Sept 29 - Where the Deer and the Antelope Play

This morning as we drove south on Interstate 25 it was as though we were on the set for the movie "Dances With Wolves" and would come over one last rise in the outstretched plain to a sea of buffalo (hopefully you know the scene and can picture it). As the high plains rolled on we watched the multitude of antelope literally playing alongside the highway oblivious to us intruding into their territory. They are a happy creature and seem to co-exist with the cattle and occasional buffalo that we saw.

Since we left the high rises of Denver, the weather has cooled considerably and the terrain has changed dramatically. The strong winds of Colorado City kept the weather fronts moving through quickly. Now the winds are missing and there are heavy fog and clouds hanging over the mountains. We even spotted a distant sprinkling of snow today.

We are less than 200 miles from Albuquerque where the balloon festival will be...a number of trailered balloon baskets were in tow today on the highway. The festivities actually start this weekend so it is obvious they are beginning to "ramp up" for the fun. We are not scheduled to arrive in Albuquerque until next Wednesday...half way through the 10 day balloon fest.

Our destination today was another KOA, this one in Las Vegas (New Mexico). We had several heavy rain showers as we traveled this morning and by the time we arrived here the dusty red clay of the campground was muddy and mucky, running in torrents down hill in several sections of the RV park. We have become spoiled with paved RV sites at most of our previous sites so this was a challenge both in parking the rig and hooking up hoses and cords.

Then we encountered a problem with one of the motor home slides (half in and half out as the rain poured). Upon examination (kneeling in the rain and mud, shining flashlights under the motor home and several attempts at running the mechanism back and forth) we spotted a shiny broken bolt on the ground that had sheared off of the drive shaft used to run the mechanism that brings the slide in and out. A friendly, little, Hispanic man came by, seeing that we were scratching our heads a bit more than the normal RV traveler. Once he saw what we were working with he quickly scrounged up a piece of plywood, slid it under the motor home, laid his small, slender frame on it and shimmied under there and fixed it for us. What a God send he was. His size was definitely an asset and enabled him to be our hero purely out of the goodness of his heart.