Thursday - M:ay 13, 2021
After 3 days of Albuquerque, we finally got out of New Mexico. It was 54 degrees when we got out of bed this morning. With our new working brakes, we got on the road about 7:30, a good start for us. We saw 3 hot air balloons as we were pulling out, which is practically an icon for New Mexico. We crossed the state line into Colorado 3 hours later, at the top of Raton Pass, at 11:30. As we came down off the pass, we could see the snow-capped Rocky Mountains in the distance.
We stopped for sodas just a few miles later in Trinidad. It was a windy 49 degrees, a bit chilly for us in our shorts. The temperature for the New Mexico part of the drive today was mostly in the 50s, with occasional drops into the high 40s. After we went over Raton Pass (elevation 7818), and into Colorado it warmed up in the 70s for the most part, and we drove at elevations below 5000 ft. We saw lots of pronghorn antelope today, approximately 220 (we tried to count them all). 95% of them were on Joe's side of the road, and I never got a good picture. 180 of them we saw in the last 100 miles of New Mexico. We only saw about 40 in Colorado. But we did see 11 deer in Colorado. Happy to be watching for wildlife again. There were elk and bear warning signs when we came off Raton Pass but we didn't see any of them.
From Trinidad, we cut over to Colorado 71, which took us over part of the original Santa Fe Trail (lot of cattle drives from Texas on this trail),
and across the Comanche National Grasslands. I expected the grasslands to have foot-high grass waving in the wind, but maybe we were too early in the season. Miles and miles of open prairie. Lots of cattle too.
As we neared Limon, our destination for this evening, we passed a house with 3 lilac bushes blooming. Of course, we were passed before I could get Joe to stop. But from there on, lilacs were added to my BOLO (be on the lookout) list. We did pass one bush in Limon but it was barely budded out, so I'm hoping for more lilacs in my future.
We saw several solar farms today, but only one windmill farm, which was huge, covered the entire horizon just before Limon. As open as this area is, I'm surprised there weren't more.
We reached our campground in Limon at 3:45, and Joe was ready to be done for the day. 408 miles today. We hope to reach our first real destination tomorrow, Elk Mountain Campground in Wind of the Caves National Park, Hot Springs, South Dakota. We plan to park there for 5 days and explore the area in the jeep, including Mt. Rushmore, Crazy Horse Monument, and the Badlands.
Today was fairly uneventful, except for a tight squeeze at the fuel stop when Joe scratched a panel on the side of the RV when he got too close to the pump. But all in all, a peaceful drive. Just what we needed after Monday's excitement.
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