SF2T- Post Script-3
First, a short recap. I was hiking the Santa Fe to Taos Trail (SF2T) in June with Cappuccino. I had heart palpitations that made me get off the trail roughly two-thirds of the way through, at Sipapu Resort. I went back to Eugene. After my heart work-up with normal-for-age findings and my cardiologist telling me to keep doing what I’m doing, and after a family trip to Yellowstone, I am returning to New Mexico to finish the trail.
I had originally planned to fly to Albuquerque and have Cappy take me up to Sipapu Resort to continue the trail, but my son and his wife have purchased our Prius and are moving to Colorado. So, Nancy and I are driving the car to Colorado to drop it off, and she will fly back home, and I will fly to Albuquerque to restart my hike.
On Thursday, Aug. 20th, we left the house at 5 a.m. and stopped at Starbucks before driving east across the Cascades. We were on our way to Ogden, Utah, for our first night’s stop. Up over Willamette Pass first, then down across the great eastern Oregon desert. We did, in a few hours, what took Nancy’s Great Great Great Grandparents 2 weeks to do by wagon in 1853. We joined Interstate 84 in Idaho and then, hours later, we dropped south into Utah. At 4 p.m. we passed within a few miles of where the golden spike was driven to complete the first transcontinental railroad in 1869 and plowed ahead for Ogden. After 12 hours on the road, we rolled into our Ogden motel and stopped for the night. In half a day, we covered what took Nancy’s Oregon Trail ancestors 3 months.
On Friday, we got an early start from Ogden, and we continued along I-84 east to Wyoming, where we picked up I-80. Through the Red Rock Desert of southwestern Wyoming and on to the High Plains of the eastern part of the state, we drove through the morning.
In Laramie we left the interstate and angled down Highway 287 toward Fort Collins and the front range towns south of there. We pulled into Longmont about 1 p.m. and meet our son and daughter-in-law for lunch and car delivery.
The next day, Saturday August 22nd, Will took Nancy and me out to the airport in his newly purchased Prius and dropped us off. Nancy flew back to Eugene and I flew down to Albuquerque. Cappuccino picked me up at the airport. Her new dog, Ellie, and I had a few moments of contention, but after some gentle persuasion with dog treats, we were best friends.
Once situated at Cappy’s, I called Level and set up a trip to the trail with him tomorrow to cache water. I am worried there will be none given the drought here in New Mexico. There are some Forest Service roads that come close to the trail and might make water caching possible. So we’re driving the 3 hours up there to see what things look like. And we’ll likely have lunch in Taos no matter what.
