I woke this morning at first light, listening to the raucous cries of wild geese  taking off from the lake down the hill from our campsite. Finally, we were on the road again, and if I hadn’t been so fixated yesterday at dusk on checking our little device that tells us the quality of our Verizon cellphone and internet signal, we wouldn’t have driven past the entrance to Clayton Lake State Park.

As a result, we inadvertently explored dusty back roads of northeastern New Mexico till after dark. Still, we managed to find the state park, get a level spot, walk the dogs, and have a quick dinner before fatigue won out.

Not that there was any competition for sites; this week before Thanksgiving, there were only a couple of other campers here and they are over in the section with electricity. We don’t need power as my husband Kelly installed a good 550 watt solar panel system just before we left home. Last night, our first night away from home, it worked great. We expect to be traveling for about half a year. We’ve been fulltimers in the past, and RVing comes naturally to us. This time we’re in a 1982 Tioga, new to us, and I’ll write more over time about how we fixed it up. We aren’t retired… we’ll both be writing a lot all winter.

Our dogs are good, experienced travelers. They know when it’s time to kick back. Our Rottweiler, Lola, has her own space which Kelly designed using parts of an old crate. It keeps her securely yet comfortably confined when we travel, and it’s her favorite place to be in the rig. Nicky, a Sheltie-Papillion cross, has several places, including a travel crate for when we’re actually moving.

Clayton Lake State Park, just outside Clayton, NM, is known for its amazing dinosaur tracks.They gave us a good perspective on time.

We got our annual camping pass for the entire NM State Parks system, something close to three dozen parks. For the $225 we parted with, we can stay for free in just about all of the parks from now till the end of November next year. That’s because we have solar panels on our motorhome; if we should ever need electricity, it would be $4 a night. You can stay at any given park for up to two weeks before you have to move on, but after you’ve been out of that park for two weeks, you can go back to it. So a lot of people make circuits among their favorite parks, and that’s exactly what we plan to do. With plenty of blog posts as we go! Most of the photos are by Kelly.