roadtripper5092072

You know how you grow up in any town, big or small, and you have these few areas where after dark you don't go or would not stick around for too long. It doesn't mean bad stuff always happens there, but this is that kind of spot for Socorro:

*Back side of a very large mobile home community, literally their back yard down by the river
*Public access road leads all along the river here (North to South) and while I sat for 10 minutes to consider staying, I saw enough local character(s) to put it back in drive.
*Trash and glass everywhere from random burn piles

I went 15 minutes south to the next DFW site, same issue. Ended up settling on dispersed camping for 8 dollars a night at Elephant Butte State Park. Worth the peace of mind.

Water is on, dump holes open

I'm still trying to remove flies from our rig and this was with preparation knowing the area would be filled with them. We caught so many our fly paper didn't have any spots left. With the wind going the wrong way you're going to smell some awful things coming from Hickmans.

The area is very beautiful albeit busy, Courthouse Road and Salome Highway are rarely quiet with a lot of high speed traffic of folks commuting to work at the power plant and hatchery nearby.

We would stay here in a pinch again, but its not worth it otherwise.

This is a hard review to write, as I want to emphasize that the COE Park Rangers were exceptionally helpful and attentive. However, there was an incident involving an illegally parked travel trailer across the park from us that shook us a bit and combined with the constant flow of suspicious cars throughout the night...we ended up leaving early.

Incident: The Park Ranger had to relay this to me as I had left my wife and dog behind to get truck repair done in NOLA. Illegally parked travel trailer family tried to take on the ranger and responding sheriffs, escalating a simple "please move to a designated rv site" to a near death by police shoot out, going so far as having a person in their trailer call in a gun threat to escalate the situation. The family involved recorded all of this, involving their small children (10 and under) in recording mommy and daddy fighting the "welfare rangers" from asking them to move the trailer. They were trespassed and with six sheriffs in attendance, things calmed down after. I got news of this after coming back to my wife that evening with the truck repaired.

Obviously a one-off incident, but when I coupled that with how often this campground seems to be used for "off the highway" hangouts and watching repeatedly sketchy vehicles park driver door to driver door at all hours of the night, we said "eff this" and moved on.

The train + industrial gas refineries nearby don't make this any better a place to sleep, it hums with noise and train horns all night every night.

As for when this is flooded, call ahead. They let the flood gates open based on water level in the area. Rangers have a schedule and can let you know.

The Empire Ranch/Cienguita NCA is simply incredible. Stunning views, cooler weather, coyotes and wildlife everywhere. Great biking, dog walking and tasty well water at the Ranch House to refill on.

You have a choice of several campgrounds within the NCA, each with their pros and cons.

Best all around: Cienguita Campground. Most privacy, limited spots 6-10, large rigs can turn around here if no one is camping in the end spot. You are allowed through the cattle gate at the end of the road here but it will dead end into some very deep ruts and there are only 1-2 spots past the gate (close behind you.) No services. The road in is rough but Class A passable in dry weather only, expect tight spots.

Best for large rigs closest to entrance (least off roading required): Maternity Well with space for about 10 closely packed 5th wheels with a turn around at the bottom. No services.

Largest area with pit toilets: Airport (easily fit a festival of people twice while we were here.)

For you remote workers out there:

3-4 bars of unboosted Verizon LTE + AT&T LTE (avoid the ravines for best service.) TMobile ProjectFi was hit and miss. Speeds around 20 up/down for prepaid Verizon, great connection for meetings and conferencing.

I arrived at dusk and had a hell of a time discerning where I could camp after entering the gates after business hours. I gave up and camped road side until I could see again.

Check the map online for the park and you'll be better off. Lots of adventurous folks on the beaches in class a and non 4wd.

Camp staff had no issue with us using a small pullout on the gravel road down ridge road.

Great Verizon speeds even during network management for prepaid unlimited. 10/10 up down. 50/20 when not as busy.

We used this as a go between to Vegas in our RTT setup, showed up late at night and went to bed. Woke up to an incredible view, wish I had stayed longer.

We tend to favor Casinos as a go between and in this case we just needed to split up a lengthy drive to Moab so I could work.

You check in at the hotel front desk, you can use their RV/Truck overflow dry parking lot to do this before heading to the park. Sites are not fully level, expect to use some jacks to get your rig leveled which is a bit annoying but manageable.

I rarely use campground wifi but surprisingly found they have a hardline wired to an access point in the center of the park, meaning no huge latency spikes or speed issues common with poorer deployment choices. I had 80+mbps down, 20up and a 20ms ping to Denver servers. You will find they have an aggressive firewall blocking some services/ports but it serves its purpose for streaming.

For work I relied on Tmobile 5g options from the very nearby tower, flawless connection for Zoom with minimal latency and jitter.

The casino itself is simple but clean, smoke free and has a cheap diner for some meals away from the rig.

We don't do a lot of RV Parks but all boondockers need laundry and some good wifi once in a while when you can't dice roll with LTE and crowded towers.

This park has great laundry, albeit a bit underpowered dryers, fantastic staff and impeccable grounds. Great for dog walks.

My favorite part: while throttled to about 10 down and 10 up, Google Fiber Internet over Unifi Wireless Access Points. Perfect for some critical zoom screen shares for the week. No lack of dining options within 15 minutes as BYU kinda has it all.

Verizon: prepaid unlimited plan in this part of SLC was nearly unusable, throttled into oblivion

Beautiful area with amazing kayaking and trail opportunities. Park ranger was by every morning to check on new arrivals.

On Verizon pUDP I had 30down and 12up. That was great for work.

The bad: spots are super close together and there is zero privacy due to that. This ruins the experience of wild camping. No site has any decent solar exposure so expect to all be running your generator if youre working or don't have a 4k in Lithiums yet :)

Locals showed up often and late into the night, nothing beyond some off leash dog issues occurred but it's not a place I'd leave my gear for long.