Will hold packages indefinitely.

Subject: 5/13, day 17, 17.6 mi. 9600'

We had our lunch break at Valle Tio Vences Campground.  It wasn’t much more than a corral with a stock trough, toilets,  and a couple of picnic tables.  There was water in the trough.  That was good! We were carrying water from town and picked up 2 liters at the trough

Finally got back to the divide after noon. The miles passed quickly until late afternoon we started a big climb up beautiful Mangas Mtn. Prolific wildlife and fantastic views and later a nice pink sunset made this a perfect evening walk.

... Gottawalk

Subject: 5/14, day 18, 23 miles, 8100'
Continued our march into Pie Town. We started early and hiked hard to get to town. Ken hiked ahead and got our food and much needed fuel before the P.O. closed at 4:30.

The next stop was the Pie-O-Neer. We were greeted by someone rushing out the front door with a Polaroid camera and saying “Aloha.” She said she was Nita and asked if we wanted to stay at her house, wash clothes, phone, use internet, take showers, ….  We wanted to say. “Whoaa! Slow down.” We were really tired from a fast pace into town and needed to recover before we faced all the town chores.

We settled into a booth and ordered ice water, cokes, salads, and entrees. After eating all that we were so full we couldn’t eat any pie. We talked with Nita more about staying at her house. She had to go to her daughters awards program, but invited us to stay at her house anyway. We asked the waiter what time the restaurant closed and said we would be back at 7:30 for pie. 

Nita took us to her house where we showered. We walked back for pie. They were already closing the restaurant, but let us in for pie. The pie was divine! When we returned to the house Forest, Nita’s college age son, was home. We enjoyed talking with him about his climbing.

Marcia crashed on the floor about the time Nita got home. Ken stayed up a little longer.

Wildlife report: a porcupine, several deer, quail. While we were filtering water from a cow tank (earthen dam filled with water) several cows befriended us. The cows followed us up the road to the next gate. They wanted us to feed them we think.

... Gottawalk