Santa Rosa Lake State Park, April 2022

 

Santa Rosa RV Parks & Campgrounds

Santa Rosa, NM, is a popular road trip destination located on Historic Route 66. Roadtrippers frequently pass through the town and stop by one of the local RV Parks for a comfortable overnight stay. The RV Parks and Campgrounds in Santa Rosa, New Mexico, offer the best amenities for a couple of nights in town to enjoy the town or rest up for the next leg of the journey.

The best RV Parks & Campgrounds in Santa Rosa are: La Loma RV Park, Ramblin Rose RV Park, Santa Rosa Campground & RV Park, and the best Santa Rosa Lake State Park.

Santa Rosa Lake State Park is located seven miles north of Santa Rosa via NM 91.

Santa Rosa Lake State Park, a high plains Pecos River reservoir, offers a variety of water sports. Anglers often catch bass, catfish, and walleye.

This reservoir on the plains of eastern New Mexico offers fishing, boating, camping, and hiking, as well as abundant bird watching opportunities.

The Park Elevation is 4,751 ft

You can now purchase the New Mexico State Parks Passes online. An Annual Day Use Pass is $40 which is Good for 12 months from month of purchase, good at all parks except Living Desert Zoo & Gardens.

The Annual Camping Pass for In State residents is $180 and for non-residents $225. The pass is good for 12 months from month of purchase.

New Mexico is full of state parks, but none as special as the Santa Rosa Lake State Park. You’ll get to enjoy all the park activities from the comfort of your RV! Juniper Park Campground is an RV park located within the state park. Stay overnight in the park at one of the best campgrounds in Santa Rosa, NM.

Juniper Park Campground has two areas – A Loop and B Loop. A Loop is a year-round camping ground, while B Loop opens up in the spring. You can access either of the grounds with your year pass to the Santa Rosa Lake State Park.

Any size rig is welcomed to stay in the campgrounds. It has pull-through or back-in spaces large enough to fit a motorhome or fifth-wheel trailer. Each of the sites has an asphalt surface that includes a grill and picnic table. You’ll also have access to sewage and water hook-ups.

Juniper Campground provides simple facilities like a restroom and showers. The facilities are maintained daily by the staff.

The campground is a short drive away from Interstate 40. You can enjoy the park’s outdoor activities or venture into Santa Rosa to the local tourist destinations. Some of the favorite things to do are hiking, fishing, or swimming in the nearby Blue Hole.

From the website legends of america dot com, we learn

Santa Rosa, New Mexico, known as the “City of Natural Lakes,” is called thus due to the area’s many natural lakes and streams. Situated where the Great Plains rise to meet the Rocky Mountains lies this startling oasis amid the red mesas of the flatlands.

In 1865, the town began as nothing more than a large Spanish Rancho and was called Aqua Negro Chiquita. Around 1890, it took a new name honoring a chapel built by Don Celso Baco, who named it for his wife and Saint Rose of Lima, the first canonized Saint of the “New World.” Guadalupe County was created by the territorial legislature in 1891, with Puerto de Luna as the county seat. Santa Rosa remained a minor community until the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Railroad steamed into town in 1901, then became an important transportation hub.  Just two years later, Santa Rosa became the Guadalupe County seat.

When Route 66 was completed through Santa Rosa in 1930, transportation services again increased in the city. During the days of early Route 66, after travelers had tired of the long, hot, dusty miles, Santa Rosa became known as a welcome and well-known oasis in the desert. Travelers arrived in Santa Rosa to eat, rest, and perform car repairs, if necessary, at the many motels, cafes, and service stations that lined the highway.

The old road ran into town past the 81-foot-deep Blue Hole and Park Lake, a motorist campground and water source during the Depression. Scenes in Rudolfo Anaya’s award-winning novel, Bless Me, and John Steinbeck’s, Grapes of Wrath, took place on Route 66 at the Pecos River Bridge.

In 1935 Phillip Craig and Floyd Shaw built the Club Café with the smiling, satisfied face of the Fat Man. For more than fifty years, thousands of hungry Route 66 travelers would stop to enjoy a tasty home-cooked meal. The logo of the Fat Man soon became synonymous with Route 66 in Santa Rosa.

From newmexico.org, we find

In warmer months, you can relax with a dip and experience the joys of swimming al fresco in the natural spots and deep swimming holes in Santa Rosa. In 2012 Condé Nast Traveler recognized the Blue Hole in the top eleven “Best Natural Swimming Holes In the US.” “You could head to the local pool with the other chlorine-heads, but the truth is that no concrete pond is ever going to relax you in the same way as the real thing.”

Santa Rosa still delivers that down-home, Main Street USA friendliness. Whether you’re checking out classic Route 66 cars or neon, looking for the best in fishing, boating and water-skiing, camping, need a cool swim or if you sign up for a scuba diving class, you’ll fall in love with Santa Rosa.

Located on the Pecos River, between Albuquerque and Amarillo, you can see picturesque stone buildings in the historic district, enjoy down-home meals, chill out with our waterslide and pedal boats at Park Lake, walk or bike-ride along recreational trails or on level sidewalks connecting the downtown plaza where the grand Guadalupe County Courthouse is a central landmark, along the Route 66 corridor or on improved trails through an extensive but compact City parks system.

The Santa Rosa Information Center can assist with maps, event information, recreation opportunities, dude ranches, rodeos, local southwest history, the geology of the world-famous Blue Hole and in locating Route 66 alignments and remnants of the road.

Highway 91 south towards Puerto de Luna offers beautiful scenery along Pecos River canyons. Puerto de Luna is also famous for “PDL Chile” a unique strain of chile that has been cultivated here for over 100 years. Look for specials on local restaurant marquees or menus boasting PDL Chile.

Santa Rosa’s stretch of Route 66 is forever memorialized in American film history in Steinbeck’s epic novel, Grapes of Wrath with a memorable train scene, as a freight train steams over the Pecos River railroad bridge in the center of town. The grand dream of making the entire U.S. accessible was realized in 1926 with the creation of Route 66. Tourists flocked onto America's “New Main Street.” Besides offering a delightful watering hole to weary travelers, Santa Rosa provided additional comforts in an era of tough traveling.  Fortunately, it is not too difficult to relive the golden era of Route 66. You can still get a taste of the old days at some of the classic cafes that refused to be forgotten. Visitors from all over the world still wind their way along the historic road.

The east-west highway through the town was designated as U.S. Route 66 in 1926, and the increase in traffic made the community a popular rest stop with motels and cafes. Santa Rosa's stretch of Route 66 is part of film history. When John Steinbeck's epic novel, The Grapes of Wrath, was made into a movie, director John Ford used Santa Rosa for the memorable train scene. Tom Joad (Henry Fonda) watches a freight train steam over the Pecos River railroad bridge, into the sunset. It was also one of the shooting scenes for Bobbie Jo and the Outlaw, starring Lynda Carter in the role of Bobbi Jo.

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