Elephant Butte to Lordsburg NM

Jacks were up and after using the sani-dump at Elephant Butte SP we were off by 9:06 am. We wanted to get an early start as we planned to stop at Hatch to pick up some of their famous chile's. They even had a huge bottle of vanilla from Mexico for $12. Unbelievable. Here is my score of chile's.

Hanging in the coach.

Here are some of Ray's pics of the vendors selling the chile's. So colourful.

They don't seem to care if the drying of the chili's gets sand in it.

The long ones are roughly $20 each.

Sorting the chili's

After touring, it's back on the road to stop at the Flying J.  I had thought that they had auto propane according to Truckmaster Fuel, unfortunately they only sell exchange tanks. They told me the only place to get auto propane is the KOA. Well that's where we were booked in. We had a quick lunch at Denny's on site and then fueled up the coach. Short drive to the KOA ... about 5 minutes. lol

After checking in, I asked about the propane and the people who dispense it were are not here until tomorrow .... getting down on the propane but it is much warmer here so I should not have to use the furnace tonight. We will fill up the propane on our way out on Wednesday morning at 9am when they open.

Once we were set up, I took the 3 minute drive to their local grocery store for milk etc. and then we spent the rest of the afternoon sitting outside as it was too hot in the coach at 82F.  Another lovely day other than my washing machine deciding not to work ... Ray and I will have to pull it out tomorrow as it is not getting any water. Probably the hose is gummed up 6 years coming down here. Meanwhile, they have a laundry on site so that will be my plan tomorrow.

UPDATE: After reading about the washer and the faults, it is probably the computer board that is gone as we did have water for one load before it quit. Since we blew that big breaker for the third time in the past 6 years I am suspecting that it weakened the board as that is what happened to our fridge several years ago. We will get that looked at at some point in the future when we are in civilization for a while as the part will have to be ordered. Meanwhile I will be visiting laundromats, my least favourite thing to do.

Wednesday morning I was over at the laundry by 8:45 am trying to get ahead of the heat. Very clean laundry with 4 washers and 4 dryers. $1.50 per load and $1.50 for 30 minutes drying. Three large loads of laundry was $9.50. Walked back and forth between wash and dry to check on Freya's chicken roasting.

Ray headed out after dropping me and the laundry off at the door and went to the Ford dealer for his 9am appointment. As it turned out, after hooking the car up to the computer, the sensor indeed got wet as Katie had suggested. All is good. Ray was home within 1/2 hour.

Ray noticed this old timer RV in the KOA. Don't know what kind it is though.

Since we were kinda stuck here until tomorrow, I decided to get a bunch of baking done this morning  before it got too hot. First up baking chicken for Freya .. spoilt dog. lol Next up roasting some of the just purchased chile peppers for Ray. Had the bread machine working on a batch of bread and then took it out and formed one loaf and about 6 hamburger buns. Once they had risen, into the oven with them. For an early lunch I made nachos in the oven with leftover beef from our burritos I had made 2 days ago as I had some guacamole to use up as well.  And for my final hurrah for Ray ... chocolate oatmeal pecan cookies. It's now 1:15 pm and it's time to sit outside and have a beer. I hate wasting an opportunity to bake and cook if there is nothing else to do so we will be stocked up for the next week. I see hamburgers in our future. :)  (Ray here.... yes I'm a fortunate man!)

After my second batch of washing dishes ... the rest of the afternoon was spent outside in the shade as it is another very warm day, for us anyways. lol