Saturday, May 24th

I got up this morning and went over to John and Ruth's RV for breakfast. They graciously invited me over for an egg sandwich and coffee. Thanks! Ricky, their son, was eating breakfast also. Ricky, who is an F-15 pilot in the US Air Force, is joining us on our walk today. After breakfast, we were off to the starting point. The point was were we rescued the elk yesterday and was near mile marker 70. We started in a valley that contained dozens of elk. After about six miles, we came to the small town of Datil. There was a gas station/convienence store there and we went in to buy an ice cream bar. There was also a very nice, rustic western style restaurant. We ate our ice cream bars and Ricky ordered a cup of coffee. John struck up a conversation with a young man that said he had just come back from Bahrain and was stationed at Fort Bliss, Texas. He knew about Habitat and gave John $2. toward the building of a house in Hot Springs. Then Ricky asked the waitress how much he owed for the coffee and she said there was no charge. You can meet a lot of nice people walking across the United States. On we walked and came to the Plains of San Agustin. We are out of the mountains and the Plains of San Agustin are pastureland, high altitude pastureland. It was once an intermountain lake. We saw dozens of antelope grazing, but they had to share the pasture with herds of cattle. We came to marker 86 and Ruth and Carol picked us up. I didn't find anything today, but we did walk 16 miles. A word about Ricky. I don't think there are very many people who can wake up in the morning, decide to walk 16 miles and then just go out and do it. Good job Ricky! Stayed tuned .....