Back to Colorado

Wednesday we left Benson headed east. On our way to Deming, NM, we crossed the Continental Divide at 4,585 feet above sea level. That makes me want to laugh. In Colorado, the divide is at 11,000 to 12,000 feet. We often cross it on a high mountain pass, like Berthoud or Vail or Loveland Pass. There was nothing high about the divide near the US-Mexican border. It was marked only by a sign along the highway and a gas station and store that hyped the Continental Divide with billboards for several miles.

We drove to Deming, NM, a town we have stayed in at least twice before. This trip we stayed at the Dream Catcher RV Park, another Escapees park. This park isn't restricted to Escapees members only, but many of the RVs there had the Escapees logo. We paid only $12 plus electricity ($2.09) and tax for the night.

Today we headed north, the direction we will be going till Saturday when we reach the Denver area where we own a home. This is the third time in just over one year that we have stayed in the Isleta Casino RV Park on the south edge of Albuquerque. The park has large sites, good restrooms, good hookups, inexpensive gas and several lakes where the locals fish. Today we enjoyed walking around the lakes twice, putting in just over three miles. That is good exercise for us on a travel day.

Since we have been in the southern US recently, we have missed most of the fall colors. As we traveled north out of Deming this morning we began to see some colorful trees along the Rio Grand River Valley. I had to take photos of the trees here surrounding the Isleta Lakes.

Two photos of the fall color at Isleta Lakes

On our way, we drove through Hatch, NM, the home of the most famous chili peppers in the US—or at least in the western US. We stopped for a few minutes and bought a ristra—a string of peppers. I chose one that had red, green and yellow peppers.