Carlsbad, NM: Come Sail Away

MIles since last blog: 19.1
Miles Total: 2776.1

Route

The days walk took three acts followed by an epilogue today.

Act I:

Skip finds himself back on the road without his carrier (which has been christened as Ando now) since his cavern dwelling friends were willing to take it ahead on his course for him. The walk goes well and quickly and he is relaxed on the road.

Act II:

Skip decides to go 'off route' hiking through fields towards the city only to find one of the only rivers in New Mexico, the Pecos, and have to head out through several ranches and over several fences. In the process he loses his sign and later his phone. It is some time before he realizes either of these are missing and he is forced to track himself through the desert 1.5 miles to find his phone, no sign of the sign which was likely carried away by gale force winds.

Act III:

Having made his way back to the road Skip encounters winds which lead to him doing his best impression of a mime for two hours, his impression of the most boring and irritated mime ever. The act ends when a ranger friend picks him up for the day and takes him to a local franchise restaurant for his first meal of the day and a Margarita.

Epilogue:

After a brief shower and rest a commotion outside draws Skip out again. Clay, his host, is heading out with some other rangers to the salt flats of Texas on the other side of the Guadeloupe Mountains to test out his home made 'land yacht.'* The yacht moves well with no one in it but only sits with the weight of a man in it. They stand in the desert salt flats until after dark laughing and pushing each other in the land yacht across the flats.

*A land yacht is a special vehicle built for land but driven by a sail like a ship. This yacht was constructed of fence piping, a few sawed up bicycles and a bed sheet sail, it was a thing of beauty.