One of the main roads from Mexico into this part of the US is route 54, via El Paso and Las Cruces, so there was a Customs station checking every vehicle passing through.
"American citizen?"
"Yup!"
"Thank you, have a nice day."
That was right after White Sands National Monument. (I'm not sure what the difference is between all the classifications - Park, Monument, Forest, Refuge.) Only a few miles of the Dunes Drive are open, and there's not much to see, just a lot of white sand.
That whole area is part of the huge White Sands Missile Range. Every so often along the road you can see some kind of military installation. There's also an Air Force base nearby.
I camped in Oliver Lee State Park, outside of Alamogordo. My first stop today is the Space Museum in Alamogordo.

New Mexico

I crossed into New Mexico on I-10 this morning. My first point of interest was the Shakespeare ghost town, at the end of a dirt road off of Main St in Lordsburg, but it seemed to be closed and anyway didn't look very interesting, so I skipped that. I stopped briefly in Deming. There's a lot I'd like to see in this state but I don't have time to see everything.
I'm in Las Cruces now, eating a snack lunch at Sonic. I've never been to Sonic before, it's pretty good. I'll head towards Roswell next, then north to the major cities. I'll be camping tonight.

I thought my gas mileage would improve after the tuneup, but it's actually gotten a lot worse. I started running out of gas after only 100 miles, and then filled up 4 gallons, so something's not right, but I don't know what.

The weather's fantastic, warm and clear skies. The radar shows a storm off in the east, so hopefully that'll be gone by the time I get there.