The night of 9/23-24, Jim struggled to breathe well in the thin air. Finally, at 4am, Jim woke Deb so he could get off the mountain. We crawled down the mountain in the dark past Eagle Nest to Cimarron, where we refueled in the dark. The road straightened out and we stopped for breakfast in Raton NM. Miraculously, symptoms disappeared when we got to 7000 ft elevation. It probably was better that we couldn’t see past the edge of guard rails when descending at very slow speeds.
We stopped for rest just over the border in Colorado and napped for an hour. Because of our very early start, we were ahead of the check-in time for the next campground, so we killed time in Pueblo. We bought books and mags and Barnes & Noble and longer screws to re-secure the microwave in its cabinet (it vibrated loose on rough road). We paid for early access to our campsite, and rested more. Scampi for dinner, then early to bed.
