2026 New Mexico – Day 6 – Carlsbad to Alamogordo

Megan’s Take

Today started as the kind of day that makes me think “why are we doing this kind of trip?!” But it ended as “those are (fun) memories!” We checked out of Brantley Lake State Park this morning, and Emilia had a massive meltdown in the morning about an unfinished campground chalk project as we were driving away with camper in tow. Then Phil revealed to me that one of the springs on our camper is “not looking good”, which translates to “could break at any time and leave us stranded in the middle of nowhere” in my mind. (I’m sure he’ll comment on that, given that he was really hoping not to have any mechanical issues this trip.)

Despite all that, we decided to take a rock hounding adventure into the desert outside of Artesia, en route to Alamogordo. (Emilia was very excited at the prospect of rock hunting, and she told me at bedtime that it was her favorite part of today.) Some guy on the Internet shared one of his favorite rock hounding spots for Pecos diamonds with me –  behind a broken down house off a dirt road:

https://maps.app.goo.gl/KWkLDFPjcCnicmZ2A

He admitted it’s a little creepy and told me to watch for rattlesnakes. It definitely was sketchy. Aside from worrying about dragging the camper down a dirt road, there was broken glass, shot gun shells, and trash in places. (It’s a shame that people haven’t taken care of the land there.) We kept the kids very close, although once we got behind and away from the old structure, we only had to worry about cactus, snakes, spiders, etc. Ironically, despite all my vigilance and mother-hovering, it was an ant that brought the tears. I think Emmett had his hat on the ground briefly, but in any case, he somehow ended up with a big angry ant on the neckline of his shirt, which naturally bit his neck – first itchy and then quickly painful. There was crying, cortisone cream, and more crying because Emmett doesn’t like creamy things on his skin, but then he settled down to accompany me for more rock hunting with his lunch/sandwich in his hands

Phil is a great companion for rock hounding, because he enjoys the challenge of the search and will add his finds to my pile.

Emilia is fun to go with, because she’s as excited as I am about the rocks themselves.

She likes the rocks and tells me “I’m a rock girl.” She wants her own bucket, and she’s very clear to tell me which rocks are hers and not mine (“you can’t have it” even though I never asked), although sometimes she’ll show me B-grade rocks and ask me if I want them. She likes to go back through her rocks afterwards and show them off to me to ooh and aah.

Emmett is also a fun buddy when rock hunting. If there’s a water option, he’s probably more likely to throw rocks into the water, because rocks are not as much his thing. But he likes to be involved in the search adventure, and today he stayed near me to help. He picks up rocks, shows them to me for my approval (“great find!”), and throws them into my bag. The sweet thing is that he may keep a few “special” rocks, but he mostly just puts them all into my container to share with me. He’s happy to find pretty rocks for his mommy.

At first, we didn’t know what to look for, but then when we realized what Pecos diamonds (doubly terminated quartz crystals) look like (and how small they are),

we found them everywhere scattered in the dirt surface! If we didn’t have 2.5 hrs of driving and camper issues to attend to, I would have stayed longer.

We had a scenic drive through the mountains

and landed at the Alamogordo/ White Sands KOA. Phil had to go run errands, so the plan was that the kids and I would go swimming. We got changed into swimsuits and then had a huge disappointment in learning that the office staff was waiting for a new part in order to pass their inspection. The pool inspector was literally in the campground office when we walked in to ask about swimming.

I was able to turn things around by suggesting a water balloon fight.

Emmett, Emilia, and I got out our reusable water balloons and a tub of water. We had fun chasing each other in the one small grassy area in the campground, and then to our great surprise, the pool inspector spotted the FedEx delivery truck down the road and followed it back to the campground. He was able to sign off on opening up the pool, and Emmett and Emilia were the first people in the pool for this season. What a relief that it all worked out, because the simple joy of swimming at the campground is something that they look forward to the most.

Phil’s Take

I originally couldn’t imagine what we were supposed to find in that dirt that was so precious until Megan showed me one she found and confirmed was what we were looking for. At that point, it became clear that this was more of a precision inspection of the ground instead of a broad scan, hence the kneeling in the above picture of me from a distance. I ended up finding quite a large number of them after that.

The leaf spring issue she mentions was something I stumbled upon just out of chance. When we stop for fuel, food, etc. I usually go around and check the tires and make sure nothing in the wheels is hot. This is how I found the issues we had on the last trip before we had anything catastrophic happen. For some reason this morning I decided to glance under the trailer at the springs and I noticed the problem. This picture tells the story.

If you look closely at that spring, you’ll notice that it isn’t curved like the ones you see here.

Toward the end of the last trip, that same leaf spring snapped off about 50 miles from home. I had to wedge a wood block between the broken spring and the frame and limp home. When I replaced that spring, I did the whole set, so they’re all new since August. That means the damage was done solely on this trip. We saw some very rough roads along the way, but I would not expect this. I have made sure to travel with very little water the whole way to keep it light as possible.

Regardless, I am not sure why this spring in particular would be failing like it is. It could be a fluke and I just happened to put a replacement spring that was weak in exactly the same place as the failed one from before (a 25% chance). It could be that that side of the camper is much heavier than the other. I have no way of weighing it side to side to confirm as the CAT scales don’t do that. You’d expect that both the springs on that side would have a problem, but although you can’t see it as well, it is clearly still holding up like the other side. Regardless, I have the tools to replace it and I’ve done it before. A trailer dealer had some springs in stock that I bought to take with us. Should it snap off or we have a little downtime, I could replace that spring in maybe 30 minutes or the whole set in a couple of hours.

Important lesson: traveling with tools has always served me very well.

Finally, the view in the mountains was very nice, if brief. I did manage to capture a pretty good panorama.

If you’re having trouble viewing the panoramas as you’d expect let me know. I think I have an alternate viewer I can embed in the page that might work better,

Here’s the gallery for today: