Between the epic winter storm that blasted the southwest and then packages that were delayed due to said storm, we ended up spending a lot more in Carlsbad than we had originally intended. Since we were at a place with full hookups (and our reservations in Texas were cancelled anyhow) we decided that it would be best to hunker down and ride the storm out instead of attempting to travel through it not knowing what the impact may be. As it turns out, we made the right choice.
In Carlsbad, we dealt with the same temps and snow as most of Texas, but we managed to come out unscathed. The pipes at our campground never froze – this was a huge blessing as we learned once we eventually did head into Texas. Nearly all the RVs around us at our campsite experienced some sort of major issues – frozen & burst water lines, tanks and filters. We also learned that diesel starts to congeal in super cold temps without additive (which gas stations up north add automatically, but not down south, for obvious reasons) and can cause major issues with your truck. Through Brian’s planning and ingenuity and the wonderful insulation in our rig, we somehow were able to escape all of that. Our fresh water tank froze once (mostly because we were trying to conserve propane and not using the heating duct work), but because the pipes at the campground were okay, we were never even without water. We learned a lot of cold-weather RV-ing and what to do (and not to do) – super valuable lessons for planning in the future.
Anyhow, once everything thawed, we were still stuck for a few days as Texas was next on our itinerary and campground pipes were bursting everywhere – not to mention concerns about the availability of gas, diesel, propane and food! We were all going completely stir-crazy at that point, so we decided to see what else the Carlsbad are had to offer.
Adventure #1: Sitting Bull Falls.
Sitting Bull Falls is located at the north end of the Guadalupe Range. It’s a spring-fed water fall that drops about 150 feet. Once you knock out the drive, it’s super accessible from the picnic area / parking lot. The walk to the falls is paved and less than half a mile. There are hiking trails around there – some that even take you to the top of falls, but the signage is pretty clear that the place shuts down at 5pm sharp (including tire spikes at the entrance) and not knowing that, we arrived too late to do major exploring. All that being said, we got to see the falls when the majority of them were still frozen over from the storm and that was epic. Between the bright green of the algae at the pond bottom and the massive ice formations, it felt like we were on another planet.
Adventure #2: Bottomless Lakes.
Bottomless Lakes State Park is located about an hour north of Carlsbad, close to Roswell. This area is a collection of 9 lakes (sinkholes that have retained water) that pops out in the middle of desert nowhere. We had hoped to spend a ton of time here walking around all the lakes, but due to lack of research, we had realized that New Mexico was limiting state parks to residents only. Rangers were patrolling pretty aggressively while we were there, too. Even though we couldn’t really get out to play, it still made for a great drive with wonderful views, so there were no regrets.
Carlsbad treated us well.
