Across New Mexico

Hello Friends of CC2C!

We finally made it out of Texas and into New Mexico, and not just to visit this time. We crossed the border and stopped just outside of Tatum, NM where saw huge jack rabbits and prairie dogs. We had a very generous room donation from the Country Inn in Hobbs which was about half an hour to the south so we drove there after skating till 8:00 am and got some much needed rest. The manager was kind enough to set us up with the local paper so after an interview and photo shoot we hit the road to return to Roswell, this time on skateboards. When we visited for the 4th of July we got a preview of the monster hill that leads into town. It was pretty giant and warranted holding onto the car to prevent getting too much speed. We all survived though and lived to stay in our donated room at the Candlewood Suites and eat dinner/breakfast at Denny's. Between the two trips to town we ate at that one location at least 4 times because there's not much else open between the hours of 2-5am, when we usually roll into town. Roswell was much more tame this time around and we did a short night of 45 miles so we could make some progress but not get too far away from a free place to sleep.

From there we passed through the Capitan Mountains and Smokey the Bear National Park, turns out he was based on a real bear cub in a forest fire. The mountains made for beautiful scenery but serious uphills and lots of wildlife. We had a closer than comfortable meet and greet with a rattlesnake and saw elk for the first time. We stopped for the night just outside of Socorro, NM and were a little more than halfway through the state. We got some delicious Mexican food at El Camino and went off in search of a ghost town that lived up to its name a little too well and couldn't be found. We did get to explore the Magdalina Mountains though and enjoy the piny, high altitude forests. As we skated through them later in the night we started to feel the difference in the air between 8,000 feet and our homes at sea level and had a cold, strong wind blowing against us to contend with. More exhausted than usual when we made it to Pie Town, NM, we were even more grateful to a friend of a friend, Penny, for a cozy trailer to sleep through the day in and some wonderful home cooking. Pie Town is one of the most pleasant places we've seen so far (obviously with great pie) and the Cibola National Forest is beautiful with broad mountains, herds of elk and we even had an antelope sighting while passing through.

Although we were all sad to get through New Mexico so quickly, we have now officially skated into Springerville, Arizona and our last state before California. Its strange to think that we've skated this far and stranger still to consider that there are only 2 more weeks till we arrive in Venice Beach. But then again, these next two weeks will be difficult since Arizona brings on big challenges of its own and we've still got plenty more hills to climb.

-The CC2C Crew