Hatch, NM & Percha Dam

 Wow, a normal day again.  Hotter than the others but nice and calm

It probably topped out at 91, or a bit more.  We left Deming this morning and came up to Hatch, the self proclaimed “Chile capital of the World“.  Every few feet there is another Chile vendor.  You can buy dried chiles by the 20# sack.  I wouldn’t know what to do with that much!  This time of year there are not any fresh chives, they are just being planted now.  NM grows around 77% of the chiles in the US, and much of that is grown in the Hatch Valley.

So after wandering the streets of Hatch we came 12 miles north to Percha Dam State Park where we will stay 2 nights.  It was so hot this afternoon that we mostly just hung out in the shade.  Late afternoon we rode around a bit with the truck AC on.  This is a very small park so it only took a few minutes to cover it all.  But a few more miles north is Caballo Lake State Park.  Both parks feature dams on the Rio Grande.  There is a little water here at our park but Caballo Lake is a fairly large lake, 18 miles long if it were full.  But reservoirs never get full out here.

By sunset it was cool enough to walk around the campground.  We had one camper come up to us and say that he thought he had seen a VT plate come in here.  He grew up in Mass.

Sunrise in Deming

This became our favorite Hatch Chile shop

Caballo Lake

Camp

This cat came by

And Skye wants to meet the cat

Sunset