That’s enough of Arizona for us, we have to move on somewhere else.  We followed the same track as we did last year.  From the Phoenix basin up to Safford AZ toward New Mexico.  Last time we spent the night in a BLM area but Roxie didn’t want to do that this time so we went with the Walmart standby.

The next day we continued to our destination, Las Cruces.  We stayed there about 5 nights and were able to pick up some mail we had forwarded to General Delivery.  Our plan was to head to Texas to get a shotgun as we are Texas residents.  However, Dick’s Sporting Goods policy is to sell firearms to residents of states that touch the state they are in.  I looked into getting a gun in Arizona but Texas does not border on Arizona.  This was good news as we did not have to go to El Paso for the sole reason of purchasing the shotgun.

While we were in Las Cruces we visited the old town area of Mesilla which was very close.  It reminded us a bit of old town Albuquerque but much smaller.  Here is a cactus in bloom there and the church on the square:

After our nights in Las Cruces, we headed eastward, like before.  We went over the hills and did a lunch stopover at White Sands National Monument (we didn’t stop last year):

Last year we stayed the night in Almagordo NM at a Walmart and went on to Texas from there.  This time we headed north.

Our stop for the night was the Valley of the Fires BLM campground outside of Carrizozo NM.  This is a great little campground and I think we got the last electric and water spot.  Another bonus was the price of the campsite!  The normal price is dirt cheap at $12 but Roxie was able to get a Federal pass for being disabled.  This means at a lot of locations we can get half-price camping with this pass.  That was true here also so we did the night for $6!  It even sprinkled a bit on us while there.

On to Albuquerque!