El Paso, TX–Lincoln National Forest, NM

We spent last night in a little campground at the edge of a National Forest. It was a 12.5 mile drive off the highway to get there, the last 4 of which were gravel. The Miata can handle graded gravel roads just fine, but it doesn’t have much clearance. We often have to travel along the ridges of the ruts to keep from scraping bottom.

As we entered the campground, the host emerged from his camper, which looked like it had sat in the same place for quite some time, and came to meet us. He was wearing Marine issue BDU pants, a sweat shirt, Ray-Bans, a little hoop earring, and had a red beard down to his chest. “How do you fit it all in?!” he exclaimed, looking at our trunk. His Australian shepherd stuck his nose into the car and sniffed around. The host told us where the best sites were. “You’ll probably see my horse running around too.” Sure enough, we rounded a bend to see a shaggy little horse standing on the side of the road, looking a little surprised to see us.

Our host coasted up to our campsite on his motorcycle as we were putting up the tent. “Seen any of those deer?” he asked. “Me and my horse were chasing some up there before I put my horse up for the night. I just had dinner: elk liver and onions! Tomorrow night it’ll be heart.”

Berck piped up, “I guess it’s a pretty rough night when you’ve got to eat the hoofs!”

The campground is located just in the foothills beneath the only snowcapped mountain in the area. It’s a beautiful spot, and we had the whole thing to ourselves. Plus, it is in a National Forest, which are much less Nazi-ish than National Parks, so we could build a fire! We built one from green juniper branches some idiot camper had chopped down, but which burned nicely in a hot fire, and some yucca stalks, which ignite quite well but smell like burned corn. We heated up some Chunky’s Soup and baked beans and grilled some sour dough bread and felt quite satisfied.

It got cold last night, though the drinking water didn’t freeze. Tonight I’ll have to try sleeping with more clothes on.

We bought Berck some long underwear at Wal-mart in El Paso yesterday, but after trying them last night, he swears he’ll never wear that pair again because they “get” him.