Bottomless Lakes State Park, New Mexico

This state park is a very scenic area, and one of our favorite stops as there is a place where Shiner can swim, but this time we aren’t doing much “touring”, it’s a stop to catch up on a few things that didn’t get done before we left, run errands, and just relax.

We arrived Friday after a short drive from Brantley Lake. Hot weather, brilliant blue skies with huge clouds, and a bit of an afternoon breeze made things very comfortable, if a bit on the warm side. We puttered at a few chores, getting technology set up, working out the bugs in several systems and making up a short shopping list.

Saturday was shopping day. We haven’t spent much time in the city of Roswell before, so this trip into town gave us an opportunity to venture down a few side streets.

First of course comes a quilt shop. I found some great fabric at the Calico Cow, which has a nice selection of Southwestern fabrics, and I really enjoyed my visit there.

Perfect souvenirs

Steve relaxed with an iced coffee at the shop next door, and then we proceeded with the rest of the shopping.

We haven’t tried the locally produced Alien beer yet but it’s on ice… we’ll report on it later. On the way out of town we passed the New Mexico Military Institute. We’d seen signs on the highway pointing to the facility, but we were amazed when we actually saw it. The campus is huge, with a multitude of brick buildings, all with the “castle parapet” look of the Corp of Engineers logo, if you’ve seen that. Their website says “Located in Roswell, New Mexico, the New Mexico Military Institute  offers a rich history and tradition of educating tomorrow’s leaders through a program of strong, challenging academics, leadership

preparation, and character development. Known as “The West Point of the West,” NMMI remains the only state-supported co-educational college preparatory high school and junior college in the United States. “ And I might add, that campus is a very impressive facility.

Roswell is famous for aliens, but that image is getting a bit worn out now – they need another visit to refresh the image I think! It’s pretty much just a typical southwestern town. We finished the shopping for groceries, the post office, pet store, etc. – boring stuff but gotta do it, then back to camp to stow everything away.

And then the afternoon zephyr hit.

We frequently hit extreme weather here, and this visit is no exception. In 2013 we were here for a monsoon, which was pretty amazing. This time, about 3 o’clock in the afternoon the wind picked up, and up, and up, and soon everyone’s tents were laid flat, sun-shade tarps bowed like giant sails, lawn chairs tumbled… you get the picture. Some folks were a little more prepared than others and had things battened down early, so they scurried around and assisted the Johnny-come-latelies with gathering up their wind battered belongings. Little rain accompanied the dark clouds this time, but the wind certainly sent us all scurrying. Shiner thought it was very strange that we had all the awnings pulled in and all our chairs and tables were wrapped up on the picnic table, as this is not our usual procedure. I will say, thanks to gathering everything up to save it from the wind we are pretty much packed up and ready to go tomorrow morning!