Day 28 - El Vado, NM to Cuba, NM

This morning began surprisingly cool at our campsite below the El Vado Dam in the Rio Chama gorge.
  I didn't think I'd need my down puffy to sleep in  again ( I saved it for extra pillow stuffing!), but I was glad I hadn't mailed it home with my other cold weather gear last week.  As has been the pattern here in New Mexico, the day fawns cool an brilliantly sunny, warming into the 80's by 9:00am or so.  We broke camp pretty efficiently today, and were on the road by 7:30, even after making coffee and oatmeal for breakfast.  Camping seems to a our double to time to get back on the road, but it sure is a lot cheaper than a motel - just $10 each for last night :-).

Today's ride headed almost due south, beginning with about 18 miles of gravel that turned out to be very well groomed, and then another 30 or so on tarmac, most with almost no traffic.  The landscape changed fairly dramatically along the way, as we left the Rio Chama drainage and headed up and over into several different watersheds on the way to Cuba. 
As we rolled south, the pine & juniper forest gradually have way to high desert sagebrush, with cottonwood and scrub oak in the arroyos. Pretty sparsely populated, even by western standards...

By noon the temperature was pushing 90 as we approached Cuba, but a steady sidewind breeze kept us fairly comfortable-- as long as our direction didn't begin to turn things into a headwind!  For the most part today, the wind was a benefit as opposed to a hindrance - always a good thing!

Tomorrow will bring the beginning of several days of very long dry stretches of high desert, as we head further south in the western half of the state... We'll probably be camping where we can find a little shade tomorrow, and then hope to reach Grants a day later. Until then, cheers from the GDMBR :-)

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