We said goodbye to Alamogordo this morning, but not before helping the KOA staff gather up some of the 900+ luminary sacks they had put out for Christmas Eve. It was a nice morning and we wanted to stretch our legs some before our relatively short drive (134 miles) to Rockhound State Park south of Deming, New Mexico.

The first leg of our drive took us past White Sands National Park, which we visited in the Spring of 2023. It still amazes me to see such a large area of pure white sand out in the middle of the tan desert. We also passed by Holloman AFB as well as several missile ranges including HELSTF, which we learned is the High Energy Laser Systems Test Facility operated by the US Department of Defense. The straight highway across the wide desert eventually starts curving and becomes hilly as it makes its way into the Organ Mountains.

We pulled into a random strip mall parking lot in Las Cruces for lunch when Lisa noticed that there was a cafe — Indulgence Bakery & Cafe — in the mix of shops. She looked up the menu online and found that there were several vegetarian items available so we opted to try out the cafe instead of eating in the van. It was a small place and we had to wait a few minutes for an open table, which likely meant it was a good place to eat — and it was. Highly recommend. One last thing to note, we had to take a few pics of the interesting wallpaper as seen below.

After lunch we were back on the road again, but soon it was time to pull off of I-10 toward the park. At the exit was a large tourist trap, er gift shop, called Bowlin’s Akela Flats, that had been heavily advertised with large colorful signs for the last mile or so. Naturally, we were curious, so we popped in to use the restrooms and to see the Desert Bot, their newest attraction.

We arrived at Rockhound State Park and were greeted by one of the RV park’s camp hosts, who was very welcoming and escorted us to our site. The park opened in the 60’s, but the campground appears to be fairly new. We wanted to take advantage of the warm sun so we quickly set out on a hike and enjoyed the rest of the day here.