Elephant Butte and Dodge City



We are actually back in Iowa now but I wanted to tell you about a couple places we stopped on the way from Tucson to Iowa. The first is Elephant Butte State Park in Elephant Butte NM. This is one of my favorite places. I'm always worried when I go someplace like this, that I love, that this time it won't meet my expectations but no worries there; it is still one of my favorites.
View from our campsite

The campground we stay in is actually about 8 miles north of town at South Monticello Point. The main part of the state park is in town and is ok, but this campground we feel outshines those by a mile. Now, for RVers, I need to tell you this is not a park to come to expecting lots of activities. In fact, it is just the opposite: a restful very serene place. A perfect spot to recharge. It is surrounded by mountains and buttes with a wonderful 360 degree view. We had a pull thru with a view of the reservoir. What I love most about this place is the quiet. It had little sound pollution. Sometimes I don't think we realize how noisy our world is until you come to somewhere like this. We were only there a few days and the weather wasn't great but I was still delighted to get this time here. I hope you enjoy the photos.
A sky full of Pelicans


A quick stop in Albuquerque and then on to Dodge City KS where we met up with our friends Ralph and Cheryl that were at the Diamond J with us in Tucson. We both had appointments at the Excel Service Center in Smith Center KS on the next Monday. Dodge City has a colorful history and sometimes you just need to be a tourist. Boot Hill Museum was on the agenda. It's actually a nice museum with a replica of the original main street. A lot of colorful characters came thru here, like Bat Masterson, the Erp brothers, and Doc Holiday.  I think the museum did a great job of telling the story of the old west and the fate of the Native Americans. It was the first time in our experience a museum explained how the killing of the buffalo was meant to starve the Native Americans into submission. It's really a sad story and not a good moment in our nation's history.






We also stopped by the Boot Hill Distillery. It's only been open a year. They have whiskey and vodka but no bourbon yet. The whiskey was ok but not great. They are building a spot for a new craft brewery that should be open by the end of summer. It turned out to be a nice stop.
Then on to Smith Center, but I will include that in the next post.
One last sunset at Elephant Butte

Happy Trails......................

Comments

  1. RuthMay 7, 2017 at 10:11 AM

    Elephant Butte State Park is on our list of places to see. We drove by it once when we were heading north back to Canada from Mexico but we only had the Little Blue Car with us, not the motorhome and needed to be in Saskatchewan before May 1st to start work so we unfortunately didn't have time to stop and check it out. Maybe that will be on the agenda for next spring on our way north again but this time it will be in the motorhome. :-)

    ReplyDelete
  2. heyduke50May 8, 2017 at 6:29 PM

    we have to add Elephant Butte State Park on our travels thru NM

    ReplyDelete

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