Tasty and super easy!
It was nice to have a day off…no driving, no sight-seeing…just rest. I worked a small jigsaw puzzle and started painting Zoe’s stool and then made a new Instant Pot recipe for dinner, Cheesy Sausage Pasta, which turned out pretty good except that I added a bit too much chicken base which made it a bit too salty. Just can’t beat having dinner ready in 20 minutes.
We didn’t really have a set time to leave this morning so we just left when we were ready which ended up being 8:45ish. We knew we’d be moving into the Mountain time zone so we kind of took that into account. We had roughly 260 miles to travel today, which is just about our ideal day…not too much, not too little.
Interesting New Mexico landscape
We were hoping to get a site at the Holloman AFB FamCamp so I called about 8:30 am, as they don’t take reservations. I just wanted to see if they thought they’d have any spaces available and was told they’d have plenty.
As we drove east on I-10 we played ‘pass & repass’ with a truck hauling a 5 ton Army vehicle from the 3/43rd ADA (Air Defense Artillery)….most likely headed to Ft. Bliss in El Paso. It brought back memories of when Michael served with the 1/43rd ADA thirty years ago. Wowza…how did 30 years pass that quickly??
Fill ‘er up!
Just before stopping for lunch we stopped to fill up with diesel. At $2.22 per gallon it was much cheaper than California and Arizona so Michael decided to fill up both tanks. We haven’t seen any evidence of a leak in the auxiliary fuel tank since Zack let us know about the spill we left in his driveway but we will continue to monitor for a while yet.
Awesome salad bar!
Kelly’s Kitchen was closed today so we had to make do. We stopped at Rancher’s Grill in Deming, New Mexico. It was nice to let someone else do the cooking today.
Chicken fried steak
Michael ordered chicken fried steak and I went with the soup and salad bar. They offered 4 different varieties of soup, of which I tried two and both were good. The salad bar had quite a few offerings along with cold salads and a few dessert choices too. Michael’s steak was a bit too well done but was passable.
Oh oh! Closed gate…not good
Back on the road we had about 120 miles left for the day. The second half of the trip was just as uneventful (a good thing!) as the first half and we pulled into Holloman AFB about 3:30 pm. We decided to use the Commercial Gate as several reviewers said it was the better gate to use as the Main Gate tended to be a bit tight. We followed the signs to the Commercial gate noting that it was open 6am to 6pm on weekdays but when we got to the actual gate it was closed to inbound traffic…great…and no where to turn around!
Thankfully, a young airman came out of the guard shack and after checking our IDs and checking with his superiors he removed the barriers and let us pass. Apparently, they close the gate to incoming traffic around noon…but no signs stating that…that we saw anyway! We’ll be sure to keep that in mind for future reference.
Holloman AFB FamCamp – site 21
We went directly to the FamCamp, found a spot and got settled in and then hopped in the truck and drove across post (it’s a small post) to the Outdoor Rec office where we paid for our stay. We got a nice pull through with a covered picnic table which is great with the sun and heat here.
We lived in El Paso (Ft. Bliss), which is about 90 south, for a year and a half so we’re kinda familiar with this area. But we’d never been to Alamogordo…although Michael has been to White Sands Missile Range many times while he worked on the Patriot Missile mission way back when.
Since I’d never been to White Sands Missile Range or the National Monument Michael decided he wanted to detour this way so that we could check out both places. So…we’ll do some exploring over the next few days while we’re here.