New Mexico Adventures

Catch up time! Sunday I left Moab and had a scenic 10 hr drive, dropping briefly through Colorado and on into New Mexico where I encountered sand/dust clouds, tumbleweeds, and finally a white-out snow storm situation in the dark on a rural 2 lane highway alone in my 2 wheel drive car. I was only 7 miles from the next town but that wasn't all that comforting since the last town I'd been through hadn't had any gas stations and the laughably small gas tank in my station wagon was tending towards depleted. I did have food, water, heavy winter sleeping bag and pillows, and an emergency and first aid kit, so really if I'd spent the night on the side of the highway it wouldn't have been the end of the world. But catching sight of taillights in front of me as I inched along at 5 mph was more comforting than my car full of supplies at that point! Not so comforting was watching said taillights immediately fishtail and go off the road, but fortunately they were going slowly and only ended up a little off the highway with no harm done. Still it was a 4WD Jeep that did the fishtailing so I immediately stopped my own less snow-worthy vehicle and went to have a powwow with the Jeep drivers. They were very nice and reassured me there "should" be gas in the next town, then we agreed to caravan very slowly on if we could do so safely. I managed to get my car into their tire tracks in the rapidly deepening snow covering the narrow highway and we safely made the (longest) 7 mile drive to town, where there was not only gas but almost no evidence of the sudden snow flurry! I took a deep breath, thanked them for escorting me, filled my tanks, and made it the last 50 miles to my Alamogordo hotel. PHEW!

Leaving Moab

 Farewell Utah!

 Briefly in Colorado

  New Mexico: Have some sand/dust!

 Snow! I had no idea when I saw this what I was in for later!

 Monday my pup and I took the day off from adventures to relax and recharge after hard riding in Utah and the rather exciting drive of the day before. Yesterday, Tuesday, it was time to get back in the saddle! I joined Philip Himanka of Enchanted Arabians for a gorgeous ride through White Sands on his Arabians. talk about a change from the red sands of Moab! It was like riding on the moon, very cool.

Steeds! Smoky and EJ

 Told ya it was White Sand! ;)

 You could ride forever--and get lost pretty easily too!

 I rode 7 yr old Arabian gelding Smoky, who was a fun ride, if exuberant! He had a nice canter and liked to send his hind end skyward every once in a while ;-)  When we were almost back to the trailer I dug in my pommel bag for my camera and was alarmed to find it missing. I couldn't figure it out until I really dug into the pack and felt the hole in the bottom! Oops. Still it was a fun trot and canter back along our tracks searching for the little black digital camera in the White sand. It was a ways back but we did indeed find it--good thing it wasn't white :-)