On the Road Again

We pulled out of the ranch yesterday at 8:15 into a beautiful day. The temps were in the mid sixties and the sky was bright blue with white puffy clouds. As we passed through Flagstaff the San Francisco peaks were shrouded in clouds. Later, out in the desert, we could see the shadows of the clouds providing a dappled effect on the mesas and buttes. Very pretty day. We've been chasing a cold front across the country and that is a very good thing. It means that the temperatures have been in the 50's and 60's and as long as I babied it, I really haven't had any trouble with the engine getting too hot.

Yesterday we drove as far as Grants, NM, the uranium capitol of America. We stayed in a great little campground called the Bar S. I had my heart set on revisiting the diner we had stopped at on the way West but when we got there, it had just closed. So we wound up at the Iron Skillet at the Petro station near the campground. It was OK, but not what I wanted.

While the day was just super, we started to catch up with the rain after we got into New Mexico. By the time we stopped it was raining steadily. It let up as we left the restaurant and presented us with this gorgeous rainbow.

I was hoping it was an omen for good but the rain returned overnight and we started off today in the rain at 8:00. The rain persisted until we got North of Albuquerque. I stopped for fuel about 20 miles North of town and put in 63 gallons at $4.04 per. The road was good from there, pretty much desert until we got to the Santa Fe area. Then we had trees and hills for awhile until Las Vegas. That's right, there's one in NM too! After LV it was all high plains until the border. At one point we stopped for a break at a rest area and you could see for 50 miles in any direction and not spot anything taller than a small bush. I was waiting for a herd of buffalo to break over the hill.

We did 367 miles yesterday but today we reached a little and went 404. That's more than we really like to do so we'll slow down from here and see some sights along the way. We're staying in a campground on the edge of Pueblo, CO tonight. I would have normally stayed in the Walmart or the Cracker Barrel in town but the temps are going to the low 40's tonight so we wanted power to run our heaters.

The trip so far has been very good with the coach running just great. The roads are decent and the hills are manageable with effort. I'm glad I elected to follow this route back, the stress level is much lower than it would have been if we'd tried the Rockies.