25 September – Aguirre Springs to Socorro – I headed out from the Aguirre Springs campground and back over the Organ Mountains to Las Cruces. As I headed West I was facing a long, long line of headlights of cars heading East out of Los Cruces. Evidently most of the personnel working at Holloman Air Force Base and at the Condron Army Air Field have chosen to live in Las Cruces. It is really incredible the amount of gas consumed in this country by people commuting to their work. When I got to Las Cruces I turned north on I-25. I first headed to the rest area north of Las Cruces where I took a break, checked up on a few things on the internet, and had a bowl of cereal for breakfast. I had decided ... read more

Saturday September 21 – It was brisk at White Sands National Monument. I drove out from Alamagordo to check out the balloon Invitational but the line going in was 2 to 3 miles and creeping along stop and go and so was too long for me so I went around them in the other lane. A policeman stopped me to make sure I was indeed going through and not going to go to the start of the line and try to cut over. I told him I was going through and I did so and then after getting past the entry I turned around and parked on the side of the highway on the other side to watch. While waiting I let down the tailgate of my truck and fixed up a breakfast of peanut butter ... read more

19 September 2013 – Thursday - This morning I checked out the town of Cloudcroft. It was a neat little town with the usual tourist stores and restaurants. Hwy 82 goes through the town and has some restaurants, lodging etc, and also Burro Avenue a block over has some more of the tourist area usual stuff. I explored it a bit and ate at a café called “Dave’s”. The food was very disappointing. I guess if all you get is tourist and you serve them each once that is plenty enough to stay in business. Their ice cream must have been good as it was served from a small window to the porch eating area and half the New Mexico State Police in full SWAT gear were out there eating ice cream cones. Cloudcroft was under ... read more

I had intended to go back to the Montrose – Ridgeway area of Colorado in the last half or September but I have revised my plan and am now visiting the Alamogordo Balloon Invitational in New Mexico. It is held at the White Sands National monument and in Alamogordo on September 21stand 22. After this I will explore the Lincoln National Forest for a bit and then attend the Hot Air Balloon Fiesta in Albuquerque, scheduled for October 5th to October 15th. I attended the Balloon Fiesta on October 5th to 9th in 2011. This is blogged about in trip 7 of my blogs. The weather was very cold, windy, and rainy most of that event but the times it cleared up enough still made the event worth attending. It was awesome. Hopefully I will get ... read more

July 31 – Wednesday – I awoke early at the Lake Fork Campground by the Blue Mesa Dam of the Blue Mesa Reservoir. It was cold so I started up the truck and warmed it up and turned on the heater and warmed up the inside of the truck. I just relaxed a bit and woke up a bit and let the truck warm up. After a bit I tossed off the covers, let the seat back up and started down the road west on US route 50 toward Montrose. Montrose is the only city of any size in this part of Colorado so if someone wants to eat, gas up, or rent a room it is the place to do it. In and of itself it doesn’t have much to offer in the area of ... read more