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We left Canyon de Chelly pretty dirty, so just after crossing into New Mexico, we sought out a Laundromat and did a massive quantity of laundry. It began snowing during this time. The driving got pretty hairy while crossing the Continental Divide -- the snow had begun to stick to the road, and visibility had decreased dramatically. Here is a shot Jody took out of the front windshield.
Just when Doug thought that he would go no further, we began descending, conditions improved, and we continued driving. Aside from some Acoma Indian sites in Northern New Mexico (which we skipped), we found little to recommend New Mexico, so we zig-zagged down and across the state, from the upper left corner to the bottom right corner -- Carlsbad. It was over 520 miles of driving; we pulled in at about 1:00 AM the next day, during a howling windstorm which shook the trailer all night. We had a rough time setting up the trailer in the cold wind after way too much driving. We forgot to "chock" the wheels, meaning we didn't secure them with blocks and the trailer fell off the leveling block, leaving the trailer tongue resting on the van hitch. In English, that means that the trailer fell off it's stand and we were lucky not to totally wreck the front end. We couldn't get the trailer level, so the next morning we moved to a different site wherein we had another disaster happen. The wind was blowing nearly tornado conditions, mind you, and Doug and Jody were trying to set up the trailer in the howling wind. Doug chocked one wheel of the trailer and before he had a chance to chock the other side, the wind blew the trailer sideways, pivoting at the one chocked wheel, moving the front of the trailer about three feet and off of the support blocks and the stand and everything. It was way scary and a little dangerous. All was corrected, and off we went into a big, dark cave called Carlsbad Caverns (Joya , the claustrophobe's favorite thing). |
