Oh what a night!

That night at Blanding was cold! No matter how the heat is turned up, it always got cold right before the heater kicked in again – enough to wake one up and then wonder when the heater is going to click off again. That always happens right after you have kicked off the blankets a bit, hung my feet off the end of the bed and fallen asleep again. And then the cold seeps in again.

And we have a creeping sheet. No matter what you do, the sheet ends up right at the top of the bed, leaving only blanket at the bottom, so there is much repositioning during the night – either Frank or I trying to push the sheet down with our feet. Never works, but somehow we never give up either…..

Anyway – we woke up fully, finally, looked outside and were greeted with a beautiful white dusted mountain just a little way away. So I connected to the internet just long enough to see that our next stop, the Great Sand Dunes National Park, was expected to have temperatures of only 43 for that and the next day.

A change of plan quickly happened. We were on the 191 already and according to the map, it headed a goodly way south! So off we went. If The Great Sand Dunes NP is like most other National Parks – it will still be there for next time, but in warmer weather. Both Frank and I do not do well in the cold and our bicycles are starting to feel neglected with no sunshine around.

Anyway. We tootled down this 191S road, linking up with the interstate 40 only a few miles from the Painted Desert and Petrified Forest. I can put this in several different ways: if one takes a photo of nothing every 20 miles for nearly 450 miles, how many photos of nothing would you have? TOO MANY! If one looks at nothing for 14 hours long – how much have you seen? Nada. What does it take for one to start seeing shapes in the clouds? Nothing to see on the ground! I even photographed my flippin toes! There was nothing to see all along this road. Maybe we are just spoiled or maybe we needed a break from the simple awe of the past weeks. But yesterday was just about the most boring day I have ever spent driving around!

When the camera leaps at the sight of sheep in a field, you know there is trouble in travel-land! I took photos of multicolored cows, metal eagles, Allie hiding under the seat, roads going towards nothing and roads we had already driven. I did find a windmill, a horse and even a towering cliff waaaay in the distance. There were none of those glorious yellow trees. I remember looking up from taking a photo of the dog and seeing a hill right in front of me! WOW – click, click. Looking at it now, it is one of the dullest hills I have ever seen.. Now I see just how bad it was.

Anyway. We drove and drove, stopping every now and again to stretch and wonder at the absolute difference from the day before. The wind howled all day long, pushing and pulling against the Skilpads, making Frank wrestle with the steering wheel all day long. At times when we stopped, we could not even get out because the wind was that strong! Doglet was lucky to be on a leash at one of the stops we did get out at – I had to hold tight and then follow the lead to where she was and pick her up. Not even she wanted out for a while after that.

She hid under the seat and I did not have the energy to try and coax her out of there, so let her have her own private hissy fit pity party down there all by herself, but could not resist hanging the camera down there and clicking away – got a good one or two pics of big worried eyes.

Right after getting into Arizona, we took a wrong fork in the road and headed into a little town called Lukachukai. We saw the road connected back up and was a goodly dogleg but we carried on, re-connecting with the 191 south at Chinle. Funny how the town names become more foreign down here.

We drove through the Cibola National Forest and into Socorro where we wanted to stop for the night. Actually, there was a pretty good campground at Magdalene about 30 miles back, but we thought Socorro would be a better place. It wasn’t. We somehow missed the campgrounds there and tootled onto the I25 heading directly south again and then East again towards Carrizozo, New Mexico.

By now we were all bog-eyed, dead tired and looking for the end of the day which someone kept on stretching out. Then it got dark on us and we were still in the middle of nowhere. I mean NO where! At about 9pm we saw a rest stop and quickly screeched to a halt and stopped. What bliss to hear that motor stop. Allie just slopped her way to the bedroom, dragged herself onto the bed and I swear we could hear her snoring!

We ate something, don’t remember what, and then fell into bed, stunned at the absolute blackness outside! The stars were tremendous and I saw shooting stars and falling stars and shadows of strange things all over the place. Frank gently snored next to me with his hand only inches away from the Bear Spray. We had the blinds open so that we could see the stars, but then I started thinking that someone out there could see in……. so down went the blinds and one very very loooong night started.

What we did not realize in the first few minutes was that the rv was not level. Not level at all. This put us with our heads down and at an angle. We were, at first, too tired to bother and comments like “we will survive this” passed between us. Doglet had developed runny guts and was up every two minutes, bell tinkling as she desperately ran for her pee-pee pad (thank goodness she learned that!). The sheet crept upwards, covering our heads many times, the cold seeped in at all points that it could and my imagination ran wild as the wind howled, flapping any and all vents and anything else it could find. And we turned over and turned over again, pulled at the sheets and blankets until about 2am when we decided to turn around, as my dad would say, “*ss about face”, basically sleeping backwards in the bed. Yes, it helped, but now the sheet was bunching up at our feet and I kept on touching the glass of the window with my toes. AAARRRGGGHHH.

We were both very ready to get moving really early this morning. Our aim was to get to Roswell, New Mexico and stay for a few days. And this we did!

Doglet was having a really hard time traveling today and I was sheer out of ideas to calm her or train her or anything. I have tried being nice, tried yelling, tried thinking like Cesar Milan the Dog Whisperer and obviously failed in a big way. She was a shivering mess from early morning. So I plonked her in the wash basket with a pillow under her, behind Frank’s seat and in absolute frustration and tiredness, threw a new pee-pee pad of hers over the top of her, covering her totally.

A pure MIRACLE happened! She stayed there! She stopped shivering, stopped hyperventilating and just lay down, peeking her nose out every 20 minutes or so. Both Frank and I were stunned into silence. Wonderful wonderful. Finally.

And so in triumph and total exhaustion we arrived in Roswell, found a campground with internet and showers and laundry and near town and all. We cleaned the rv inside, changed the creeping sheet, bathed the dog and us too and took off to wash the bakkie and bikes. We also did some shopping, spoke to the kids and generally unwound. We sat with the door and windows open all afternoon, wore shorts and breathed!

Now I am off to bed to catch up what was lost last night – sleep! Frank is already there, and doglet too…… with a much improved stomach, I am happy to say!

I don’t think I will post any of my pictures from yesterday and today – the boring ride – but hey, who knows. We are going to wander around all the little green men shops here – Roswell being the place where the UFO crashed so many years ago. There is a great sense of humor around the town – even the street lights are alien heads. Will defiantely put some of those pics up.

Now to call it a day.

Love and Light
Annie