Pretty much the entire southeastern portion of New Mexico was under a high winds advisory today. It was going to snow again in the Las Vegas area so staying another day wasn't an attractive option to me.
I wanted to camp in warmer locations, with NO snow on the ground you see.
So I left the campground shortly before 7AM, with the sun just beginning to rise over the horizon to light the way. The drive started off well, with no noticeable winds as I drove south. The land is basically flat plains with very small rolling hills once in a while.
As I neared Roswell, NM though, the winds started to pick up. Dust clouds would sometimes result in zero visibility as I drove through them; kind of like a whiteout except it was a brownout! Rather unnerving. Such times dictated turning off cruise control and enabling the four-way flashers to make sure traffic behind me saw me!
The winds and gusts got really serious south of Roswell, though it got a little less windy or at least less dust clouds as one approached Carlsbad
The first two BLM sites I'd planned on proved unreachable by Uma, luckily the last site did prove reachable and provides quite a bit of solitude due to sight distances involved.
As you can see, this part of New Mexico is basically flat plains.
I parked Uma with her nose to the wind and will not be putting out the slide out until after 7:00 a.m. tomorrow when the wind advisory expires.
The advisory warned of winds 35-50 mph with gusts to 75 mph in the plains.
My phone's weather app reported 35 mph winds with the highest gusts I saw being 55 mph! Though pointed into the wind, Uma the VRRV, still shook and rocked a bit throughout the rest of the day.
The winds ended up kicking up lots of dusts in my campsite's area, to the point where I couldn't see much past the access road I used to get there. I was sure glad of the early start for the day, as it would have been quite dangerous to ride in the dust clouds present in the late afternoon!
The wind should die down a bit by tomorrow morning, allowing me to ride Yagi, my TW200 the 11 miles or so to the Carlsbad Caverns National Park.
1 comment:
The wind in NM can be rough! Glad you made it.
Post a Comment