"Today is a Good Day to Drive!" .....Van-Go

Our morning started out with a visit from a hairy woodpecker who tapped and tapped until we finally had to take his picture; then he flew off.  Actually, he was warning us of the fire that started in Tres Lagunas, north of Pecos on New Mexico Route 63.  A downed powerline seems to be the cause.  Over 900 acres have burned so far. The ash is covering the sun and the glow is an eerie glow here at campsite 14 in the El Porvenir Campground in the Santa Fe National Forest. We climbed the hill behind our campsite. And took a little walk to pick up a few pieces of choice pine to send to our friend John who will make it in to a vase. As we walked back we could see more and more smoke moving into the valley. And look who we found! The smoke was filling the area so we packed up even though the forest department had only called a stage one alert to the campground. You can see the smoke was filling the valley as we departed the Santa Fe National Forest area. T...

Being a holiday week we moved spaghetti dinner to Wednesday.  We set up camp then relaxed with a snack and a game of Scrabble.  Justin we still love this gift! The day past with reading and listening to the wind. Our campground hosts, Jerry and Fran, joined us as well as a group of students from Las Vegas. We served our usual, spaghetti, salad and garlic toast. We ended the meal with chocolate; one of the girls is holding up a Hershey's Bliss! The boys are in a band, Demanding The Facts.  Will let them use his guitar and they played a few songs for us. Will played a few songs also. The next day the kids stopped by to say thank us again for dinner and to say goodbye; how sweet. And Jerry headed to town on his Harley.

We had cleaned up camp and headed down the mountain to town where we got our mail, did the laundry, caught up on emails and blog, did our shopping and enjoyed a Subway lunch.  It was sunset as we headed back up the mountain. A deer looked down at us and told us to take our time and enjoy the ride back to camp.  It was dark when we got home so we just parked and watched our movie before bed.

We left camp as the day was warming up. And headed into the trail head across from the parking area outside the campground.  The half a mile or so is on private land belonging to the Cristian Camp.  The trail is wide and open following along the stream. There are three bridges that cross the stream, but you can easily walk the rocks and get across without wet feet this time of year. The aspens with their white trunks and bright spring green leaves are so pretty in this short section that looks like a road. White violets were scattered along the forest floor.  A brown butterfly stopped to rest on the trail  This is the third bridge crossing. An old chimney still stands; it is a nice place to rest and contemplate times gone, and who might have lived here.  The trail gets narrow and is a slow constant uphill  A little past the vista of Hermits Peak you come to the sign for the Pecos Wilderness. And a short distance further is an overhang cave shelter. ...