Thursday, October 24th

Thursday, October 24th. Day 128

Today's miles = 15.1 Total CDT miles = 1,974.3

I woke up around 8 this morning not wanting to hike. I was so comfortable in the bed I wanted to stay there all day. The only thing that made me get up was the smell of the dead mouse in the heater vent (gotta love cheap motels). I was packed and ready around 10am and walked over to the dollar store for a few last minute hiking items (super glue, pain meds, IcyHot patches for my neck). The trail leaving town was actually the highway. I didn't get to hitch on the highway to the trail because the trail itself was the highway. I knew that New Mexico was a lot of road walking but I guess I didn't expect so much of it. The highway only lasted about 5 miles before the trail turned off onto a car trail. That lasted a few more miles and then the trail was finally really a trail again. The hiking was very plesant today. I am most certainly in the desert and the trail is made up if inches and inches of sand but the weather was beautiful and the terrain was mellow. The scenery is so different than Colorado it's hard to believe that such a huge change in environment could have happend so quickly. There were multiple sets of bones I hiked by today. I couldn't tell what most of them were from but one was certainly a coyote. There was also a half eaten cow on the side of the trail. The meat still looked fresh. 

Panama and Bethany left town today also as well as Bigfoot and Barrel Roll. They are two hikers I met at Ghost Ranch who are also hiking SoBo. It's strange but nice to have hikers around. So much of the CDT has been so lacking in the social aspects that it actually feels weird to see other people on trail. 

Tonight I'm camped by a spring. It was the first water source since town. The next water is another 15 miles away so I decided to bunker down for the night. The second I entered New Mexico the water has been horible. Not only on trail but in town too. At the motel in Chama the water actually came out of the faucet a thick brown. It could have been the poor quality of the motel but I blamed it on New Mexico. The water in the motel last night was better but I still chose to buy gallon jugs of water at the grocery store. You know its a special cirmumstance when I'm willing to pay money for water in a bottle!!

Its raining tonight. The last time I was in the desert (The desert Basin in Wyoming) it rained there too. The Basin gets on average one day of rain a year. It rained on me the three days I was hiking through it. Now I am in the New Mexican desert and its raining here too. Baboon said earlier today that the clouds looked like rain. My response was, "Of course they do. We are in the desert.