Red River in October
If you’re in New Mexico this time of year nothing beats a breakfast burrito in the early morning at the Albuquerque balloon fiesta. But we didn’t go this year, opting instead to watch the mass assentions on television, until we suddenly realized it was peak leaf-peeping time up in the Carson National Forest.
Loaded up the trailer last Thursday, went north for a few days to the mountain town of Red River, NM, a tourist village to which skiers, hunters, and ATV riders are known to escape. Got full hookups at the Roadrunner RV Park. We were the only egg there amongst dozens of big boy slide outs, and three Airstreams.
After set up, I took a 5 PM solo drive looking for dirt roads into the Carson National Forest and found one I thought I could manage, up the mountain on dirt road #490A. About a hundred-plus yards in, the “road” got so bad I realized it was actually more an ATV gully. 4WD Silverado was no match for this potential for horror. Sensing big trouble ahead, backed a tricky all the way down #490A, gave myself a gold star for common sense. Otherwise, next day we had a good time touring nice dirt roads through the mountains, and peeping at leaves.
Our first night it went down to 26°F. 37°F inside. I was too comfortable in my sleeping bag. At 1AM woke up suddenly, wondering if my nose would get frostbite. Reached over, turned on the heat and that was when it occurred to me I had never considered at these temps that my 10 foot shore-water white factory supplied hose outside would surely become frozen solid. However, no way I was going out there to shut off the spigot. Anyway, heard nothing, so tried going back to sleep. The rest of the night dreamed about my not having the extra insulation sprayed on the water tanks under the trailer, getting a clogged, frozen system, and 20 foot high frozen rooster tails outside.
The good news next morning in a cozy trailer inside there were no frozen rooster tails of water outside. Very cold outside. The hose was stiff as wood but had not burst. I was also surprised by how much cooler it was at the front dinette end. I should also mention the fridge worked great and we had a cable TV connection.
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Myron
"A billion here, a billion there...add it all up and before you know it you're talking real money." Everett Dirkson
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