New Mexico - here we come

We left Palo Duro Canyon (Hard Wood) and headed to Fort Sumner, New Mexico to camp at Lake Sumner.  We stopped in Deaf Smith County to pick up the geocache at the historic marker.  We are traveling along US 60 again.

We stopped for lunch in Black and picked up the Men In Black cache in Palmer County.  We met "The Lady in Black" who thought we needed help as we were parked outside her house!  We stopped for gas in Fiona, Texas at a Valero and they had free water and air on their gas pumps.  We arrived at 3:30 and set up our site then drove into Fort Sumner for dinner.  Fort Sumner is about 10 miles from the lake so not too far to drive.  We found "Freds" restaurant on US 60.  It was nice with good food and friendly.  We chatted with two women from Houston who were on their way to Albuquerque.  Hardy had an X-Con (burrito) which was very good.  I had a chicken burrito with green chili and it was really good too.

We drove out to the old military air base where Hardy's dad took flight lessons during WWII.  There isn't much left out there but the hangar and two long metal building that were used as warehouses and red stone parts that looked like the front gate at the base.  We found out later at the town grocery store that most of the buildings had burned.  The grocer was a local man and very informative and even had a copy of the 1942 yearbook from that base and we found a picture of Hardy's dad in the book.  The grocer scanned Squadron 44B for us.  He had played in that area when he was young and played on the old junked aircraft left over after the war.  He was born about 1949 or 1950.

Sunset in the desert

We stayed up to watch the stars as it is very clear at our campground.