Recreation and a Flat Tire

From Albuquerque, we moved on east and north to the Whittington NRA Center near Raton, New Mexico.  This facility has 17 shooting ranges and two nice campgrounds.  We have stayed here several times and this visit we decided to do some shooting.

All the gunshots don't seem to phase the wildlife in  the area. We saw this mule deer in our campsite the first day we were there.

These are three of the five deer we saw one day while we walked around the campground.

There are also numerous antelope (or pronghorn) on the property.

This was a site we didn't want to see. When we went out Sunday morning, one of the tires on our truck was flat!

John used our compressor to fill the errant tire. Then we searched online and on the phone for some place in Raton that could repair the tire on a Sunday morning.

We did get the tire repaired at Mesa Tires in town and were then able to grocery shop before returning to our campsite.

On a more positive side, look at this stunning sunrise John saw one morning.

From Whittington, we were on to Colorado.

Whittington Center Campground

In three days, after our check-in at the front gate, we only spoke to 1 person in the campground at the NRA Whittington Center outside Raton, New Mexico. We know it is early in the season. Other than wind we have had great weather in the past two weeks, especially for April and early May. But this is not a time we would have gone camping before we began traveling year-round in 2009. In fact, except for one year we didn't like to go out in Colorado until after Memorial Day. This year we want to be in the Denver area before Memorial Day, so we have seen a number of uncrowded campgrounds.

This pronghorn (antelope) spent quite a bit of time in the campground yesterday.  These animals are fairly common in New Mexico, Colorado and north, but we had never seen one up this close, especially in an area often frequented by humans.  Look closely and you will see how many empty sites there were in the campground.

This is a close-up of the same pronghorn.  Not only were we able to get up close to the animal, last night as it was getting dark I was sitting in our trailer with the front door open.  I heard a sound and looked, only to discover a mule deer about 1 or 2 feet away from the door.  Amazing!

We had some great sunsets during our 3 nights at Whittington.

If you are looking for a quiet campground with full hookups and some really great sites, check out the Whittington Center, especially in early May. If you are into shooting, the center has numerous ranges for shotgun, rifle, black-powder and pistols. But if you aren't into shooting and aren't a member of the NRA, it is still a great place to stay. John is a member of NRA but we have never done any shooting there. But we enjoy camping in this place.