October 18, 2021

I’m settling into Moho travel mode, sort of. This trip is a multipurpose adventure. First and foremost, seeing my niece Karen, her husband Jeremy, my sister, and my grand nephew Alex, who is three years old and I have never met him. Secondly, I’m trying to determine if I will keep the Moho or sell it. Friday, Saturday and Sunday I was in travel mode, basically getting up, preparing the Moho for travel and hitting the road. Even though I try to keep things simple, it takes time to get rolling. Both Friday and Saturday nights, I was parked in a pull thru, allowing me to keep the truck attached, eliminating that step, but I still do the pre flight checks confirming the attachment points, wiring and functionality of the lights. After bringing in the slides, retracting the jacks, airing up the bags and brake system, I’m ready to roll. 

Fuel stops, even with a high volume truck stop pump, still take quite awhile to pump 70 gallons of diesel, go inside twice to pay, since most truck stops only accept commercial fuel cards and not credit cards at the pump. You don’t even want to know how long it takes at a normal diesel pump vs the truck stops.

I also travel at a much slower speed and do less distance in a day with the Moho compared to the truck. 60 - 62 mph vs 75 - 80 mph, 250-300 miles vs 450 -500 miles. Although I have lots of miles and experience behind the wheel of the Moho, it still takes much more concentration than just driving the truck. Even arriving at a spot for the night takes longer to get settled, dump the air, lower the jacks, extend the slides. I usually only plug in the electric cord and just run off my tanks, only hooking up water and sewer when I need to dump and fill, which is usually only once every 7-10 days. That’s the only advantage of traveling solo in the Moho, my tanks last twice as long. LOL

The comforts associated with the Moho are a double edge sword. In bad weather or cold temperatures, the creature comforts are very nice, but with nice weather, I find myself spending too much time indoors, living as opposed to camping, where as with Enzo, I live outside and usually only sleep inside. Anyway, I’ll figure it all out by the time I get to Benson, AZ, maybe. :)

I have been primarily relying on a paid app called daysenddirectory.com to find inexpensive camping spots. I like the app, and it’s a community supported app. The community primarily consists of fellow Escapee Club members.

Saturday night, I stayed in Hapgood RV Park, $15 FHU, pull thru 30 amp in the town of Heinretta, TX.

                                                                Hapgood RV Park

For the Sunday, Monday and Tuesday nights I’m camped at a Corp of Engineers campground on Wright Patman Lake near Maud, TX, $39 for 3 nights, water, 50 amp electric, pull thru site with a view of the lake thru the trees. I got quite the shock on arrival. I had checked the website and saw that there were many sites available, so I figured I’d just drive in and grab a site. Not so easy with some recent changes. What I learned upon arrival, was that they can’t take payment on site. I had to pick out a site, then call recreation.gov, stay on hold for ten minutes, make a reservation, get transferred to a payment specialist, give that person my credit card info, get an email confirmation and then the gate attendant gave me my entrance tag. But still with my senior parks pass, $13 a night is pretty cheap for a huge 50amp, pull-thru site.

          My pull thru site at Malden Lake Campground on Wright Patman Lake, near Maud, TX

Wednesday I’ll hit the road again and stop in Vicksburg for the night, then on to the Mobile, AL area, probably arrive a day early unless something catches my eye along the way.

Tight lines and safe travels

Left CORA and went to Sugarite Canyon State Park, 10/15/21

 October 15, 2021

Monday, 10/11/21, was the first day traveling in the Motorhome since arriving at CORA on May 5, 2021. I had planned to leave CORA on Saturday, 10/16/21, give or take a snowstorm. The weather forecast was for snow Tuesday and Thursday, so I decided to head out ahead of any snow. I spent the last couple of days winterizing the hot tub, moving stuff into the Moho and finally winterizing the cabin.

Monday morning I woke to 28 degrees. I triple checked that everything was secure in the cabin and then triple checked the moho and the tow bar and truck setup before hitting the road at 9:15 am. It was a gorgeous, clear. sunny day, most of the Aspens around CORA had dropped their leaves, but as I headed south from Hartsell to Guffy and on to Canon City, the colors were isolated but vibrate.

