To Valle Vences Campground

BETH writes - Ok, so Mom had every right to be worried in the Pie Town campground, but it was not people who cost either Mom nor I our sleep. Between the thunderstorms, the donkey calling, the coyotes, the owl above our tent, the highway traffic and the best of all - around 4:30 am Mom got up for a minute and when she laid back down she rolled on the car keys setting off the car alarm which took forever (or though it seemed) to turn off, we did not sleep much. After a great breakfast and two pieces of pie to go. Mom and I were off for the 30 miles to Valle Vences Campground. Early in the morning it had poured, but when I started to ride the sky looked like it was clearing. Wrong!! Once again I spent the day dodging lightning and thunderstorms. I am sensing a pattern. I spent the ride flirting with the Divide - crossing it three times through Pinion Pine and then into a Ponderosa forest. Since it had rained so late this morning the roads were still sticky with mud. The mud is not like New Hampshire mud - it sticks to the tires and creates a huge drag, especially when you have three tires. I had to stop a few times to clear the mud and a rock from between my trailer wheel and the fender. After arriving early in the campground, making cell calls, because amazingly we have cell coverage from the fire tower above us, we set up our wet tent. The we drove to Mangas Mountain Lookout just above us - at 9500 ft. Thousands of miles from home the lookout was the same, with a view that was different from NH, but not what I expected for New Mexico. There were tree-covered mountains in every direction. The only clues we had that we were indeed in NM was that many of them had the characteristic round shape and flap top of extinct volcanos. The sky had cleared just enough for us to have a view and then the clouds rolled in again. We may spend another very wet night in New Mexico, at least the rain keeps temperatures cool!
JAN writes - We had a rough and noisy night. The donkey at a nearby site was braying, an owl sat above the tent and hooted for about 1/2 hour, the coyotes were active and we heard them howling several times, and somewhere toward morning I rolled on the car keys and set the car alarm off. It took me awhile to realize I'd done it and find the keys and shut off the alarm. At about 6AM it poured. We went to the Pie Town Cafe for a breakfast burrito (and pie to go) in hopes that the tent would dry, but we ended up packing up a soggy tent and were on the road by 9:30AM. Cool and threatening rain all day. As usual, I went about 5 miles ahead and waited for Beth to catch me. We drove through beautiful countryside - 3 continental divide crossings. Beth peddled only 30 miles today so we ended up in the Apache National Forest at an area set up for camping with your horse. No water for people, but stock pens and water tanks. We were below the peak of Mangas Mountain with a fire tower and a cell tower, so we had amazing coverage in the middle of nowhere. We had not passed or seen a sole all day and had the campground all to ourselves. We set up the tent and almost immediately had a brief electrical storm. As soon as it cleared we drove to the top of Mangas Mountain and climbed the fire tower and were treated to an incredible view. At the top of the 9,500 ft. high mt. we also saw zillions of lady bugs, horned lizards and moose scat. It looked like we were in the Smokey Mountains, not New Mexico! While eating supper at the site, a herd of elk began to walk past - we counted at least 30 of them, but there were more to come. We decided to walk toward them to get pictures and realized that they were making a noise - like playing "Marco, Polo". Really funny, little grunts and squeaks. The thunder drove us back to the campsite and it started to pour and it didn't stop for hours & hours. By morning we were floating on our air mattresses!