Sneaking a Ride to Valley of Fire

Our camp.

Cougina had always planned to hitch a ride across the north side of the White Sands missile range. It's a 90 mi ride with 40 mi of steep,  shadeless uphill, and only one water resupply. We just couldn't practically carry enough water to do it.

View from our tent where tarantula walked.

Upon arrival at the Valley of Fire BLM campground, near Carrizozo, NM, Nathan and Marsha dropped us off at the best tent site, down in a cave-like protected rock shelter, and then grabbed the best RV site, at the top of the hill with a view in all directions. Not that there was any competition. It was pretty much just us.

Rivers of dried black lava running through high desert didn’t sound particularly appealing to me, but it turned out to be starkly beautiful. It helped that there had been rain, and that there was cloud cover to continuously play with the lighting.

Feral cat family.

In addition to the earth contours,  we watched the mama cat with two kittens, obviously freshly weaned, living at our site, sleeping in the rocks, coming out to hunt and to eat the food we offered. Mama is a skinny but sleek and attractive calico. Babies are a grey tabby and and orange one.

We also watched a tarantula walk down the road past our campsite, but the photo has somehow disappeared.

View of storm from Nate and Marsha's.

Nathan and Marsha absolutely refused to accept any monetary gift in exchange for the ride. So, Cougina bought them a 30-pack. Of course, he couldn’t buy them a 30-pack without buying a 30-pack for himself. We spent the first full day exchanging stories and drinking beer up at their hill top campsite. These two quit their corporate jobs 16  years ago, just left abruptly and went to hike the Appalachian Trail. They’ve been traveling ever since, sometimes on foot, and sometimes in their little RV. They had some great stories to tell, and Nathan even managed to take the stage from Cougina much of the time.

While we were visiting, a storm came up. We went inside their RV, and kept drinking and telling stories. When the storm abated, we had to head down to our camp, empty water from our tent, check that the electronics were undamaged, eat something, etc.

Cougina had a pretty tough time with the door latch, but handled the stairs ok. On the downhill ride to our camp, he watched the speedometer get to 23.86, and then came the turn in the road that his bicycle didn’t make. C headed straight into the fence. Fortunately, there were only 100 yd or so to walk to the campsite. All that he really had was a torn up ear, and a headache for the next 24 hours. This is sort of the moment when I realized that this would not be the last of such interesting episodes. Cougina kept repeating that he would write to the makers of the faulty bicycle tire.

Nathan saw the crash from above, and was down on his bicycle in no time, riding C’s bike back to camp, emptying the water from our tent, and being told to get lost. A half hour later, Marsha was there to return the camera I’d left behind and to check on C.

The wind sock.

These two really don’t want their photo on the net, so I’ll just symbolize them by Nathan's unfailingly accurate wind sock creation.

THINK GREEN
BLESSED BE
AGGIE and COUGINA

Hanging Out in Socorro

The Sands, Socorro, NM

Ray Patel

We got a room at the Sands at 205 California Street, $40 per night with tax. It wasn’t bad. Took awhile to air out the perfume smell, but then it was fine. It was clean, especially the bathroom was spotless, and it had a tub. (Aggie loves washing clothes in the tub, and then soaking herself.) Ray was a good host, kind enough to share his cutting pliers with us. That’s him.

As for repairs, the bike shop we had been counting on had shut down the year before, and WalMart was closing out its bike department, so tubes, water bottles, and a 2.5 gallon MSR Dromedary to be overnighted from REI. C lubed the ratchet on his cassette, adjusted the derailleurs (while cursing Ordinary Bikes), cleaned the chains, sanded the disk brakes, and lubed the cables.

REI came through in a hurry, as they always have for us, and our friend Craig sent along a pair of padded bike shorts for Aggie. Whee, that will help!

Dublin, solo cyclist

Dublin's rig.

While this was going on, we met a solo cyclist, Dublin Driskill, pictured. Check out his rig. It’s a lot lighter and more compact than ours. A net bag in front to carry three 2-litre bottles, backpacks for panniers, etc.

Our camel across the desert.

On our last night, just before we headed to San Antonio, NM to sit and find a ride across the White Sands desert, we got a phone call from Nathan and Marsha, who we had met in Datil. They were going to the same place, and offered us a ride in their RV!

THINK GREEN
BLESSED BE
AGGIE and COUGINA