5/5/12

Damn it’s cold. The wind must be blowing 35 miles per hour and it’s probably in the high 50’s or low 60’s. It’s 10:30a.m. I got up around 8:00 to go riding this morning but haven’t made it on the horse yet. The cooler it stays, the less the urgency.

Stopped at REI for a map of the Gila National Forest (and picked one up for the Valle Vidal Unit of
Carson National Forest north of Taos for the next time) and went to pick up Rio from the Spurs Stables where I’d kept him for four days at $25/day. When I got there it was obvious that his pen hadn’t been cleaned….I’d not specifically discussed it but she knew I hadn’t been back. And I sure think she could have done that. The other thing I disliked was that she didn’t ask for Rio’s “Coggins,” which is a certificate from the vet saying he’s free from equine anemia, which any reputable horse boarder should ask for….

IH25 took us south and then we caught 60 west at Socorro, headed towards Reserve, NM. It was warm and the landscape empty. The only town we stopped in was dusty Magdalena. I ignored the advertised gift shops but stopped in a rock shop at which the proprietor was chatting with the local policeman, who left when I arrived. The owner was a son of a man who had worked his whole adult life mining in the nearby Kelly Mine, which was now closed. Some of the rocks – particularly one that was a vivid turquoise color mixed with a bright green, he said, was only found there and thus could not be bought anywhere else. There were only a few polished cabochons, which is what I was looking for my jewelry making, mostly Arizona turquoise and another milky blue rock found locally. I didn’t write down the rocks’ names – I was pressed for time as I didn’t want to arrive in the dark to our new campsite (which, of course, I did anyway!).

After Magdalena, the next roadside site was the National Radio Astronomy Observatory, with huge dishes all pointed in one direction, in the middle of nowhere. How surreal! The light wasn’t great for photos but the image in my mind is strong. It felt Ike we were trying to communicate with a civilization somewhere far, far away. At Datil we headed southeast on 12 for 68 more miles to Reserve.

At around 5:30, I saw the turn off to Valle Tio Vinces Campground, which is one of the four horse camping areas in the Gila National Forest, so I stopped and read about it in my notes and “Saddle Up, New Mexico” book. It is the most isolated of the sites with water available from Valle Tio Vince’s Spring across the way and north of the campground. At Armijo Spring Campground, theres a spring but horse camping is not allowed there. I decided that I’d rather spend the next few days elsewhere, so kept driving.

We arrived in Reserve at around 6pm, later than I’d hoped. I filled up on gas (my tank was empty) for $4.58/ gallon for the diesel the truck requires then went into Bills Bar and Package store and purchases a six-pack of beer for $8. I told him I was going up to Snow Lake and asked him how the road was. He said the first half is paved and is much worse than the last half which is gravel and that I should watch out for the elk, which I would undoubtedly see. He said someone was driving 35mph, hit an elk and went down the cliff. In a glass case were elk- hunting pictures and on one dead elk was the most unbelievable rack I’d ever seen, on anything. I asked if that was him in the photo, he replied, “I wish” and told me that the elk in the photo probably weighed 1,000 pounds. I went into the general tore that was open (there were two but the other was closed) and bought my first junk food of the trip, some Turtle Chex, and several drinks, then we started up the road to Snow Lake, still, thankfully, in daylight.

It was a two hour drive to go the 54 miles to Aeroplane Mesa Campground and I was glad I wasn’t doing it in the dark. True to what Bill in Reserve said, the paved roadmwas bad with a zillion potholes, undefined edges which dropped off down sheer cliffs, and no lines to define either the center or edge of the road. It would NOT have been an easy trip at night. The gravel road was much better. I saw three separate herds of 6-8 elk on the way up and, just at sunset we traversed a part of the forest that had been burned. With the black and cream denuded trres silhouetted against the pinks and blues of the sunset, it was a fascinating landscape. It was just dark when we toured the almost-empty campsite – Dipping Vat Campground – that has a old fashioned water pump and read the warning sign about the presence of Mexican wolves, which travel in packs of 6-8, leave people alone bit WILL attack dogs. this camgrounf, adjacent to Snow Lake, does not allow horses in it. Four more miles and we arrived at our new home, Aeroplane Mesq Campground. It was now pitch black and difficult to see anything. I put Rio in the corral – a large one about 20′ x 20′ (there are three), fed Rio and Zoloft, ate two hummus and tampanede sandwiches and went to bed. I’ve been keeping Zoloft shut in the horse trailer with me at night as the whole time we’ve been on the road, we’ve been in places with coyote and bear and tonight there was the danger of wolves, which I did indeed hear howling in the middle of the night.