On the left is a photo of me setup at Monument where I stayed for 14 days preparing for the trip and catching up on bookwork. Also ordered a new mask for my CPAP machine and had to wait for it to be delivered.

Got away a day earlier than I planed thinking I was leaving on a Wednesday not the Thursday I had booked. Heading down I 25, I was travelling OK through Colorado Spring's, then half way between Pueblo and Trinidad I blew a tyre on the 5th wheeler. Contacted Good Sam Assist and waited for their service van to come. Eventually it arrived around 3 pm after waiting nearly 3 hours and a number of phone calls. In between time I fixed some of the damage to the side of the van, had lunch while parked on the side of the freeway. Only one person stopped to see if they could help! It was scary stopped on the side of the road with vehicles passing at 75 miles and hour. Once fixed I headed off again through Trinidad, Over the boarder to New Mexico and decided to stay in Raton for the night. Booked into their KOA park for the night. The next day I worked on sealing the underneath of the van as the forecast was for rain further south. As I finished and was packing up around 11.30 am I noticed the new tyre seemed a little flat. On checking with the tyre gauge I had it would not even register any pressure on it. Called Good Sam Assist again, and after a number of calls again when the repairer tried to get me to take the tyre back to Trinidad 20 miles back, Good Sam made them come to me to check it. Eventually they did show up at 3 pm again and fixed the new faulty stem the first mechanic put in. Decided to stay the night again in Raton KOA as if I did leave it would have put me into Tijeras NM around 8-9 pm. Glad I did as the next day was a fine day and the scenery was good particularly the road down from Santa Fe to Tijeras. This called the Turquoise Trial, is a designated tourist scenic route, narrow in places but the scenery was really worth it.

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