Miles Hiked 0

The Toaster House

I woke up at 5 am to the neighbor’s rooster crowing, I had slept in the backyard because the house was too loud the night before and I was too amped up to sleep.  Nita said she would be there at 8 for breakfast but we needed to make a quick run to the PO. we headed there and met Nita at the cafe.  I ordered up a 1/2 lb green chili cheeseburger for breakfast, got online and connected to the world for a bit, called home the usual stuff.

Nita asked for our help to get an old bathtub to use for rainwater collection at her home.  We jumped in her 1983 ford F 350 crew cab and loaded it up.  She took us by the local large baseline array and then we headed to her home.

The hiker wagon, nothing like a big old pick up in ranch country

Nita’s home was magnificent, just the type of place I see Suzy and I someday soon.  Her home had art and memories among the walls that you could get lost for days looking at.  We had a nice visit and then we borrowed her truck for the day to go take a field trip.

About 45 minutes to the east of Pie Town lies the Very Large Array, which most folks will remember from the movie Contact with Jodi Foster.  Nita told us to go and just fill up the truck.  I rolled the truck to the toaster house and we gathered up a group.  A mattress from the house was put in the bed of the truck and we loaded up 8 hikers and went on a field trip.
Nita’s truck is awesome but driving a 6,000lb truck with sloppy brakes and old 4 speed on a highway at 70mph after only walking at 3 miles an hour for weeks took a bit getting used too.  Once I got comfortable though I was able to float the crew safety to the VLA.

The Very Large Array

We went to the visitors center and learned this was the biggest VLA telescope in the world.  We learned about the discoveries made by the VLA and all about how it worked.  The walking tour outside was fun, we even got up close to one of the arrays it was very cool.

We rolled back to Pie Town but first stopped at the store in Dactil.  There in the back is some of the finest aged beef you have ever seen.  They gladly cut it to order and we all loaded up with meat and potatoes for dinner.  We stopped in a the Pie-o-Neer where Nita was playing live music.  We walk in and there is Big John in all his glory playing the guitar, singing and just living life.  We had some awesome NM green chile pie and then headed home for dinner.

We enjoyed one of the best trail town dinners ever.  Buttercup made a huge skillet of potatoes, onions and corn.  We cooked our giant slabs of beef over hot wood coals and washed it down with beer.  After sleeping in cow dung for the last 3 weeks I can say I was happy to be eating one of those cows and getting even with them.

After dinner I and the boys went to the house, after the past few days it was a mess.  We got to it in true team fashion- the dishes were all washed dried and stored away, Freefall fixed the shower and pulled out a hair clog was that could have been there from his thru-hike in 2009.  Then we gave the kitchen a proper scrubbing of Clorox and all to make sure it was nice and clean for the next crew.  We burned the numerous empty hiker boxers left from weeks of resupplies, and the Nita showed up to take us to a star-gazing party.

We loaded up in the truck 6 in the bed and another 6 in the crew cab.  We drove out for a good 20 minuets to the middle of nowhere and were greeted by our host.  We were led down a path to the home and there in the back was an 8′ tall telescope and 4 other binoculars for looking at the stars.  The next few hours we saw stars, galaxies and planets like nothing I have ever seen.  It was an amazing way to end out day of space education.

A chilly ride back to the toaster house found us all hungry, apparently hiker hunger has kicked in.  We raided the hiker box and made a pile of Mac and cheese, then quickly turned in for the night.

Who knew that our time in pie town would help us learn more about the universe than any classroom we ever sat in.

Trail Angel of the Year and my favorite lady of the CDT Nita, with freshly cut and cooked squash flowers