We woke to an overcast day. The first one we’ve had in a month or more. We made our preparations to leave and pulled out around 10:00 with 248 miles to go today. We stopped at the Dump Station in the park to empty our tank and hook up the Jeep, but by the time we were finished the sun was out. Well, we passed the test that we had given ourselves. We were able to self-sustain ourselves for 5 days and nights and still have 1/2 of the water left in our tank and only 1/2 of our black and grey water tanks were full. We did this without using the restroom and showers in the park, but using our facilities in the bus. We concluded that we can probably stay out at least 7 days without a water or sewer hookup. That is really good to know for future trips. (Boondocking is going without those things, plus no electricity and that we can’t do. Everything on the bus runs on electricity.) We took Highway 50 back to Pueblo and then I-25 south toward New Mexico. As we traveled south, Greenhorn Mountain (elevation 13,347 ft.) came into view. There was still even a little snow at the top.
The road stretched on and on through the foothills.
There wasn’t much, but there was a herd of antelope grazing there.
This was the Spanish Peaks area. The Ute Indians had a name for them meaning “breasts of the earth” and you can probably see why.
This butte stood out prominently in the landscape where everything else was flat.
We we are retracing the route that we took to get here, so some things were familiar. This rock outcropping on a hill overlooking the town of Trinidad did not seem familiar.
We also saw this black pile of something, but we couldn’t figure out what it was. It wasn’t coal.
From there, we made the steep climb up to Raton Pass (elevation 7,834 ft.)
From the top, we made the steep drive down the other side and the views were awesome!
We crossed into New Mexico at 12:30 on the way down. We would only be in New Mexico for a short distance.
In the town of Raton, we picked up Highway 64 which was a beautiful 4-lane highway, lightly traveled.
We passed the entrance to the Capulin Volcano National Monument. The last time we came by this way in June it was closed.
You can see the cone of the volcano where the building is sitting.
This highway took us over into Texas and the Central Time Zone at 2:05 or 3:05 CDT. (We forgot about changing time zones today. Less time for cocktails, I guess.)
We arrived in Dalhart, TX where we found our campground, Corral RV Park at 3:45 CDT.
We got to choose our own site, so we picked #44, the first one near the Office with some shade and grass nearby.
We set up and got the AC going right away. The temp was 97 degrees, but that should be the high for today. Auggie got a walk in the shade on the grass to stretch his legs. He didn’t want to linger outside very long either. We relaxed a little before dinner. Tonight’s low should be 66, so we’ll wait for the sun to drop lower in the sky and things to cool off before we take our evening walk. I hope to check out the meteor shower again tonight if the skies are clear.