April 19, 2018 Storms

Mexico

We began the day in beautiful Ruidoso, New Mexico and a nice, clean hotel.  I got up, walked around a bit, and decided to have a bit of breakfast at the Sacred Grounds coffeehouse, where I enjoyed a cappacino and a cinnamon roll.  It looked like a nice place where the locals hung out.

We drove southwest through Alamogordo and on to White Sands National Monument.  We spent some time on the main road into the monument, and we got out of the van for a bit and walked around on the dunes. It certainly looked like snow as everything was pretty bright.  We continued to Las Cruces, New Mexico and had lunch at Jason's Deli.  The potatoes there were HUGE!

We drove through El Paso and were able to get a good look at Ciudad Jaurez, Mexico as Interstate 10 runs within a mile of the border.  Then, we waited a bit southeast of town for storms to develop.  For the first time on our tour, we had a marginal risk of severe weather.  After a couple hours of waiting, storms struggled to develop south of the border.  They persisted into the evening, and as they approached the border, we did some nighttime lightning photography.  Right as our storm reached the border southwest of Van Horn, TX, it dissipated.  We then drove to Van Horn and stayed at the Super 8 there.  Dinner was McDonald's or whatever you could pick up at the gas station/convenience store.

Again, the trip in an electric car would have been pretty easy. There was a destination charger at the Hotel Ruidoso, and there were Superchargers at El Paso and Van Horn.

Breakfast at the Sacred Grounds coffeehouse.

Driving into White Sands National Monument.

The white dunes in the middle of White Sands National Monument.

A Mexican thunderstorm after sunset.

The route we took for the day.

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