Elephant Butte & Leasburg Dam State Parks

April 02    City of Rocks - Elephant Butte Lake State Park     123 miles     2 hrs 45 mins

This is our 3rd New Mexico State Park and it's a good one. The largest and most popular lake in New Mexico, Elephant Butte Lake State Park provides a setting for every imaginable water sport. The lake has sandy beaches, quiet little coves, full service marinas, and enough open water for cabin cruisers and houseboats. The mild climate of the area makes this park a popular year round destination.

Great site at the end of the row overlooking the lake

Elephant Butte Reservoir, created by a dam constructed by 1916 across the Rio Grande, is 35 miles long with more than 200 miles of shoreline.

The park has numerous camping and picnicking areas, with more than 250 developed campsites and 150 electrical hook ups for RV's and trailers. Many campsites have shelters and grills.

We drove out to Lions Beach Campground and found a nice site at the end of the row with an awesome view. It's an electric/water site so with our pass, we pay $4 per night. We plan to stay here 3 nights.

People camping right on the shore

Lots of people in trucks, cars, RVs, and campers drive right up to the shore.We have a very nice view and can watch all the vehicles driving out to the water.

3 days of beautiful sunrises

April 04

Winds have been really blowing the last two days. Not doing too much besides enjoying the scenery and taking long walks.

We're driving back to Deming tomorrow to get some maintenance done. Something added to the steering to make driving easier and safer also, new shocks. Joe has been talking about improving the steering for a while. We found out that Steer Safe manufactures what we need right in Deming. It will take us about 2 hours to drive back to Deming but it'll be worth it.

April 05   Elephant Butte - Deming - Leasburg Dam State Park     183 miles    6 hours

We drove back to Deming this morning and took care of the steering and shocks. Was pretty fast, only about an hour. While the RV was being worked on, we went to a market called Peppers. A local market with a lot of mexican stuff. They even made fresh tortillas right in the store. We bought some mexican soda, only 89 cents. Joe thinks they sell this stuff at Cholo's but we're not sure. The orange one was really good. The cola not that great.

Then we drove 86 miles to Leasburg Dam State Park. Just staying here 1 night because I want to drive to Hatch tomorrow and have lunch at Sparkys.

We did a nice hike around the surrounding area this afternoon, right along the Rio Grande. At night its very quiet and peaceful with lots of stars....until the train comes through.

Our hike along the Rio Grande

Leasburg Dam

Another awesome desert sunset