On to Gunnison

---

Left Santa Fe bright and early in good spirits little did I know that this was going to be one of my “wundering what the heck I am doing days.” Lovely wide two lane highway to Espanola then I was on single lane road without a shoulder for miles on end. Still the road was quiet and the scenery was beautiful, so I plugged on, only getting nervous when a semi truck came in the opposite direction; this is when I suck in to make the motor home narrower! I was traveling along the side of the San Juan Mountains, then I started to climb first over San Antonio Peak at 10908’ then Ute Peak at a mere 10093 feet. I hadn’t had any cell phone signal from the time I got on the one lane road, but I crossed the New Mexico/Colorado line in good time and glad to see that the road was reasonably flat and now had a shoulder at least -- but the wind had increased and was pushing me around a bit. Some of these folks in northern New Mexico and southern Colorado must really love their isolation. We always enjoyed living in the country -- 6 miles or so out of town is great, but some of these horse ranches are 50-80 miles from anywhere!

I had gone about 65 miles when I heard a new noise, it took me a couple of minutes to locate it but when I looked through my rearview mirror and up I could see my 27’ slide top awning had unraveled and was slapping the slide of the motor home. I slowed down and within two miles a gas station appeared with a truck turn around parking lot so I pulled in and I had a great cell phone signal! I called my road help company who sent out a technician, by now the wind was blowing at about 30 m.p.h. I was quite nervous when the guy climbed up on that slippery roof in this wind, but he worked away for about 30 minutes trying to get it to retract, he made several ’phone calls and then let me know that he was not going to be able to fix it so, to cut a longer story short, with a great deal of fighting the d--- wind, he sliced it off and I was back on my way. The scenery really is lovely, not Canadian Rockies beautiful, but lovely nevertheless.

I was now delayed by about three hours and I knew that I wouldn’t make it to Gunnison so I decided to stop at the next town. That’s when the rain clouds started to build and I started to climb again, this time over Poncha Pass, which wouldn’t have been too bad in good light, but on the way down it started to drizzle so I put my windshield wipers on, tried to get the windshield washer to spray and the fuse blew and nowhere to pull over! Thankfully the road was very quiet, I was only about three miles from a campground so I drove on slowly wundering if I was really doing this for FUN! The campground was nice, pull through sites, and free wireless but no television, lucky I wasn‘t wanting to watch “Days of our Lives.” It was about 37°F and a driving rain was just starting as I plugged in my electric connection and hooked up the water. Thank goodness I had had the propane tank filled in Deming because I certainly needed the furnace, it got my motor home nice and cozy within a few minutes, but I can tell you; all wundering aside; I was really feeling very lonely when I climbed into bed that night.

---

Photos

On the Road Again
Through northern New Mexico, just as you would imagine Indian country to be.

Trouble
Awning flapping in the breeze (or I should say gale.)