Cortez to Santa Fe, crossed the Continental Devide

27 October


 End of the Tire Saga:

We were away from Four State tire at 10:40, not far off our usual departure time. In Durango we found the Four State shop and pulled in. OOPS! This is not a big rig friendly area--essentially a strip mall with a one lane wide lane across the front! We unhooked the Jeep, and managed to reverse between a couple of buildings and then drive out again and park on the wide shoulder of the frontage road. A couple of cheery young men came out with a very large torque wrench, removed the wheel covers, re-torqued the wheel nuts to spec and reinstalled the wheel covers (which are bolted on). No charge, a smile and a wave earned them each a tip and we were eastbound again shortly after noon. Looks like Santa Fe will be doable today!






Half an hour later we stopped for fuel at Bayfield then shortly after that we turned southeast at Pagosa Springs on the US 84 enroute to Santa Fe. It was a very pleasant drive, crossing the Continental Divide along the way. . .







. . .until on entering Santa Fe we turned right onto Cerrillos Road towards the RV Park. Not only was it rush hour, but also most of the highway was under construction, or more realistically, destruction and were down to a crawl for most of it.

As we approached the RV Park, following the GPS carefully, we changed lanes to what we thought was the left turn lane only for find that this particular left lane was very short and led to a hotel! We managed to make it into a U Turn. The GPS showed a mile and a half route to another U Turn but suddenly Art spotted another left turn lane that led to another hotel, this one with an entrance and exit that we could make. As luck would have it there was no oncoming traffic—it was all held up at the traffic light.We made the turn, found the correct left turn lane and were at Los Suenos de Santa Fe only a few minutes later at 5:30.