Ramble On: Day 31: To Ghost Ranch

The Day 31

5/23: mile 3.5-11.3

Miles: 7.8

Total trip miles: 556.6

I was awake at 5 am, wide awake and ready to go. Only it was still dark and we had decided walking into town together at 6:30 would be fun. So I sat, impatiently until I heard another zipper. Turns out Funsize and Mountain Spice had been up early to, but everyone was trying to be so respectful we were just awake in our tents. Either way we peeled out a little after 6 and set off down the road. Everyone else was still asleep but we knew we'd see them later.

It started off simple enough. Down the road, down the highway. Then we turned at this funny shut down museum. There was a walking tour and everything was mini, even a windmill and cow trough. Then it was off down a little trail and across a bouncing suspension bridge. Then we off course managed to get a little lost but with a little extra traipsing in circles we made it.

We did get stopped on the road, a number of hikers headed up to Chama for a gateway town type celebration. I'll admit I was overwhelmed by choices and tired and since everyone was sort of halfway we voted to continue on to Ghost Ranch at least for the time being.

Ghost Ranch is a neat place. Apparently Georgia O'Keefe did quite a bit of painting here and it's now a retreat type place. A very artsy compound full of cool buildings and a garden with lots of classes and tours. It also has some significant history and paleontology stuff so some museum related things as well.

We did some math and realized putting 5 people in a room was about the same as camping so we decided on a room. The front desk was a disorganized disaster but we eventually got it sorted. Check in wasn't until 3pm so with lots of time on our hands we took amazingly sad showers and ate mediocre lunch. But we had great company and some hiker box snacks so it was a good time.