Our trip today took us through some pretty empty terrain--empty, that is, except for the oil wells and rigs and tanks that filled the air with petroleum odors. (For some people, that smells like money.) On our way out of town, we looked for a gas station to fill up on diesel, but didn't see any, so we continued on our way, figuring that we'd find a station in Eunice, NM, only a little over 40 miles away.
When we got there, we ran into a detour--and no gas stations. We stopped and got our nav system to show gas stations. Sure enough, there was one just a few blocks away. When we pulled in to fuel up, Ken noticed that there was no ULSD sign. Oh oh. Our truck, and all other diesel engines built since 2007, requires ultra low sulfur diesel. I went inside to check. The manager didn't know, but he called his supplier who informed him that the diesel was indeed ULSD. Whew! We were getting ready to run on the dregs, something we try never to do.
On our way to Carlsbad we saw a large facility that looked a lot like a nuclear plant, with signs for the WIPP Site. Looking that up on my Droid, I found that WIPP stands for Waste Isolation Pilot Plant. It's a "transuranic" (read "nuclear") waste storage facility, with underground storage rooms carved out of the Permian Salt Formation, nearly one-half mile below the surface.
We are staying at Brantley Lake State Park, which is about 12 miles north of Carlsbad and then another 4.5 miles in to the Limestone Campground. The caverns are another 30 miles south of the town, and road construction is expected to cause delays, so we'll need to leave plenty of time for our drive there tomorrow.
The wind has been unrelenting all day. We're hoping it will slow down soon. We cut our evening walk short because we had to fight the wind every step of the way. We ran into another camper, a local resident, who said that they never have wind like this.... It figures.
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