The Long Road Home. Day 1

Cows and Fly’s

We woke up to a nice morning. There were still storm clouds way off to the east but the sun was warm.
I was sitting on my chair outside the van trying to catch up with the blog.
I wasn’t being bothered by flies or any other bugs so it was quite pleasant. Pretty soon I noticed an increase in the fly population. Then I heard a “mooo!” and looked up to see a small herd of about 20 cows heading our way.
They came to the opening of the corral and bunched up outside. It was obvious that they wanted to get to the salt licks in the corral.
By this time the flies were intolerable so we packed up and left the corral to cows and the flies.
The cows were covered with flies and there was a large cloud of the beasts hovering around the herd.

Antelope Race.

As we were driving north on the dirt road we saw a doe Antelope catching up to us on our right. I attempted to keep up with her so Patti could get some pictures.

I clocked her at about 35 MPH before she got tired of the game and veered off to the right. A little later she came back and crossed the road right in front of us.
A few miles down the road another Antelope (this one a buck with large horns) came from nowhere and crossed only feet in front of the van. We all were lucky we didn’t collide. Although I have heard that Antelope is pretty good eating.

A Tortoise.

A little farther down the road we saw a small Tortoise on the road.

We stopped for pictures and to make sure he got off the road safely.

It was a pretty active little Tortoise and scampered off the road of its own accord.

Back on Pavement.

We continued along the dirt road until we got to Highway 90. We followed 90 to Silver City where we stopped to do some shopping at Albertsons.
We got what we needed at the store, had our lunch in the parking lot and once I had the tires on the van pumped up to highway pressure, we were ready to head north.
We got on highway 180 going north. It is a good 2 lane that goes through a little more arid country than we have seen in a while.

We stayed on 180 until we got to 12 were we turned right. We followed 12 to 32 where we turned north again.
We drove along slowly looking for a side road. Unfortunately most of the land on the left side of the Highway is private. There is some
National Forest on the right side but it comes and goes.
We stopped in a wide spot to let a truck get by us. Just as we were leaving Bob noticed a gate with no lock only a sign saying please close the gate, going into the forest.  We went through the gate and closed it. About half a mile up this little road we found a good spot to camp.

It sprinkled a little when we first arrived but after a while the rain stopped and we had no more during the night.