Category: hiking

A last-minute plan to celebrate our 20th wedding anniversary with a two-day hiking excursion in the Sacramento Mountains turned out to have an added bonus.  We had an unexpected opportunity to once again intercept our favorite Celadon driver, this time on a Laredo to LA load he was hauling.

We were already on the road Tuesday, headed to Alamogordo, when Mike messaged the news that he would be coming through New Mexico. As usual, it was uncertain what his schedule would be–when he’d be passing through and how much time he could spare for a stop. But we told him to keep us posted and we would see if we could arrange a meet up.

As originally planned, we stayed overnight in Alamogordo and Wednesday morning headed up into the mountains to enjoy the beautiful spring day.

After getting some maps and information at the ranger station in Cloudcroft, we decided to do an out-and-back hike on part of the Rim Trail. All of the years I lived in Alamogordo I don’t think I was even aware that there was such a trail. I think in those days I had too many other things to deal with.

After the hike we drove further up the road to the Sunspot Solar Observatory. I do remember having gone there several times in the past. But now I was saddened to see how the place is virtually abandoned, its functions taken over by newer technologies. At least it is still possible to take a self-guided tour through the complex, reading information signs in front of the various buildings and telescopes. We finished our day with a stroll through the cute little mountain town of Cloudcroft. It seems to have gotten a few more tourist attractions from what I remembered, even an ice cream shop where we rewarded ourselves with a couple of scoops.

Shortly after getting back to Alamogordo we heard from Mike that he had made good progress that day driving across Texas. He would be able to meet us Thursday morning for breakfast in Las Cruces. So instead of spending a second night in Alamogordo, as we’d originally planned, we drove to Las Cruces and got a motel room off the interstate close to the truck stop he directed us to.

The sun hadn’t yet made it over the Organ Mountains this morning when he pulled off the interstate but I was there on the sidewalk waving and jumping up and down as the Celadon truck approached the intersection. We had almost an hour to visit over breakfast before he had to get back on the road.

Our original plan for today had been to do another hike in the Alamogordo area. But we did some replanning since we would be now be driving up I-25.  We decided to check out Elephant Butte Lake, a place we’ve never stopped at before in our travels. A Google query turned up a map for West Lakeshore Trail, which appears to be a fairly new development.  We couldn’t do the whole trail but picked a section that would give us a good view of the lake.  I was interested to read on the sign that this stretch of trail is part of the work-in-progress Rio Grande Trail that eventually will cross the length of New Mexico.

I was glad to be on this trail in March and not during the summer. Even though it’s a lakeside trail it really is desert hiking.

Until Mike’s phone call around midnight last night, I didn’t even know there was a place called Des Moines, NM. Yesterday afternoon we had made the 200-mile trip from Albuquerque to Raton, NM, with a plan to meet up with Mike as he was hauling a load from Dallas to Denver. After cutting northwest from Amarillo on Highway 64/87, his route would bring him through Raton. He hoped his schedule would allow him to spend some time in Raton, and, since we didn’t have anything scheduled for Monday, the meetup looked doable.

As the day progressed I kept in touch with Mike to see how things looked for him. It’s easy for us to plan a drive from Albuquerque to Raton with a reasonable estimate of our arrival time. It’s not that easy for a truck driver to figure out what time he will be in a particular place. Mike’s 14-hour clock started ticking yesterday in Dallas when he drove to the customer site at the scheduled time for getting his trailer loaded. If there were significant delays in that process he wouldn’t have enough time on his clock to make the 575 miles to Raton before having to shut down for the night.

The loading process went smoothly, but somewhere on the stretch from Wichita Falls to Amarillo a highway accident required a detour, slowing Mike down. We were already settled in our motel room in Raton by that time. Mike said he would still try to make Raton before he had to shut down, which would be sometime around midnight. I knew I wasn’t going to get much sleep so I told him to call when he shut down, regardless of the time.

When my phone buzzed a little after midnight I wasn’t asleep and quickly opened the Map app on the phone to see how far he had gotten. And that’s where I saw Des Moines, the nearest named spot to the rest area where he was parked. It was less than 40 miles from Raton, which was good news for keeping to today’s plan of spending time with Mike.

When we met up with him at the rest area this morning he said he could hang out with us until 2 this afternoon, at which time he needed to be back at the truck to grab a couple of hours of sleep before making the drive to Denver. He’s scheduled for unloading at midnight tonight, another one of those crazy scheduling things that prevent truckers from having a normal life.

Anyway, we had a wonderful time touring Capulin Volcano National Monument. I’m currently taking a Geology class at our local community college and we just finished a chapter on volcanoes. There’s nothing like being in the field to help with the learning process.

Of course, the best part was spending time with Mike. I think of all the years he lived in Iowa and the special place in my heart for Des Moines, Iowa, because of the many summers doing the Des Moines Register’s Annual Great Bike Ride Across Iowa (RAGBRAI). Who could have imagined that one day Mike would be a long haul truck driver and we would be eating lunch at a restaurant in Des Moines, NM.