SUMMARY:  We sure are grateful for our nice pine-needly campsite last night.  It rained and rained, so all the ground around us became a sea of mud…except where we were.  We spent all morning slipping and sliding along a very muddy road, with rain so cold that it actually snowed on us for awhile.  But by lunch time, the sun began peeking through, and we reached “El Malpais” lava fields, which meant walking a paved road.  Goodbye, mud!  But yikes!  Ahead of us lay some of the blackest clouds I have ever seen, with thunder rumbling.  But as we walked along, the blackness gradually disappeared and tonight our little blue tent is perched by Hwy 117 on a nice gravel area out of the mud (which is everywhere!)

DETAILS:  It rained for much of the night, and we made another new discovery about staying in a tent instead of under our usual tarp: in a tent, when it rains, condensation builds up INSIDE the tent and then when raindrops strike the OUTSIDE of the tent, it knocks the condensation droplets loose and pretty soon it’s “drizzling” inside the tent.  Yuck!  With a tarp, there was no condensation and the underside of the tarp (where we were) stayed dry.

Because it was still raining in the morning, we ate breakfast inside the tent (braving the condensation drips).  Fortunately it let up a bit when we had to crawl out and start packing up.    We sure are grateful for our nice pine-needly campsite!  All the ground around us had become a sea of mud except where we were.  We’ve heard stories about “New Mexico mud” and now we know firsthand what they’re talking about!   But I was worried about Fixit.  Last night we had some troubles with the tent, and he went out in the rain to FIX it, while wearing his down jacket.  The jacket ended up soaking wet, and is still wet, on a cold and rainy morning.  Not good.  Both of us kitted up with full raingear and walked off down the very muddy road in the pouring rain.

A few miles along and we reached the Thomas Ranch.  Our info said it was near an historic building along the road.  Last night we had seen such a building and hoped we’d reached the Ranch, but now we know that it’s the SECOND historic building that marks the ranch location. For about a mile before we reached the Ranch driveway, we were being escorted by a pair of dogs who cheerfully ran along next to us, being very friendly.  One was a pit bull and the other was a dark colored mutt.  They accompanied us right into the Thomas’ yard, then disappeared.  As far as we could tell, nobody was home, but since it was 7:00 am, maybe they just weren’t up yet.  There was a collection of trailers and campers in the yard which are available to hikers, but all we wanted at this point was water.  I filled up all our water containers from the faucet, with the rain still coming down.  Brrrrr, it was cold and getting colder.  My hands about froze.

Back to the muddy, slippery road we went, and continued our trek.  We discovered that usually the best place to walk was right in the center of the road–it’s a bit higher and less wet than the sides.  The air grew colder, a freezing wind was blowing, and soon the rain turned into big wet SNOWFLAKES that melted as soon as they hit the ground.  Then the snowflakes started to accumulate into a frosting of white on the mud.  I was seriously worried now about Fixit.  I was wearing all my layers (including down jacket) under my raingear and I was still a bit cold.  Fixit’s jacket was still wet.  I began to pray, “Please, Lord, for Fixit’s sake, please give us some sun.”

Finally the snow turned back into rain, and the rain began to slow down.  A pickup truck came along, with CHAINS on the tires so that it could travel in the mud.  Fixit said, “Aha!  That explains why the cattle guards on this road are so beat up!  It’s from people driving over them with chains on!”  A little while later, we crossed a county line, and the road instantly improved–it went from rutted muddy mess to a nice gravel surface.  The rain stopped and hooray–by lunchtime a bit of sun broke through!  We had been walking all morning with no snack break because it was too cold and wet, so being able to stop and eat in the sun (sitting on some grass, out of the mud) was wonderful, and we had plenty of water from the Thomas Ranch and from another cache later on near a windmill.

It didn’t take much longer before we reached Highway 117 at the edge of the huge Malpais lava flows and cheerfully began walking on nice clean, solid pavement.  So much better than mud!  But up ahead lay a wall of the blackest clouds I have ever seen, and we were headed straight for them.  They looked rather daunting, and we were also sobered by the fact that we have 38 more miles of this before we reach Grants.  But we faced the black clouds, determined to chew into as much of that 38 miles as we could, and by 6:00 pm, the clouds started to break up. Whew!  But now we were concerned about where/how we were to camp.  The highway was thoroughly fenced in with barbed wire and No Trespassing signs, and thick mud was everywhere.

But a short time later, we found a nice turnout by the highway, with a big gravel pile in it, and gravel all over the ground.  The wind was blowing, so we said, “Hey, let’s set up our tent here (no mud!) and let the wind blow on it till it dries out (it was still wet from last night) while we eat some dinner!”  So that’s what we did.  The tent dried  quickly, we took off our very muddy shoes, rolled out our sleeping bags, and now we are snug and dry, with a magnificent view of high cliffs right across the road and dramatic clouds behind them.  I ‘m glad the clouds have contented themselves with just LOOKING impressive–they are not dumping any more rain on us!