                          A large pull off on Hwy 9 south of Hartsell, just before Guffy

I expected some holiday traffic, but evidently I was ahead of it, that was until I pull into a rest area off I-25 at noon for lunch and there wasn’t any large parking spots left. Then next one was an hour down the road, so lunch was delayed. I’m always a bit apprehensive when the Moho has sat idle for any extended period of time, but it seemed to run fine. I was heading for Sugarite Canyon State Park, just south of Raton, NM, about 228 miles from CORA. The park’s website was a bit strange with regards to making a reservation, so I thought I’d wait until today and give them a call. The office was closed but the message indicated that all campgrounds except Lake Anna were closed and Lake Anna was first come, first serve. My luck was incredible. I arrived to find that only a few sites would hold a 40ft rig and most were occupied. I did manage to get a nice site and I settled in. Within the hour, four other large RVs came in and they took the remaining larger sites. NM state parks are pretty inexpensive, my water/electric site was $14. There were vault toilets in the campground and showers near the visitor center, albeit, not needed since I was in the Moho. The sites had a picnic table and a large bear box. There was zero connectivity, my choice to get any cell coverage was a 6 mile drive or a 3 mile uphill hike.

Tuesday, 10/12/21, it was cold, cloudy and rainy off and on. I went for short walks but it always seem to start raining after a short time, so I spent most of the day inside organizing the Moho.

                                                                       Site #10

Wednesday was a warm, clear sunny day. I drove 37 miles to Capulin Volcano National Monument, hiked a short 2.5 mile trail before driving to the upper parking lot. There is a very steep, paved 1 mile loop trail that goes to the top of the volcano’s crater rim. From the top I had an incredible 360 degree, 100 mile view. According to the placard, I was able to see as far as Oklahoma to the East and the San de Christo Mountains in Colorado. 

                                          The views from the top of Capulin Volcano

There was also a short trail that lead to the bottom of the volcano’s plugged crater. 

I got back to camp relatively early and met my neighbor, George from Louisiana. We talked for awhile and then decided to hike the Deer Run Trail (2.5 mies one way) to the closed Soda Pocket Campground, 700 feet above us. Nancy and I had camped a few times at Soda Pocket Campground and we always enjoyed it, so I excused myself and scattered some of Nancy’s ashes. George and I really hit it off and when we got back to camp, he invited me for a steak dinner at his campsite. I contributed a salad and a bottle of wine. I had a great time, I’m usually not big on campfires, but it was rather cold after dark and George build a nice smokeless fire and then cooked the steaks over it.

Thursday morning it was 28 degrees, George was camping in a Van, so I had him over to the Moho for breakfast. It may have been 28 outside but it was 70 in the Moho. After breakfast, George went to break camp and head home. I headed out to hike to the top of Little Horse Mesa. It was another sunny, clear day which slowly warmed to the mid 60s. I drove a short distance to the trailhead and did a very nice 6.5 mile loop. Little Horse Mesa sits at 8,232 feet elevation, the highest point in the park. I was a little nervous, because there were piles of bear scat all along the trail. 

                                                                     Bear Scat

I spent much of the time clapping rather loudly anytime I came to a narrow, blind section of the trail. I can’t ever remember seeing this much bear scat. I only saw one couple hiking and I met them on top of the mesa, said hello and never saw them again. I lingered on the mesa for about 45 minutes, it was just gorgeous.

                                            Sitting on the edge of Little Horse Mesa

                                                The view from Little Horse Mesa

                                                              Little Horse Mesa

 I got back to camp about 1:30, hung out, but it was just to nice to stay in camp, so I headed down to the visitor center and did the 2 mile interpretive Coal Camp Trail. Sugarite Canyon produced 650 tons of coal a day from 1912 to 1941. There isn’t much left, but at one time the camp housed a 1,000 miners and their families, with 19 different nationalities.

Ruins of the Cable Wheel winch system used to lower the coal cars down the canyon

During my short stay here I was able to hike 6 of the 12 trails in the park for a total of 14.6 miles over the two hiking days. I’ll be back someday to finish the rest and will do Little Horse Mesa again.  My last night I was entertained by a small herd of deer, which I was able to watch through my windshield. 

I'm glad that most RVers would rather park in RV parks, leaving these special places available to people like me. One of my neighbors in the campground told me that Monday night they couldn't get a site in any RV park in Amarillo. :) 

I spent last night in a free RV park in Dumas, Texas, 50 amp, pull thru. Life is good. I'm slowly making my way to Mobile, AL to visit my niece, her family and my sister, should be there on Friday. Back to summer. LOL