That sounds like a fun, adventurous route back to the PNW Frank. We loved Carlsbad Caverns NP when we rolled through that area in Dewey 2 winters ago. We are going to head back north via the coast roads in late March. We got a late start heading south on US395 last fall and found that too many of the campgrounds we wanted to stay were closed so ended up staying at RV parks, not exactly wilderness experiences. US395 is a great road though, we'd never traveled it before so we got to check out Reno, Virginia City, Lake Tahoe, the ancient bristle cone pine forest, Mono Lake, the B western museum at Lone Pine, etc.
I'll pm you with our whereabouts as we head north, it sounds like our paths could very well cross this spring, it'd be fun to camp together again.
This heater we got is really working out great! It puts out a tremendous amount of heat, about twice what a propane patio heater can muster but only about a quarter of the cost to run. It functions well with the good size gravity feed hoppers, you fill the hoppers with pellets, light them with your choice of a fire starter, we use an alcohol gel then just kick back and enjoy the heat for hours.
I can't believe how clean burning this thing is, there is zero smoke I mean none!
Nice being outside enjoying the stars even when it's cold.
www.newfireoutdoors.com is where we ordered ours.
Michael