Ship via UPS.

Ken or Marcia Powers

Will hold packages indefinitely.

Subject: 5/23 day 27, 20.5 mi, elev 7300
Walked out of Cuba (Spanish for contained water) and rolled up and down at the same elevation as Donnor Pass. Looks the same with mountains and pines but the rocks are lavender, pink, buff, yellow, white and green. Lovely. Horses and goats came to the fence to greet us, very curious and noisy.

Carried Subway sandwiches out of Cuba and lunched beside the road in perfect temp.

An elderly woman stopped me while I was buying lunches at the grocery. She wanted to know what we were doing, held my arm and said that she had ridden a bike from ME to NM. She was sure the angels were with us.

Found a narrow stretch of BLM land to camp on. Everything else is private or closed national forest. We expect the same problem tomorrow night.

... Gottawalk

Subject: 5/24, day 28, 7200', 25 miles
We're still on NM96, actually between the CDT and the divide. Actually crossed the CDT somewhere today. Funny thing is we were going the wrong way on the trail (southbound). This whole day was a road walk along the highway. Easy to calculate mileage with the mileage markers.

We ended up camping along the road right of way. All the land is private or closed forest. Heard a lot of traffic at night and again in the morning. One car even honked at us before we were out of bed. (We frequently get cars honking at us. We think it is a sign of encouragement.)

Water is not a problem here, just stop at any mini-mart and buy it or beg to fill a 2 liter bottle.

Found out that a 6,000 acre fire is a day south of us. They evacuated 2 small villages. We haven't even seen any smoke.

The sandstone cliffs here are beautiful. They are steep, crumbly, and various shades of reds. Some have streaks of violet, greens, or tans in them.

 ... Gottawalk

Subject: 5/25, day 29, 14 miles
We are in Ghost Ranch Conference Center. The people here will do anything to make us happy. We are staying in the campground (free). The campground host gave us a lift in her golf cart to find a camp site. She even recommended one - we took it. Then she offered to bring us lounge chairs!

Our hiking today was along NM 96 and US 84. The scenery continues to improve - I don't understand how. The red cliffs around Ghost Ranch are great.

Walking along US 84 was an unusual trip. The highway is heavily traveled. The first mile there was no shoulder on the highway. Twice we had cars going the same direction as us pass while having a yellow line. Both whizzed by within a foot or so of us. We were ready to skip US 84. Fortunately it got better.

Then the highway patrol showed up. We saw him make several U-turns and hand out tickets. I have never been happier to see tickets handed out.

When we spread our ground cloth out along the shoulder to eat lunch we thought we would cause an accident. Almost every driver nearly broke his/her neck watching us up on the embankment eating lunch.

After lunch we walked another mile and found a picnic table. Boo-Hoo. As we walked by it a CDT hiker we know came up the drive to greet us. He is tired of New Mexico road walks and closed forests, so he is skipping ahead to Colorado. Said he will return after the summer rains.

Ken is not sure about walking US 84 on Memorial Day Weekend. And the forest between here and Colorado is closed. We may stay at Ghost Ranch longer. After all we are ahead of schedule.

Someone asked how we could tell land ownership. The Forest Service and BLM maps are color coded for land ownership. However they don't have topo lines to show elevation gain. Another advantage is that they show all the back roads and jeep trails. Sometimes we resort to carrying Forest Service or BLM and a US Geological Service map. Extra weight, but at least we have the information.

... Gottawalk

Ken left to solve his own problems

PS Why did the porcupine cross the road?

Because he quilly didn't want to walk very far!