I just couldn’t get out of bed this morning. When I did, at around ten a.m., I discovered a sheen of frost or sleet frozen on my car. When I last checked, around 8pm last night, the car’s thermometer said it was 42 degrees outside. The problem with cold, is that it makes you NOT wants to get out of your by-now-warm sleeping bags.

I fed the horse and dog but not myself, in the interest of getting’ on down the road. Packed up and bid Aeroplane Mesa Campground good-bye. There wasn’t another soul present, just us. Heade past Snow Lake and followed the signs for Glenwood (39 miles). Two and a half hours later, above Glenwood, I confronted a mail man on his route on the narrow mountain road. I was on the drop-off side and stopped, having no clue how we were going to pass each other without me, Zoloft, Rio and the horse trailer plunging to our deaths. He said, ” You’ve got plenty of room!” I said,”Really?” and scootched drop-off way a bit, allowing him to pass. He said, “Now, all you have to do is smile!” Talk about hairy roads! No rail ANYWHERE. After Glenwood, we arrived in the mining ghost town of Mogollon

, which was not yet open for “The Season” which was too bad cuz boy, could I have used a bathroom and a cup of coffee! They had some “art” stores and the Purple Onion Cafe, but none were open. I some photos and kept moving.

In Glenwood, I stopped at the ranger station, pumped some water for Rio, which he didn’t drink and went inside to check out the literature. bought a $10 map of the wilderness around Gila Cliff Dwellings and proceeded on down the road. Hit Silver City around 4:30, having somehow figured out that the wires for the trailer lights and the emergency trailer brake had abraded on the rough roads and, thus, no longer worked. I didn’t want to be stuck in the dark with no lights and stuck in the mountains without the emergency brake fun functioning. So, what to? I spotted a U-Haul stored, stopped in and was told about a shop that might help me out. Proceeded there and found a helpful man who charged me $20 cash (we don’t need to tell Obama about this) and headed to the feed store to buy a bail of alfalfa ($20 also but they’re telling Obama.) Stopped at the local feed store, bought a $20 bale of alfalfa ( the alternative was a $22 bale of Bermuda grass, of all things. she said it was an 80 lb. bale…In Austin, I never remember the weight being ever mentioned or an issue. The huge square bale of alfalafa they loaded into the trailer was MUCH heavier than the ones to which I’m accustomed. In Austin, the hay we get is “Coastal Hay”. In Albuquerque, Spur Stables was feeding “Timothy Hay”. It’s interesting to see what changes as you travel around.

After the hay purchase, we went downtown to historical Silver City. Just as I parked and got out of my rig, my phone rang and there was Andrew! He’s got one more thing to finish to close out the semester and was doing well towards that goal. Unfortunately, he’s been fighting a cold all week and sounded a bit mirable but how great to hear from him! It’s serendipitous (boy, THAT’S a word to spell!) how I get somewhere where there’s phone service, a rarity in my travels, and someone calls me! I found THE Internet cafe, a VERY happening place called The Javalina, whose internet access code is “sunshine!” I started uploading photos to Picasa with the intent of adding them to my blog posts, made a few phone calls, bought a few local postcards. One of the postcard I bought is of some bikes parked for the Gila something bike tour which took place just last weekend (the first weekend in May) and is probably a really fun ride to do. Talked to Bill, briefly. He wanted to make sure I was doing enough introspection and encouraged me to keep going- not to return to Austin -anytime too soon. (Deliberate introspection takes time and, while moving, doesn’t happen all that easily, so I’m going to stay longer in my next campsite.) I’ve been saving and uploading everything but really need to cull photos prior to this exercise, to expedite the process. The photo uploading took forever and, finally, I had to just leave because I knew that the next fifty miles to Gila Cliff Dwellings are on mountainous roads and would take at least two hours. I walked down a couple blocks of the old main street and took a few photos of the brightly painted stores and the old hotel, which was in the same building as the Javalina Cafe. Sometime it would be fun to take an historical hotel tour, staying one night each in all these small town hotels that seem to have been built between 1890 and 1930 or so. It was 6:30 when I finally left “Silver”, as I found out the locals call it, so I knew I’d be arriving at my destination in the dark. Again. Damn.

The road towards Gila Cliff Dwellings became narrow and wind-ey about two miles out of Silver City. Six miles from “Silver” I arrived at our first tourist destination, Pinos Altos, with an official historical tour loop encompasses the Hearst Church built in 1898 and financed by William Randolph Hearst – which was, unfortunately locked – an opera house, tavern and cemetery. It was getting dusky but I took a few photos. Only 44 more miles to go. Well, the road was good – paved, but very narrow and with drop offs straight down. I only met a couple of cars en route but it took forever to arrive at my destination. I probably stopped ten times along the way to look at the stunning vistas or snap some photos. I’d been wanting to take a photo of lupine and saw a patch with a variety of colors in them – taller and skinnier than Texas Bluebonnets.

It was 8:30 or so when I arrived at the the infamous corrals noted in my “Saddle Up, New Mexico” book, TJ’s and Woody’s. Just like when the book’s authors visited, the water was off in TJ’s, so we pulled into Woody’s. Just when I did so it started raining so Zoloft and I spent the night in the truck. I knew it was raining hard enough that if I was in the horse trailer I would have gotten quite wet.