To the east of Caballo Lake State Park are the Caballo Mountains. The lake is eighteen miles long and a mile across at the widest point. I have kayaked across near the boat ramp.
The entrance to the park is about one mile from the exit/entrance to interstate 25, the North/South route between Albuquerque and Las Cruces, New Mexico. Percha Dam State Park is about 4 miles from here.
Rock Hound State Park allows visitors to take small samples of gem stones. Most of the parks are like this one. Take only memories. The main attractions here are boating, fishing and birding. We saw quail, road runners, doves, and hawks. There are numerous small bird species we did not identify.
Birding is very popular. When we were camp hosts at Rock Hound, we met several couples who camp across the U.S. just to locate and identify bird species. This is trail number 35. 34 is located at Percha.
All the rules and information are listed at the entrance, along with the pay tube. It is always wise to get your campsite before paying. If you pay first you may find out there are no sites available, and there are no refunds. We had that happen when we were camp hosts.
Caballo Lake State Park has three campgrounds. They are shown here on the map posted at the entrance pay station. Stallion and Palamino are reservation sites. Appaloosa is first come, first served sites. We stayed in Appaloosa.
You have no difficulty finding your campsite. Each campground is well marked.
If you take the road to the left here, you go into the back part of the Appaloosa campground.
Here are the rest rooms for Stallion. Pretty handy since there are no full hook-up sites there.
The sites in Stallion are not too close. They provide a sense of privacy. Water and electric are provided.
If you turn to the right at this point, you enter Appaloosa Campground. If you continue ahead, you go to the boat ramp. There is ample parking for boat trailers, and even places off to the left of the boat ramp where people are allowed to "primitive" camp.
The RV's are a lot closer together in Appaloosa than Stallion, but the sites are still very nice and easy to access. On this occasion, we selected the handicap site. It had a concrete pad (nice for leveling our trailer), and was right next to the nearest bathroom (located in the Palomino Campground).
Here are a couple of unoccupied sites in Appaloosa.
Again, if you turn to the right you enter the campground, and if you continue ahead, you go to the boat ramp.
This is exciting :). It is the dump station. It serves three parks. Caballo, Percha, and Riverside. Riverside State Park is located just below the Caballo dam, along the Rio Grande.
The sites in Palomino are reservation sites also. They are close to each other, but there are some full hook-up sites available like the one occupied by this Starcraft trailer.
We meet some wonderful people while camping. I met a couple who happened to own one of my favorite dog breeds. This is Bree, a female doberman pincher. She was very friendly. Her owner tried to get her to pose for me with her ears up. She would not do it, so when she did not realize I had my camera ready, I snapped this shot.
This is Bree's playmate, Tinker. She is a beautiful Chihuahua.
I will close this blog post with a beautiful New Mexico sunset. However, I must confess. This is not a sunset picture taken at Caballo Lake State Park. It was taken at Leasburg Dam State Park shortly after we left Caballo. We never saw a beautiful sunset while camping at Caballo.
On my next blog post, I will feature pictures of Sandhill cranes that are migrating at this time of year.
