Day 41 - ending near Fort Sumner, NM - The Great Plains Trail - Sort Of

June 24, 2023

Day 41 - ending near Fort Sumner, NM

Day 41 - Fort Sumner, NM to Fort Sumner, NM

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I woke up this morning at 5:35am. Went to the lobby at 6:10am for the motel's breakfast. They had paper sacks filled with items that could be for breakfast or as a sack lunch. I grabbed a bag along with a bowl cereal for my breakfast.

Back in my room, I noticed water was dripping from the ceiling in the bathroom, so reported it to the manager. He got back to me later saying someone on the floor above had taken a shower with the shower curtain on the outside of the tub. Seems to me that it's basic logic about where to put the shower curtain when you're taking a shower.

I finished up yesterday's report and left at 11:00am. I rode back northwest into town to Allsup's to get Gatorade. Also bought a chocolate milk and a cherry pie for eating there. Then back east to get on the GPT.

After its route through town, the GPT joins up with US-84. Several miles north on this highway would get me to NM-203, the backroads way to get to Santa Rosa, my destination for the evening.

The wind was from the west today, so riding north went OK. I passed a historic marker pull-off area. There was a box of lemons sitting there. Not really what I wanted to munch on at the moment.

I arrived at NM-203 at 1:10pm. There's a veterans memorial at the intersection there, which I checked out before heading on west. Now the wind was against me and there were a few hills, so it was slow going. Eventually, at 2:00pm, I crested the last hill and Sumner Lake State Park came into view.

Ahead for me was a dam to ride over, then a one-lane bridge over the spillway. At 2:55pm, I'd just cleared the bridge and was back on high ground when the rear tire blew. It was a pretty good bang. I pulled over. It didn't take me long to determine that I needed to replace the tire and tube. As I worked a park ranger in a pickup truck pulled up to ask if I needed any help. He left after seeing I had everything I needed, but was back up about 15 minutes later with a glass of water with ice in it for me. Talk about going out of your way to be helpful! He invited me to stop by the park's visitor center, which I'd be passing once I got going again.

At 4:12pm I had the bike back upright and reloaded. I headed to the visitor center, which was a lot closer than I thought. However, the center was closed, and no one was there when I arrived. As I was getting to ready to move on, the park ranger showed up and offered to let me inside to look around. This gave me an opportunity to get a picture and a name (Jacob) of this caring person. Jacob offered that I could camp here at the state park this evening. Considering it was already 4:30pm, and I still had over 40 miles to go, I agreed that was a good idea. Jacob told me about one campsite that has electricity and was first come, first serve. Last time he'd checked it was unoccupied. So I headed over there. It was available, so I filled in a self-registration form and was all set to camp at Site #5 in Pecos Campground.

The wind was still blowing strong from the west - too strong for me to get my tent set up by myself. So instead I took a 25 minute nap on the picnic table shaded by the awning above me. One of my thoughts about staying here was the hope that I could catch up on my sleep. That nap was a good start. I had supper next out of my lunch box. The wind calmed down to no wind near sunset, making tent set up easy. After one last trip uphill to the 'Comfort Station', I settled in for some good sleeping at 9:22pm.

Jeff

Spent: $9.08 (Gatorade, chocolate milk, cherry pie) + $14 (campsite) = $23.08