SATURDAY 26th FEBRUARY 2011 297969

We woke this morning to brilliant sunshine, and which ever way we turned we could see mountains.

Very good scenery.  Wonder if we will feel the same when we have travelled over these mountains.

After breakfast I sat out a while not needing any sweaters today.   The forecast for the day sounds pretty good too.  But not so good for our arrival in Tucson.   It appears there is a cold winter front to reach there in time for our arrival tomorrow.  We are hoping their winter is rain, not snow.

All packed and ready to leave at 9.45 a.m.   As we were pulling out, can you guess who we saw parked about 6 sites from us?  Yes, you got it.  The older Class C camper we passed in Georgia.  Wonder if they are heading to Tucson as well.

Just a few miles from the State Park we saw three deer having breakfast at the side of the road.  Two took off as we approached, but one was quite brave and just watched us drive by.

The mountains became much larger and very impressive as we progressed along the road.  How many mountain pictures can I take?

Rode along the two lane highway 7 then onto I-10 and stopped in Kent for gas.   We could see the large Texaco sign, but when we pulled off the road to go there we found that Kent no longer existed.  It was a ghost town.  Back on to I-10 again..

We saw quite a few horses running along a fielded area next to the Interstate.  Then we realised they were actually wild horses.  The road was even named "Wild Horse Drive".

Stopped for a while just west of Van Horn at a look out point.   Very picturesque area.

                         You can see how the "shrubs" are looking very different here.

It really was a wonderful spot to take a walk around.   You can see we were quite a way up the mountain.

A short distance from the look out point, on the North side, was a Border Control Area where there were quite a few Mexicans awaiting a ride back to Mexico!



                   Here we are heading to El Passo.  Not really very busy around here.

 

Good ride into New Mexico.  Took so many pictures, we don't know which to publish here.   It is all so different from anything we have seen before.

We too had to go through a border control .  There were two cars ahead of us and the first one in  line drove the "sniffer" dog crazy.  So that car was asked to pullover, and the wonderful looking German Shepherd could not wait to get to the car.

Lucky for all of us in the line up we were just told "Thank You, Have a good trip."  The person in the little black car was not so lucky!

It was a good ride through to Las Cruces, but we did not hang around there as it is supposed to be the "Murder Capital" of the world.  Must admit it did not look too bad though.

We headed to Rock Hound State Park, which was right at the base of the mountain.  So pretty.  But, could not get any site with hook ups and although the scenery was really great, we did not feel comfortable with the park.   So we headed into Deming and treated ourselves to a very nice Hotel with Restaurant and Cocktail Lounge.

Time to relax - 4.15 p.m.   298466
Free Internet here so did some blog, e-mails and skype before going for dinner then to the lounge for a night cap - or two!

Very cool and windy, forecast still for bad weather.  Probably good choice to be in the Hotel tonight..