Well, thanks for all your kind words. My flight from Geneva is delayed, so I'll use the time as I sit in the airline lounge to add another day or two to the report. Now, where was I? Oh yes...
Sunday - Let's do some more drivingAll night we had that loop to ourselves, overlooking the Rio Grande, and we sat in the early morning sun writing post cards and enjoying fresh coffee with a view of the river below.
Sunday meant a long drive. There is so much to see on route, but we just couldn’t fit in anywhere near the things we would like to, so just went for the major sites on our list. On leaving the campground I persuaded Sally to have a go driving the van, at least for the empty sections of road before we got back on the highway.
But to start off we found the hot water pipe on the kitchen tap was leaking. I forgot to bring my screwdriver / utility knife set from home, so we detoured to a supermarket again to get a budget one.
We refilled the gas tank. It appeared to have averaged 16mpg - I did get better mileage once, but that was pretty much what the van averaged during the whole trip. Thankfully the lower price of gas here meant this was still cheaper than using my turbo diesel TC at home, which gets 25mpg. Goes some way to offsetting the cost of renting an RV which we aren't used to.
We dropped by Taos Pueblo, but it was closed :(. We did drive through Taos, which looked lovely, but decided not to stop – the shops were closed being Sunday and we were on a tight timeline that day.
So we head in the direction of Alamagordo, stopping only for rest stops, to watch people spending their time doing better things than driving...
...admire the flora, even of the deceased kind...
...and to exchange waves with a train driver.
Having spent all day slowly descending, we undid that by driving up to Cloud Croft to see the old narrow gauge railroad trestle.
We decided to try the Pines campground in the Lincoln Forrest. We were the only ones except for the camp host (who had disappeared).
The campground seemed expensive at $18, but I guess this is a much more popular site than last night’s so charges more. However, it is certainly nicer than some of the RV parks we passed on the highway, which resembled fly-blown car parks or truck stops next to busy intersections. If it is camping in the forest with nothing but animals to listen to or taking advantage of free wifi and watching cable TV to a Kenworth backing track, I know which I’d prefer.
The new screwdriver set got its first use to re-tighten the side door handle and fix the leak, though I am being careful by turning the pump off after each use of the water, and then opening the tap to release the remaining pressure.
Later a ranger drops by to say the camp host won’t be returning for the night, so we have the campground to ourselves (again).
Stay tuned as we turn the corner...
