My Trails

Elephant Butte Lake.

I left Datil Wells campground on Wednesday and drove south on Interstate 25 to check out two lakes and state parks established years ago by building dams on the Rio Grande River. Both these lakes are not very pretty. The landscape surrounding the lakes remind me of what you would see if someone put a lake in Quartzsite.

Elephant Butte is the biggest lake of any New Mexico state parks and also the most crowded. Even this time of year with temperatures hitting 100 degrees, the campground and lakefront were busy with campers and boaters. Quite a few RVs were plugged in to electric so they could run their AC but there were several that camped in non electric sites. I bought a season pass for $225 and also sprung for electric for the night. After I was settled I unloaded Honda to explore the park and surrounding towns.

You can actually park down by the Lakeshore if you are brave. Some places are sandy and easy to bury a vehicle. I talked with one camper that said he had to be towed out of a bad spot. The toy of choice for water fun seems to be the jet ski. I saw many of them buzzing around on the lake.

Walmart has a good selection of Kayaks.

The surrounding town of Elephant Butte is the typical tourist trap – lots of restaurants, fishing shops, ect. Fifteen miles south is the city of Truth or Consequences where you can get anything you want.

Caballo State Park along the river below the dam.

The next morning I drove a few miles south of Truth or Consequences to Caballo State Park. Caballo is way less crowded and I think prettier than Elephant Butte. Below the park are very nice sites along the river. I think I will visit and spend some time there when the weather gets a little cooler.

It was a long drive north today where I found myself at Bluewater Lake State Park. Even though this park is over 7000′ it was still 90 degrees when I pulled in. I could probably spring for an electric site or run my generator some. I’ll see how much I can stand.

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 21st, 2018 at 7:40 pm and is filed under New Mexico Summer. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.