El Paso to Sugarite Canyon State Park

Day 4 - We woke up, then Curtis and I went on a short 3.5 mile run before the boys woke up.  It's quite beautiful seeing the sun peak over the Franklin Mountains.  Once we returned, the thermometer started creeping above 90 and we were inside for the majority of the day.  We were so excited to visit Aunt Christine and Uncle Steve and go for a swim in the pool.  When we loaded up the car the thermometer topped 105 degrees.  It's HOT in the desert!

We dawn for a few hours and even got to see Great Grandpa Schettler's famous stamp collection!

After swim time, we hit Leo's for some yummy Mexican food and came home to load up the Casita.  It was so great to see the El Paso fam!  Love them so much!  Grandma and Grandpa are watching Miss Cookie for 6 more weeks, then are meeting us at Fun Valley Family Resort in 6 weeks to play!  It'll be here before we know it!  Until then, we have 11 states and 8 National Parks to visit!

Day 5 - we were up and atom by 6:00 and heading north!  We voted to drive up little highway 54 through Alamogordo instead of interstate 25....best decision ever!!!!!  1 hour into our trip, we came across the World's Largest Pistachio at PistachioLand!  Awesome!!!!

Our family LOVES nuts!  All nuts!!!!  Yum!!!  They had a table with 30 samples of pistachio and brittle flavored!  Snacktime!!!!

We had our fill of pistachios and purchased some plain/roasted/salted for Cole , hatch chili pistachios for Curtis, and three nuts pistachio brittle for Carson, and I get to have some of each!  😉. PistachioLand also had a cool koi pond out front!

After we had our morning snack of assorted pistachios, we loaded up the car and drive through the middle of New Mexico.  There was NOTHING for 200 miles....not even gas!  Eek!!!  We puffed the truck with the fuel light on into the first gas station we saw when we cross I-40.  We ate our packed lunches in the parking lot and headed another 100 miles north to Sugarite Canyon State Park.

If you're driving from north Dallas to Colorado I highly recommend stopping in Sugarite.  This state park has full hook ups, water sites, and tent camping.  It's a beautiful state park built into a canyon with lake, trails, fishing, and historical coal mining site.

 

The far north side of the park even crosses into Colorado.  

It was a bit too windy for fishing, but we tried...this lake is famous for trout. I was hoping for fresh caught fish for dinner, but it didn't happen today.  We packed up our fishing gear, headed back to the Casita for taco dinner and a fun game of Wahoo!  After that we set off for our evening hike through the Deer Run Trail.

The boys were ready for bed, so we read our Captain Underpants book, checked out the map for our route tomorrow and went to bed. 

"The Lord loves....the earth is full of the steadfast love of the Lord" - Psalm 33:5