Up at the crack of dawn again, out by just after 7:00, first stop Walmart in Clovis to do our shopping, as there wasn't another one on the way for the rest of the trip. Grabbed a bit at McDonalds (AWFUL compared to the great breakfast sandwich we had the on Tuesday!) And headed northwest on 84. I had arranged to pick up some hay/alfalfa mix in a little town called Ribera, which was on the way, though it turned out he was south of town, making it a bit more out of the way, and once we got close by my cell phone ran out of signal, so I lost track of his directions. I turned on to the county road he mentioned, but before going a hundreds yards, the road became WAY to narrow, and I wasn't about to try to get my big rig back there. A helpful biker came by and confirmed it was the right road, and he was kind enough to lead Hubby there, who confirmed that NO WAY could I have gotten down that road, and that he, in fact, almost didn't make it! I had even told Joe, the hay guy, that I had a big rig, and asked if there was room to turn around, and he said yes, but he never mentioned the rest of the road was impassable! Anyway, they loaded a small pickup with the 13 bales I needed to top off, and we got it loaded up. It took us about twice as long as I had allotted for the diversion, but we finally got on the highway again just after 2:00. Turning north at Pecos, we followed a long and windy road, though fortunately paved, nearly 28 miles until it ended at the campground, with the equestrian campground veering off to the right. It was packed! The wide open, hilly field, with one loop driveway, was crammed with day riders and campers. Miraculously, there was one open side (well, actually it was a double site, but since we had two vehicles we didn't mind paying for both), and we quickly filled the RV with water and moved in. Hubby had already gotten the horses moved into their corrals (4 in all at that site) and then proceeded to fill up one of the portable rain barrels in the back of the horse trailer. It wasn't too long before we got settled in, satellite dish up and running. Water here is at two different spigots, both of which had a spring loaded handle, and, of course, the consummate stone laying near the bottom of the pipe for propping it open. The camp host, Tammy, was very nice, and lent us a map I could copy so we at least had some idea of what the trails were like, and I spent a little time talking to our neighbors, one from Georgia and another from Texas, who had met the night before at a popular stopover in Tuscarosa (?) and who both happen to be coming here. As we're at about 8800 feet altitude, it was a bit of a challenge getting all our chores done without getting out of breath, but we managed pretty well. Had to chock the tires with big stones and disconnect the truck in order to get even moderately level because of the slope of the site, and didn't quite make it even then, but at least we're not so steep we're stumbling around (hey, that happens!) Of course, no cell phone signal, so we'll be incommunicado while we're here. Nice and quiet! Unfortunately, someone had come into the camp the night before and stolen a saddle and some other tack, so we were advised to lock everything up, which is such a shame, since that's atypical of horse camps. I guess there's a feud going on between the locals and the Federal authorities, hope it doesn't escalate into anything while we're here. Anyway, there's supposedly a 30 minute every 3 hour limit on generator use, so we cranked ours up and charged the batteries in a hurry. Had a little trouble getting them to stay on, they kept cutting from charging rpm to idling rpm, so we had to use both for the job, which is unusual. Will look at it again tomorrow. To bed early, in preparation for our ride tomorrow!
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