We spent a day longer than planned in Albuquerque because when we went out of the camper on Thursday, we noticed an icicle hanging off the back corner under the water heater and pressure tank. We’d noticed water dripping from that area before, but we’d never had the chance to trace where it came from by following the ice trail. The diagnosis was that it was the plastic fittings going into the water heater, and the evidence that this was not a new problem was in the rusted fittings. Since Todd and Tatiana live just a block from a Home Depot, and we were parked in their paved driveway, and we had Todd’s camper van expertise to help, we decided that rather than hit the road we would fix the leak. The leak was fixed by early afternoon, but since we wouldn’t have enough time to get anywhere if we left that late, we decided to get our grocery shopping done, fill our propane tank, take a walk along the river, and have one more meal with Todd and Tatiana.
From the trail on the other side of the river, we could see Todd & Tatiana’s neighborhood on the opposite bluff.
Friday morning, we didn’t have any distractions and were up and out early, heading south towards the Salinas Missions National Monument. We took the back roads, so on the way I pulled out All Trails to look for a hike. We were in Cibola National Forest, and the trailhead for a ~5-mile loop hike up a mountain was just a few miles in front of us. We easily found the trailhead parking lot, and set out on the trail for a beautiful hike to the top of a mountain. As we climbed, we found places that were still snow covered, and we had to squish through a lot of muddy patches, but overall it was a relatively easy hike with lots of beautiful vistas. Princha got used to the snow, and we returned to the camper in time for a cheese and crackers lunch before heading south.
We hiked around the mountain to the right to the snow covered peak in the distance.
It’s funny - to me - to see a cactus in the snow.
After cleaning some of the mud off the dogs and eating lunch, we headed south towards the Salinas Missions National Monument. This park is another one of those spread out at various sites over many miles, and we decided to go to the Quarai site, which is an old mission which was abandoned before it even had much use because the crown and the church couldn’t agree on who the Native Americans should work for, and whether they should be saved or taxed. Whatever the history, it was interesting to walk through the ruin and around the grounds.
When we left the Quarai site, we looked for a place to stay for the night so we could go to the Abo site in the morning. However, the closest camping we could find was on BLM land about 60 miles away, so we bypassed the Abo ruins and headed towards Soccoro towards a spot we’d found documented on both iOverlander and FreeRoam. It was our first campsite on BLM land, and it was beautiful. We followed another overlander van onto the BLM land, and he picked a site near the top of the hill, so we kept going and found a perfectly level and perfectly quiet spot in another mile. We considered going another mile or so towards the canyon to get away from the highway, but decided it wasn’t worth it for one night. Due to the hill, we couldn’t even hear the highway, even though it was probably less than 2 miles away.
After a quiet night, we pulled out in the morning and headed towards White Sands National Monument.