Week 2 - Gallup to Corpus Christi; Albuquerque
Wednesday 29 June 1994: By the morning there was no sign of any
thunderstorms, as yet another hot sunny day began. After an hours exploration we drove 70 miles east along I-40 to
Albuquerque and
wandered around the historic centre of the town, with lots of small (brown)
adobe-style shops around a central square - very Spanish. Amongst the shops was a
chilli market which even sold chilli jam. Later at a supermarket in the modern
outskirts of the town we were accosted by a local who talked for about twenty
minutes about the technicalities of attaching camper vans to pick-up trucks. It became
very windy, with shopping trolleys blowing everywhere. There didn't seem to be
much else to do so we headed north, stopping at Bernalillo to refill our LPG tanks at
an RV site and then up through the Pueblo Reserves and into the mountains of the
Santa Fe National Forest along road 4. There was an official campsite near
Jemez but this looked too crowded and we continued NW,
ascending along road 126, and found a small lay-by sheltered from the road on the
edge of a cliff overlooking the valley below. This was another perfect place for the
night - again no other people or traffic. When it was dark, it was possible to see the
distant flickering lights from several campfires, way beneath us in Jemez valley.
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