On the road with Mabel - New Mexico travelin' and Cimarron

{I guess I should tie up the loose ends of our summer trip in Mabel, seeing as how fall is about to be upon us!} 

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After Palo Duro, we made our way west.  The one thing you notice when you are in New Mexico is that things stretch out forever, just like in West Texas.  And there is very little traffic on two lane highways.  And zero big rigs!  And zero trees!

 And one minute you are travelin' along, enjoying seeing the mesas in the distance...

 ...the next minute you are closer and what's that you see?  Storm clouds!  It pretty much rained daily.  Which was wonderful coming from the drought and heat in Central Texas.

 

  Beautiful scenery, cloudy days included.

 

 By late lunchtime we had found our way to Cimarron.

 

On the way through Cimarron, we stopped at the Cree-Mee Drive-In for a plate of wonderful enchiladas - heck, once you make me wait that long for lunch, any enchiladas will do.  Hey look, there are scouts in here!

 The main drag of Cimarron is less than a mile long, and since the population is just over one thousand, we didn't see many people out and about.  Looks eerily like a ghost town in places.  After a few days in Angel Fire, we returned to Cimarron to meet up with Bubbie, fresh off the trail.

We did some shopping and bopping around.  The people we did meet were very friendly and there was a neat shop with lots of old scout memorabilia.

Another shop was in an old mercantile building and had a soda fountain, along with this wall of scout patches from years of young men going through Philmont. Very neat!

We mostly just puttered around.  Although we did buy patches to sew on Hubby's camping cook's apron.  We also visited an old mill, but of course I forgot to take pictures!

We stopped by a "haunted" hotel called the St. James.  Seems like everywhere we went, there were flowers blooming - so much beautiful color.

And no mosquitos or flies!

 The road from Cimarron to Eagle's Nest comes with some awesome scenery.

I should have taken more pics - again, too busy to fiddle with my camera or phone!  Plus, I was so out of breath the entire time we were in New Mexico - I never got used to the altitude.

 

Bubbie looked tired but happy - what an accomplishment!  We gave him an iced gallon zip-loc of Snickers to share with his trek mates and took him shopping at the trading post.

 Mount Baldy: 

 My kid made it to the top of that mountain! 

Next up: exploring Eagle's Nest!