Pulled into Walsenburg about 6:30pm (Mtn time) and got a hotel room. Ran into a couple of nice guys from Bay City, TX. They were coming up to Colorado to ride 4-wheelers.Very little to say about any of these rides except the pretty part of Hwy36 west of I-35. The scenery through west Texas is, as Ernest Tubb has told us, miles and miles of miles and miles, punctuated every so often with a cattle feed lot. Ah, how I hate the smell of methane in the morning.
The good news is after entering New Mexico the up started and one can see the beginnings of big hills that turn into the beginnings of mountains almost as soon as one enters Colorado. The plains are grassier, greener, and better to look at, giving some aesthetic counterbalance to the cattle feed lots in New Mexico. There is one just west of Clayton that was truly amazing in the olfactory sense. If the military really wanted those folks in Gitmo to talk they'd have imprisoned them just downwind from that feed lot. I don't know what camel dung smells like, but I can't believe anyone could last more than 48 hours downwind of the Clayton feedlot. The townspeople are strategically placed up wind but, doubtlessly, dread the wind shift that must come. In Hawaii it's the Kono wind; in Clayton it's the OhNo wind (the "Aw S*&t" wind would just be too bad a pun, huh?).
Anyway, I'm in Colorado and it's feeling like my "real" trip is just beginning. Tomorrow, Doc Holliday, Molly Brown, and the very impressive Mary Hallock Foote in Leadville. After that, your guess is as good as mine, but my buddy, Bobby J, has given me a couple of hints. He's never led me wrong.
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