Wed, July 29: On the Road to Fountain,CO

We wake about 9AM to clearing skies, but it is obvious that we had heavy rain last night. There are mud puddles every where. Dick hears on the weather radio that there was 5 feet of water over crossing #1 into Palo Duro Canyon last night! So he calls the ranger station and finds that they hope to have the road passable by noon.

There is a high road back to the entrance that starts near the turn-in for our camp site and it has only one low water crossing to the crossing #1. So about 10:30AM we drive out to check on it. The back hoe is working on the mountain of mud on the roadand the water is low enough to pass so we go back the other way to see if that road is open yet.As we near the first of four low water crossing, we see a woman walking up the road and see her car off the road buried in the mud. We pick her up and drive back toward her camp site...she is upset because she slid off the road! We head back to camp and wait some more.

By noon we haven’t heard any more so we hook up and head out hoping for the best. Turning on to the high road we meet a ranger and he says it is OK the get out on that road.When we get back to the main road at crossing #1 we see that road is still closed from that point into the park.Finally, about 1:30PM, we are out the main gate and on our way to Colorado. Never underestimate the power of fast moving water!

The rest of the day is uneventful. It is raining all around us and we have some wonderful views with lightening in the distance as we head across the Northeast corner of New Mexico with its stark, volcanic landscape.

We hit Raton, NM about 4:30PM and decide to stick to our original travel plan and head to Fountain, CO and its KOA for a two night stay.By 7:30PM, we are at our site. It has been a long day, what with the late start, so we have a simple dinner of New Mexico eggs in the rig. Since it is now raining again, we hit the sack.