Raton, New Mexico

We had a smooth ride today from Loveland, Colorado down I25 into Raton, New Mexico - about 254 miles from point A to B. Raton (pronounced Rat-tone) is Spanish for small mouse (?) and to get here in New Mexico about 10 miles into the state from Colorado we had to pass through Raton Pass - a tidge scary. Pretty steep up and then back down. Surprising is that the temperature is quite cooler from the mid 80's we have been experiencing to the low 60's. We are in the Culabra Range of the Rocky Mountains and as we drove down through Colorado Springs we saw Pike's Peak to our right. It was much more snow covered than the national park's mountains we just experienced. A funny thing happened on the way down - Chip kept screaming at us - and I kept yelling at him to lay down, shut up. It wasn't until about an hour into the trip when I realized I had not turned on the a/c for him - I guess it was getting stuffy in the back seat. As soon as I did that, he quieted down and went to sleep. He is much better than a few weeks ago but we will have to watch him closely for the rest of his life. Fortunately we found a human food that he gets daily that helps his digestion (a spoon full of Gerber's squash baby food!).

Another neat fact is that we are following the Santa Fe pioneer trail, the one and the same we learned about in Casper, WY. Tomorrow we travel on to Santa Rosa, New Mexico, about 78 miles east of Albuquerque where we will stay for a month.