[Note: The most amazing thing about keeping a blog on a trip like this is how quickly you can go from being caught up to being four days behind! We are now four days behind but we're going to cheat and consolidate a couple of entries to get back on track.]
This morning (Saturday the 26th) we awoke in our Capitan campground to tremendous gusts of wind that hit the camper every five minutes or so. We're thinking they were about 40 mph on average. So much for our plan to get out of here early to beat the wind. Turns out you can't beat the wind any time of day at this time of year in these parts.
The deer didn't seem to mind too much. There were three standing feet from the backdoor of our camper when Art opened the door to let Pepé out this morning; he (Pep) promptly sat down and watched them in stunned amazement until they wandered away and he got the courage to go down the steps and sniff around where they had been.
We packed up, paid the park owners the grand total of $20 we owed them for the stay, our excellent Internet connection, and the entertaining chickens, then headed on down the road. We made only a small pot of coffee, thinking there would be a coffee shop or something resembling one in Capitan, but the only place that looked likely for a decent cup was a diner that was spilling over with pick-up trucks and people streaming in the front door. We figured it would take us 20 minutes to get a cup of coffee, so gambled that the historic town of Lincoln a few miles down the road would have some good cowboy java.
Well, Lincoln wasn't awake yet on this Saturday morning. We took a few pictures of Billy the Kid monuments, the Sheriff's office, etc., then headed on, hoping the next little town would have something.
The Starbucks app on Laurie's iPhone said our next chance for a real cup of coffee was Roswell, far enough away for us to expire in the meantime, so we kept our fingers crossed for the great town of Hondo.
On our way into Hondo, we pulled over to photograph a herd of elk munching on a cultivated field down below the road. There was one bull and about 15 cows. And they were gorgeous, gracefully moseying through the field. We stayed for about 15 minutes as they were captivating for some reason.
Hondo fortunately had a convenience store that seemed to be the only going concern in town. There must have been 20 cars there and twice as many locals gossiping inside. The coffee was Farmer's Brothers or something and not good at all, but by that time, we weren't going to complain. Roswell was another hour away.
Hondo is located right on the Rio Hondo, in a valley which is five miles downstream from where Rio Ruidoso and Rio Bonito join together; the town was originally called La Junta (the junction) because of the joining of these two rivers here. The drive southeast out of Hondo is beautiful, following the winding river closely down a meadowed, sometimes flood-irrigated landscape. It is dotted with trees that are chartreuse this time of year, and separated by ranches that are set way off the road. As soon as the road leaves the river, you are back to more high desert, dry and flat grasslands, that take you pretty much the rest of the 45 miles to Roswell. 
Our main objective in Roswell was to find that Starbucks (by now it is almost noon!), but our secondary mission was to photograph as many UFO-related sightings as we could. On our approach to the town, I read to Art off of my iPhone the full Wikipedia summary of Roswell and the Roswell UFO Incident, as it is known, so our expectations were pretty darn high that we would at least see some strange looking creatures in town. 
We did see a pretty good ho-down going down of Harley riders, took some pictures of the UFO museum, and a few surrounding attractions, but all in all, Roswell was not very exotic. We bought our coffee and drove the remaining 75 miles to our KOA Kampground on the north end of Carlsbad.
This is a very nice campground, extremely well maintained and managed, and equipped with THE best shower/bathrooms we have ever seen in a campground. Seriously, they are nicer than our bathrooms at home. The K-9 park met Pepé's requirements, with green grass, an obstacle course, and lots of good smells. 
And they have bunnies here, which he really likes. The sites themselves are level, very well laid out with lots of room between sites, and in the summer it is probably also green.
But boy, is it windy. The sites are positioned so that the prevailing wind blows right up to the back of your rig, which happens to be our backdoor. We got there around 1:00 and the wind just steadily picked up as we got the camper off the truck and hooked up. By the time we left to head into town to see Laurie's mom and brother, it was truly howling. 
Your first clue upon arrival should be the wind generator that is set up out in front of the office. Laurie suddenly realized why the one amenity these incredible shower rooms don't have is hair dryers after working her way back to the camper, upwind, after her first shower here.
The KOA is about 15 miles north of Carlsbad and Laurie's mom's house, which we were a little worried about at first, but the drive was actually very pleasant and easy, and turned out to not be a big deal at all. We made our first trek into town after getting the camp set up and showering. After Pepé was semi-successfully introduced to Sir Winston, Laurie's mom's pug, and her brother got off work from his job at the Country Club, we all went out to dinner at the fanciest restaurant in town, the Stock Exchange at Old City Hall. This place is owned by Kevin Zink, a successful chef who last year won the International Iron Chef competition in Toronto. The food was great and everyone enjoyed their meal, especially Brian (Laurie's brother), who hadn't seen fresh crab in an awfully long time.
We returned to fetch Pep from Laurie's mom's house then made the trek back to camp for a good night's sleep.
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