Miles Hiked: 14.9
Total Milage: 517.9
Location: Del Prado Motel, Cuba New Mexico
Today Rockslide and I woke up at 5am and were hiking by 6am. We had to go 15 miles to town and we wanted to get there by noon. The morning started with a hike across a valley before ascending to the top of a mesa via a very steep rock scramble. At the top I took a break and ate breakfast. The rest of the day involved walking through sand along the edge of the Mesa until we descended the other side and walked a dirt road to the highway that ran into town. I felt like I was hiking on the beach. Every three miles I would stop to take a break and dump sand out of my shoes. My feet were really hurting today and I was totally exhausted from the long days we did in this section.
Rockslide and I walked into town around noon. I immediately stopped at the first place selling food. I got a hotdog and ice cream Snickers bar from the gas station. Then we checked into our motel. It ended up being the most expensive place I’ve stayed on the trail so far and also the crappiest. It was fine, but it was definitely not worth $90. After talking to other hikers we found out that every other hotel in town was booked. It was very weird because the town didn’t have a lot to offer at all and there aren’t a ton of hikers around us. At least not enough to book up every hotel. The weird thing was, none of these hotels had cars in the parking lot.
After we checked in I took a shower and ate more food. Since we are taking a zero in a couple of days I just did my laundry in the sink. The main things I needed to wash were my underwear and the socks I had caked with sand. I resupplied at the local grocery and family dollar. For dinner we got food from a BBQ place across the street and hung out in the motel with everyone.
Happy Trails!
-Early Bird
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