So the Cracker Barrel felt like a nice safe spot to park overnight... the only downside was that a truck arrived at 4am for deliveries and idled their engine the entire time they were parked and unloading, which seemed like hours. Also, it was super windy last night... so sleep was not awesome.
We were up and at 'em by 7:30am due to the early morning wake up and bad night's sleep, so we hit the Cracker Barrel restaurant right away. Our server, Mark, was soooooo lovely! Friendly as the dickens and very warm and welcoming. There was a couple across the room from us with a new baby girl. Adorable and sweet. And another couple welcomed us when they overheard it was our first Cracker Barrel experience. How lovely!
After a yummy little breakfast (navigated to exclude the many bacon/sausage options haha) we let the kids look around the gift shop again. With much fortitude, I still resisted buying the owl S&P shakers. 😅 Amelia had her eye on a very cute little chihuahua dog that barks and walks and Oliver had his on a carton of Milk Duds (newly discovered on this trip at Halloween). Both successfully convinced me that they should buy them with their own spending money.
By 9am we'd had a quick tidy of the rig, then on the road again. Stopped at the Shell station for a fill up before getting onto Hwy 10 north back into New Mexico. Jonathan and I listened to Sam Harris podcasts on the way... one earbud each.
By 10:30am we were driving through yet another Border Patrol station (got waved through) and I then searched up a playground/park to stop at for a run around as the kiddos were getting squirrely. Around 11am we pulled into the town of Demming and played at Pit Park until 12:45pm. The park looked huge on google maps and was pretty fun despite still being under quite a bit of construction. We manhandled all the exercise equipment then drove across to the other side where we could see a kids playground to climb on. We've learned it is always a great idea to stop for a playground session to stretch legs and release some body tension.
1:30pm we were driving into Lordsburg, NM to the KOA Journey we found on the app. This was definitely one of the lower end versions of the KOA family. A tiny office with a few random scrounged items for sale. The lady at the front desk was nice... the price was a little more for what it appeared to have as amenities. They did have a tiny pool which was appealing, but turned out it was freezing and the heater was broken. Ollie opened a door that said laundry on it and peeked inside. An older man appeared and he shouted something at Oliver to the effect of "get out"... Jonathan tried to defend Oliver saying he was just having a look. There was some language confusion at both ends, we think, and it was pretty uncomfortable. The guys seemed super grumpy and got defensive saying he was just asking how oliver was doing (maybe not what he was doing?). Strange all round. We decided to stay anyhow because we needed a spot. This little town was definitely a bit quirky and desolate feeling when we drove in. Kinda the middle of nowhere feeling!
We parked at our site in the near empty gravel lot that had a few sparse trees for shade. Jonathan unloaded the bikes off the rack and proceeded to try and fix Amelia's flat tire.
Off we went on our bikes to investigate the Shakespeare Ghost Town, a national historic site, that was near by. Apparently Billy the Kid, John Ringo, Curley Bill, the Clantons, Jim Hughes and Sandy King had all walked the streets of this town at some point. https://www.shakespeareghostown.com/
We rode through a neighbourhood of bungalows with chainlink fences... one house had three german shepherds in the yard and the next around the corner had two big dobermans -- one of which was running the fence barking ferociously. We scooted by that one fairly quickly!
We biked up a long hill past the local dump. There had been several police vehicles driving up past us and turning into the landfill road. Not sure what was happening up there, but it involves lots of officers! Further up on the opposite side was the cemetery. Off the road past the cemetery we came to the sign for the ghost town that lead us up the gravel road to the top of the hill. When we finally reached the top (kids were not super impressed)... the ghost town was closed and gated. The tours were by appointment only and there was a number we could try calling. Jonathan called the number on the off chance that someone lived on the property and might come let us have a look around, but it was a no. They had strict rules about not entering the property, but we could walk up the prickly pear and scrub-brush hill and have a look down onto the little townsite, which is what we did. Amelia did not want to walk up the hill. She was tired from the big climb on her bike. We left the bikes at edge of the gravel road and walked up between all the spikey plants, forging a trail of sorts to the peak where we had a pretty good view of the townsite. At the top was a cairn of rocks with a wooden cross in it.
We picked our way back down to the bikes and when Amelia hopped on her bike, we realized her tire was flat. There were sand spurs stuck in the tire. Bummer! I had offered to walk Amelia's bike back while she rode on the pannier rack of Jonathan's bike. Then Ollie got on his bike and his tire was also flat! They were full of those little spikes. Gah! It was decided that Jonathan would ride back to the rig with Amelia on the back of his bike. He'd go get the rig while Ollie and I walked part way back with the flat tire bikes. Cell reception was super dodgy there, but we hoped it would all work out.
Ollie and I started walking down the gravel road towards the main road and signpost. It was getting close to 5pm and the sun was getting lower in the sky. We hoped Jonathan would be back before it got to dark out! We thought about walking further down the paved road towards town, but didn't really want to hang out at the cemetery. The other deterrent was that we heard lots of gun shots coming from the landfill down the road. We presumed that the officers were just doing target practice, judging by the sound of the shots, but kinda didn't want to get very close. So we waited at the signpost, sent a text to Jonathan hoping he'd come find us, which he did. A welcome sight to see the Navion trucking up the hill towards us in the setting sun!
Back at the campground, we had showers (8.5/10 on the Amelia rating -- pretty good!!) and I did a load of laundry. Walking over there we saw a cute little brown cotton tail bunny. We poked our heads into the little pool area and thought we might swim in the morning.
Kids helped make the fresh salsa (Amelia) and guacomole (Oliver) for our fish tacos. Jonathan and I made margaritas with the tequila he purchased at walmart - using some of many, many limes we had accrued from Uncle Mikey at the AirBnB.
Kids did some schoolwork and sent emails to their class teachers back home. We were so tired. Oliver had climbed up into the bunk and fell asleep. We dragged him down to brush his teeth and sent him back up again for bed.
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