I haven’t had cell service for quite awhile. Trying to catch up on yesterday. The past two days have been the toughest and most beautiful.
I had my route all planned out to make it to Rowe in around a 23 mile hike. Unfortunately, the best plans don’t always work. My favorite saying is “adapt and overcome”.
As I started my route I met Leanna. She is from Ohio and driving around for a few months staying at campgrounds. She stopped and gave me two bottles of water. We are actually traveling opposite directions and happened to meet.
The hike is pleasant but it is uphill. 1,551 foot elevation uphill. I finally make it to my turn off and it dead ends into private property. Gate is locked and no one is home. This 6.5 mile way was now replaced by a 26 mile walk around.
Fortunately, Anthony from Santa Fe Road Repair was there. He helped me find the alternative route and gave me some water and two slices of pizza from his lunch. The pizza was from Pizza 9 and was really good.
The walk was beautiful, but on a dirt road that kept climbing even higher. I was out in the middle of nowhere when Rebecca and Brendan found me. They are involved with the ranch that I had to walk around. Rebecca offered to open any gates that I needed to help me. They also offered further assistance at their headquarters. This ranch is huge, 131 square miles. Horses on the ranch kept tracking with me as long as they could.
During the walk it started raining. I kept walking on the dirt road. I saw a lot of wildlife; hares, elk, huge gopher type animal and birds.
I stopped near the deep sky west observatory. I spent the night outside. There were so many coyotes out last night. I heard there were bears in the area and had my spray with me.
I got up early and started towards Rowe. As I walked along, several people stopped to check on me. This is such a desolate area, they are not used to see someone walking there.
For everything that goes up there is a down. I found it. It was difficult to walk down with the cart. Several times I had to walk backwards or stand in front of it to guide it down.
I made it down the hill and was almost out of water. I backtracked a mile and went to the post office to get some water. I am now on my way toward Las Vegas, NM.