposite direction of where I need to be heading.    I would also like to go to the Bosque Del Apache. It's a very famous bird watching area that people from all   over the world visit. But the best time to visit is in the winter when it's full of waterfowl.    Another place that looks interesting is the Valley of Fire State Park. It's in the direction I need to be going and has a giant lava flow that you camp in the middle of, how cool is that.

I guess I'll just make up my mind when I get up in the morning.

     theboondork