Avoiding The MUD in New mexico

This is a riders bike a few days ahead of us……

Day 51. 43 miles today, over 2 passes. That means we went UP and DOWN, like most days on the great divide mountain bike route. We woke up in our tent in a “building”. We moved into the building last night after storing our bikes in it and cooking our dinner. It was a campground community building and had a woodstove. We couldn’t bring ourselves to go back out and sleep in the wet grass in damp tents. It was nice to wake up dry, if not actually warm. It was near freezing this morning but sunny. Before leaving we looked for Tara’s sunglasses which are MIA, to no avail and then replaced her shoe clip that had gone missing somewhere, somehow. We rode about 17 miles and then began the 5 mile climb up the pass, (yes, UP) on the winding, twisting road. The aspens were beautiful and vibrant and the narrow gauge railroad tourist train came through this area. Apparently it is very popular for train enthusiasts. We stopped for lunch on the first summit (Manga). The second pass was Cumbres at 10,022 feet . The cumbres and Toltec RR is an authentic steam train for tourists crossing the New Mexico and Colorado border many times. Hence, in this peak foliage time, accommodations are difficult to find. As we pulled onto Chama (off route….) we stopped at the Boxcar cafe for wifi and a mid afternoon “snack”. Jon and Lois had a full breakfast and Tara and I had soup and fries and coffee. Just snacks before dinner. We were lucky to find a room that Tara negotiated for us. We called about 8 places and all were booked. When we arrived, I had a sandwich, my second pre-dinner snack, some cookies and grazed on the bag of candy, nuts and raisins that is always at hand. Then we made dinner (spinach, broccoli, beans, rice, cheese in tortillas). Jon and Lois went to the store and returned with a bag of chips……your hand gets sucked into the bag whenever you walk past! Then I had some junior mints, and cookies and tea before bed. We mapped out a re-route for 2 days to get us to Abiquiu to avoid MUD. Fingers crossed we get there in 2 days.