Caballo Lake State Park, NM - quick update ~ Dog Pug

We're still in the Elephant Butte, TorC, Caballo Lake area. It's so pretty here, so easy to camp and find a great campsite, nice people, great walking, beautiful lakes, super weather. Why would we want to leave?

I've been camping with my friend, Don, for a while. We spent some time at Caballo Lake after leaving Elephant Butte Lake in NM. Caballo has lots of places to camp - right on the lake, on the Rio Grande, overlooking the lake, in developed campsites, and electric/water sites. Some of the camping areas are pretty stark, some are lush, and some are overgrown looking. We drove through the area the day before we moved to Caballo, checking for empty campsites, and deciding where we would head next.

We decided on the Appaloosa Campground, it has no-reservation electric campsites and the temps were still high enough to want air conditioning from time to time. Then one day when we were on our usual morning walk we noticed the gate at one of the reserved camping areas, the Stallion Campground which had been closed, was OPEN. So we walked over to the Visitor's Center and asked if that campground was now open to anyone. I guess it's been so crowded, they decided to open up that one, and since it was October, no reservations were required.

We hustled back to our campsites, packed up and drove to the Stallion Campground. There was no one there and we got the pick of the sites. We had great sites! Quiet, private, lots of trees and bushes and I even had a view of the lake. I've been so lucky with campsites this year in NM state parks.

Look how big this site is, and my only neighbor is Don, next door on the other side of The Palms:

Beautiful view of the mountains, and see my little lake view through the trees?

Most mornings we walked down to the lake and all around the campgrounds near us. We got some great exercise. I'm trying to walk a target number of steps each day, and am going about a mile or more over my goal most of the time. :)

This might sound dumb to some of you, but I've been walking so much I've discovered a new muscle in my legs that I've never felt before. I was talking to my son on the phone and reached down to rub my leg. What's that??? I realized it was a muscle that was obviously getting more developed so that I noticed it. I looked it up to see what it's called:

"The large calf muscle, or gastrocnemius, has two parts or heads -- medial and lateral -- which extend from your knee joint to your heel bone. While the medial head is positioned on the inside of your lower leg, the lateral head runs along the outside. The two parts work together to extend your ankle downward." Pretty cool to notice new muscles at my age! 🙃

Now if I could just stop eating chips and dip and chocolate covered almonds, LOL.

View of the site from my dinette window:

I think Don's site was even bigger. One day he was gone in his car for a while, and some people drove up, looked at his site, parked and walked over to his empty casita. They looked pretty happy. I'm watching them through my window, wondering, what the heck? Another car, part of their group, drove up on the other side of the site and parked. He was getting out when I went outside to see what was up. I couldn't believe they were planning to use the site. The half with the casita. Ummm, no. "This is part of the campsite belonging to that motor home over there. Sorry." They were embarrassed and apologized, got back in their cars and drove away. It would have been funny if I wasn't there to see them, and Don got back later with half of his campsite occupied by strangers. I don't know if they were there for the day or planning to put up tents, but... I've never seen that happen before. 🤔

Nighttime walk, the evenings were beautiful:

I've been pretty busy and haven't taken many photos - almost none while at Caballo Lake. That's unusual for me, but campsite pics will have to do for this location. We've moved on, and I'll post from another location next time. :)

From me and Katie, have a great week, everyone! 😁😎🙃