Day 60 - Navajo Lake State Park, NM

We left ABQ and headed north towards Navajo Lake State Park, our destination for the night.

Navajo Lake State Park is the second largest lake in New Mexico and whilst we were using it as a stop to break the journey up from New Mexico to Colorado, it's a mecca for boaters, hikers, nature lovers and photographers.

The moment we got out of ABQ, we got off the interstate and onto Highway 550. The scenery changed almost instantly from suburbia back to the vast and barren desert landscape.  It was hard to believe there was any water, let alone a massive lake close by. The land was so dry and lifeless as we were driving along, we were surprised when the lake popped out of the landscape. This might be because this is not a natural lake. It is a man-made reservoir to store water from the Colorado river, managed by the Navajo Dam. Prior to the dam, the river seasonally ran through this desert area of canyons and rocks. The area was flooded when the dam was built resulting in the lake we see today.

You'll hear a lot more about the Colorado river in our future blogs, it plays a big role in our route!

The road leading up to the lake!

The dam was unusual; the side in the river was made of huge rocks whilst the other-side was like a giant concentrate slide. We've seen a lot of dams so far on this trip, I even tease Lee that he is becoming a little obsessed with them but even I could see this was something very different and was impressed with the structure!

In the hot weather, the lake looked like a huge oasis. If we had had more time, we could have rented a boat or a kayak but we needed to pitch the tent and get some food cooking.  

Whilst we were driving towards the lake and then around it, we kept seeing lots of white trucks with flags driving around. I initially thought these were related to fires and worried that there might be a fire in the area so I asked at the visitors center. The people in the trucks were actually working on the natural gas fields which surround the lake, one of the largest natural gas fields in the country. Once we knew this, we started to see markers, pipes and even a holding station for the gas.

Just outside the visitors center, there was an osprey nest and what you can't see from the photo, was a mother and her chicks. 

Lee had outdone himself with the location of the campsite, we were on the cliff edge looking out onto the lake with no one else nearby and surrounded by Juniper trees full of berries.

Cooking was a little challenging as there was a fire ban so we couldn't use the charcoal grill or fire pit and the impending storm that was coming over the lake meant that the wind was really strong and stopping the gas from getting hot enough to cook our cowboy beans and sausages (a favourite dish now!). Lee built a windbreak out of the MERTA folder which took an oil splattering on the June pages but we're now in July so no harm done.

We quickly ate our food and cleared away before the storm finally hit. We were right on the cliff edge, the highest thing for miles around so we decided to take shelter from the storm. We got back in the car and drove back down the road to the Marina where we brought a couple of drinks from the Marina shop and watched people scurrying in the rain to get their boats out of the water.

Eventually the rain passed and we returned to our tent for the night and had a lovely nights sleep.