Wells takes off early with the truck leaving Marsha and the trailer in place. He gets to the oil change place and does not even need to get out of the truck. He is back at the campground in less than 30 minutes. Mission Accomplished.
Today we’ll head more or less due east across the top of New Mexico following smaller two-lane roads the whole way. Our route takes us almost due east across the northern edge of New Mexico and includes two significant climbs with the highest one topping out within a few hundred feet of 11,000 feet in elevation. At the pass there is plenty of snow and much of it still fairly deep. Summer will not get here any time soon.
The only larger town we travel through is Taos, NM. Everything about Taos is unique. It’s a mecca for artists with many galleries. It’s a ski town unlike almost any place else we’ve traveled through.
As we continue our trek eastward along the small by-ways there are often surprises. For Wells today we pass Philmont Scout Ranch in northeastern New Mexico. Going to Philmont was the dream of many Boy Scouts with it being “the” scouting adventure. Wells never had gone, but a close friend of his, Billy, did go. Hearing Billy’s stories of his hiking adventures while at Philmont captured Wells’ attention and envy. Billy was a longtime friend who lost his life in a tragic fall while on a training cruise on a large sailing ship the summer after his Freshman year at New York Maritime College. Passing Philmont Scout Ranch today surfaced a flood of special memories.
We stopped for the night at an almost empty RV Park in Clayton, NM only a few miles from Oklahoma.
Seeing North America 