It's been a long two days. Wednesday morning turned off very foggy and cold with a not so clear forecast. I figured I'd better do something to get out of Las Vegas or I might as well register to vote in the local elections.

The problem as I mentioned was the ice on the roof of my slide outs. There was an inch and a half in a couple of places. Unless I could get rid of that I wasn't going anywhere. I was desperate. At about 8 am, I backed the truck up to the big slide out, put the step ladder on the tail gate, got a tea kettle full of warm water and went to work trying to dislodge the ice.

Warm water worked pretty well. That with gentle persuasion with a broom managed to clear all the ice...after about two hours of effort. After that it was a matter of packing up, hitching up and heading south.

Driving was difficult not because of the snow but the fog was intense until just south of the Pecos...Dontcha' just love the southwest talk..."south of the Pecos". Robert Duvall, eat your heart out!! Anyway, it was true. After crossing the Pecos River the fog finally broke and I started to descend in altitude towards my goal, Alamogordo. Along the way the clouds broke and I actually saw the sun for an extended period. I could feel the stress oozing away.

I got to Alamogordo at about 2:30 pm and set up camp at the Elks Lodge. After unhooking Bivouac, the first priority was to gas up and get the truck washed. In New Mexico instead of spreading salt or magnesium chloride on snowy roads they use a red clay type dirt that absolutely will turn a white truck to red. I was told by some locals that it will also take barnacles off a battleship. An early dinner and a couple of drinks at the Lodge helped drain the residual stress...that is until about 7 pm when it started to rain big time! It continued to rain hard, off and on all night long. I had tow thoughts..#1, thank goodness I'm out of Las Vegas because the rain would be snow there. #2, please let it stop by morning...and it did.

I was hitched up by 8:30 am and headed for Sierra Vista, AZ. This was a trip of almost 300 miles. My longest with the new rig and a good portion was going west on I-10 in the face of a pretty good head wind. All I can say is that it was long and hard but I pulled into Sierra Vista at about 4 pm.

Now you kinda' hafta' wanna' go to Sierra Vista to get there. It's not somewhere that you just "drop by". That said, I have been to Sierra Vista before...almost 40 years ago as the guest of the U.S. Army I attended the Southeast Asia Orientation Course (translate, get ready for Viet Nam) at Ft. Huachuca. The Fort is the reason for Sierra Vista's existence.

At that time Sierra Vista was a very small town with only two or three streets of businesses. From what I saw driving in, a lot has changed. I saw just about every chain retail establishment that you see in a large town anywhere else. I'll have to check it out more tomorrow.

I'm now ensconced at the local Elks Lodge and will go to the Cowboy Poetry Gathering on Saturday.

Thanks for visiting.