Day 51 | Sleeping at a Truck Stop

Last night we slept at a truck stop and I did surprisingly well there. Normally, we have to take a bunch of stuff out of the back seats so that we can make room to lean our seats back. We weren’t able to do that last night because it was raining and we didn’t want things getting wet. That meant we had to sleep sitting up. It was really, really hard to get comfortable! Especially since we don’t have any pillows (since pillows can’t be washed). Brett didn’t sleep much at all but somehow I managed to fall asleep.

We had planned to go sledding on the sand dunes at White Sands National Monument today since we both really needed a chance to relax and do something fun. Unfortunately, we called ahead only to find out it was raining and hailing at the monument. Bummer! We were pretty disappointed!

We decided to drive back to the Albuquerque area since we needed to buy food and we still hadn’t found a spot that could work for more than a day or two in southern New Mexico. The drive took about 3 hours and after Brett was done shopping we headed toward Grants. Our hope was that we could reclaim our campsite in El Malpais National Monument. Sadly, I started to feel a little off when we arrived at the state park. Maybe something is wrong with that location after all? I don’t know. It was pretty obvious that it had rained a lot and all the road signs were covered in thick mud. I’m not sure if that could have affected things.

We decided it probably wasn’t going to work to camp there and that we just needed to find an inconspicuous spot to spend the night. We could re-evaluate our plans tomorrow. We drove around for two hours before we landed on a decent place to sleep.

Unfortunately, I burst into hives at the first place we tried. Not only that, the dirt road was really muddy and we almost got stuck! Then my throat started closing up at the second spot we tried. Definitely not safe! It’s always so hard finding a spot when it’s dark out. We couldn’t see anything! There could have been a landfill nearby for all we knew!

Finally, just before the clock struck midnight, we found a decent spot. Unfortunately, it started raining again! We braced ourselves for another hard and uncomfortable night. We’ve had about as much as we can take these last couple of days! I think a cargo van is going to feel like a palace after this.

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