Thursday, February 18, 2021

Now boondocking near Picacho Peak, waiting for a package.

 Nope, not the Picacho Peak in Arizona, which I climbed up to the top of back in January of 2020: LINK

This Picacho Peak is located just outside of Las Cruces on the west side of town and isn't quite as imposing as Arizona's peak.

Why such a short distance displacement you ask?  Well let me tell ya.  The package Martha mailed via the USPS to the post office near where I had been camping has been "delayed".  The original arrival date was the 16th, it's now the 18th and the folks at the post office still haven't seen it.

The tracking system says its "in transit but delayed", delayed for almost two days now.  The folks at the target post office believe it'll be delivered to them even though they don't do General Delivery there because their address is part of the mailing.  I have my doubts.  So I'll be checking the main post office tomorrow to make sure the General Delivery label didn't confuse some clerk and they're holding the package there.

Still, the silver lining is that it led me to explore the Picacho Peak BLM Recreation area where I'm presently camping.  It's much more secluded in terms of other campers than where I had been, and provides ready access to Picacho Peak and an interesting trail up to the top supposedly.

Picacho Peak

There's not a lot of camp sites suitable for RVs but I found a couple easily enough and occupied one.  The access road looks a bit sketchy at its beginning but it actually wasn't bad at all.  The Baylor Canyon road had been much worse and rocky!

I even unloaded Yagi, my TW200 and did some brief exploration of the surrounding area via the dirt trails.  There's even a BLM managed recreation site that provides access to the trail system for Picacho Peak.  I supposed one could camp in there as well?  I did see one car still there as night fell and am pretty sure the driver is overnighting there at least.

Late afternoon, I headed on back to the target post office on Commerce Drive and they once again shook their heads saying the package hadn't been delivered yet.  Sigh.

Heading back to the new campsite, I stopped by the motel that has the worlds largest Chile:


Back at camp, it was warmer but still a bit cool.  The golden hour came and went but the sunset was nothing to write home about.


Here's a view of the Organ Mountains Desert Peaks, the base of which I'd just spent a week at, with the city of Las Cruces between me and them.

4 comments:

CCjon said...

In the first photo there seems to be a road going up Picacho Peak, is that the trail you'll be driving up?

redlegsrides said...

I saw people walking up that trail CCjon, I believe motorized vehicles not allowed.

RichardM said...

I was told that many of the USPS distribution hubs are closed due to lack of power. I had something coming by USPS and it was delayed a couple of days. The status had it sitting in San Antonio for two days.

redlegsrides said...

Thanks RichardM for that info...makes sense.