What a night we had! For the matter, it seems to be par for course in this neck of the woods. The lightning show was like no other. We were surrounded in every direction by what seemed like strobe lights! This went on for the majority of the night. I finally was lulled to sleep by the rolling thunder.
We wanted to get up and out as soon as possible. Just after 7am, we were on trail. Honestly it’s hard to get out much earlier being the sun doesn’t rise till close to 7:30am. I’m not looking forward to the standard time change as then, we will have even less daylight hours! So is the struggle of a Sobo hiker.
The trail was nothing but mud. Thick, gooey, stick to your shoes kind of mud. At times, both Fearless and I were slipping and sliding from one muddy mess to another. But somehow, we stayed upright with Bride of Frankenstein Shoes of Goo! We made quicker than normal miles being we both were low of food, and honestly just wanted to get to town.
After our lunch, we saw a couple of trucks and a trailer parked off the roadway. Maybe they are headed to town. Ends up that Ray, Roy and Sylvia just pulled their Elk tag and are hunting this weekend. They invited us in for coffee and tea just as it started to rain. What perfect timing. We talked for a bit and once the first round of rain stopped, we headed back out.
Before we left, I was sharing with Roy the lone cow I saw near Chavez Peak. He quickly asked if it had a green tag on its left ear? It sure did! Ends up that Roy’s’ friend has been looking for this cow. Fortunately I had dropped a pin and knew the exact location. The lone cow will be rescued after all. That just made my day!
Within half an hour, the sky turned black and you guessed it, round two began. This time it was accompanied by thunder and hail. That lasted for close to an hour. Now mix in a bunch of hail with a lot of mud. Well you get the picture.
After that was over, we hit our junction. If we stayed on the Redline, we wouldn’t make it to Grants until tomorrow. But if we continued on our road, there was a slim chance we might meet someone headed to town. Well, we met several hunters heading Nobo but not a single vehicle headed towards Grants. And so we walked.
After we cleared just over twenty miles, Andre comes down the road. He’s a Lineman Supervisor and was out inspecting the powerlines that were hit by a tornado last night. What? There’s tornados out here? Well that just makes me rethink this whole nonsense of hiking the CDT! Sure enough, while we were tucked inside our single-walled piece of nylon, a tornado, no less than ten miles from us touched down and took out the powerlines. Well, that’s reassuring, not!
Andre was more than happy to give us a ride to Grants. He’s on his way home to Albuquerque and it’s on the way. What a godsend! We honestly were not sure how we would make it to Grants without a kind soul picking us up. It was well over another thirty miles to town.
On the way, we passed several washed out areas due to the heavy rains we had last night. Roads were closed, mud and water was flowing across the roadways and here we are, nice and dry inside a Ford Bronco with more mud on it than our shoes. And that’s saying a lot. Andre drove us directly to our hotel and said that he’s planning a hunting trip in a couple of weeks near Silver City. Hopefully we will see you again.
This has been a tough week. The weather is always an issue. The winds were blowing constantly and now we have tornados! Our miles have picked up and just when I was getting comfortable, believing we got this trail in the bag, we are both dragging! Like they say, if it was easy, everyone would do it! And tomorrow is indeed, a new day!
“The faithful love of the LORD never ends! His mercies never cease. Great is his faithfulness; his mercies begin afresh each morning.”
Lamentations 3:22-23 NLT
