Day 27 - Chama, NM to El Vado, NM

Today, after a very good night's rest, we set off at the civilized hour of 7:00am to find coffee and breakfast at the Rio Chama Espresso Kitchen.  After getting suitably caffeinated, we headed south along the Chama valley to Heron Lake, and then further on to the El Vado Reservoir, riding deep into juniper and pinon pine forest in the dry mesa framed valley. 
We had a snack at a cafe at the north end of the reservoir, and then left the pavement for a gravel road around the reservoir. 
Our plan was to make a fairly short ride today, and make tomorrow's segment down to Cuba, NM much more manageable, so we only covered about 38 miles today (10 or so on dirt), and we'll do 48 tomorrow, with the first 16 on dirt.

Our destination for the day was a campground below the El Vado dam, and after about 10 miles of relatively nice gravel, we reached the dam.  Before heading to our campsite, we climbed a surprisingly long hill up to the Dam Diner, where we enjoyed a fine meal  - among the best burgers of the trip!

Our campsite was on a tent camping section of a fairly large private RV campground, but turned out to be a really nice spot - plenty shade, good level tent sites, and right on the river! 
Wish I had my fly rod ;-) - some big trout live here!  ..and- it was as only $10 each :-). So, we now have a whole afternoon to rest in the shade and enjoy our surroundings in the Rio Chama Canyon below the El Vado dam.  It's warm ( about 85F ), but in the shade with a breeze blowing,quite comfortable;-)

More tomorrow when we venture further south into west central New Mexico!

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