What a bad night of sleep! It started off hot – never un-stuffed the bag – and the breeze died, except for the sporadic mega-gusts that awakened me with the fear of tent loss. I must have slept some because someone else’s alarm woke me up.

I got up at 4:30am, woke up Elmer J & Robin, then prepared for a shower. Chris, Bill, & Kevin also chose early showers. We all got done and back to camp by 5:15am. After waking the rest of the crews, Sarah and I quickly tore down our tent. She had woken up when I left and had already completed all of the in-tent chores. Crew 4 was ready to drive away at 5:35am. It took the other three crews a bit longer to prepare. We drove away from Palo Duro Canyon at 6:02am.

We drove into Canyon for a (not so) quick breakfast at McDonald’s. We dropped all non-drivers at McD’s then we took all of the vehicles to a local gas station to top-off and get ice for our bottled water. The breakfast/gas stop took almost an hour.

We got going again on a sometimes smooth/sometimes bumpy I-40. The drive to San Jon, NM, seemed very quick. We were having fun in the van, and the chatter on the radio was fun. We stopped at the north-side truck stop in San Jon for gas/RR at 7:30am mountain time (note to self – there is a newer, cleaner truck stop on the south side of this intersection, so go there next time).

Nothing spectacular happened between San Jon and Philmont. The same 40 miles of rough road led to the same 800’ climb, which led to the same 60 miles of smooth road. The sky was hazy, so hazy in fact that the mountains could not be seen until we turned west towards Springer. The Tooth of Time was not visible until we were about 10 miles east of Cimarron.

We pulled into the Philmont staff parking lot at 10:40am. I sent the group to the snack bar for lunch, while Elmer and I walked over to the Seton Museum to pick up our Villa Philmonte tour tickets (Crews 1 & 2 had 1pm tour times. Crews 3 & 4 had 2:30pm tour times). The museum was very nice and well stocked. Back at the snack bar, I had an ice cream cone won on a friendly wager with Elmer as lunch. After lunch, Sarah and I shopped in the Tooth of Time Traders. I got a new hat and patches to go in the scrapbook, and Sarah got two t-shirts.

Crew 4 loaded up in our vehicles and drove into Cimarron for a look around while Crews 1 & 2 took the Villa tour. Not much had changed. We looked in the shops and looked at Simple Simon’s menu. When Cimarron had become tiresome, we went back to base camp where I took the crew on a short tour of base camp.

We arrived at the Villa Philmonte at 2:25pm for our 2:30 tour. Mrs. Cummings (Hunting Lodge CD in 2002) was our tour guide. The tour has not changed much either in the 21 years I have come to Philmont. I did get to pet the beaver pelt, though. We finished the tour at 3:40pm and radioed to the other crews to meet us at the vehicles so we could get on the road to Taos.

The drive to Taos was beautiful but long. Everything was very green. We arrived at the hotel at 5:05pm. The hotel botched up our block of rooms, and it took some wrangling with the desk clerk to move rooms around to a satisfactory situation, so check in took longer than expected. Once all was settled, we moved into the hotel. I shared a room with Elmer and Robert. They were kind enough to give me a bed to myself – thanks guys! I showered and prepared my pack for tomorrow’s hike before dinner at 6:45pm.

Some of the crews were moving a little slow, so we got a late start to Michael’s Kitchen for dinner. It didn’t matter, though. The restaurant was busy, but had our tables ready and waiting for us. The food was a little slow in coming out (very understandable with a group that big), but tasted excellent. I cannot say the same for our waitress. She did a fine job until she began doing our tickets, then she got aggravated, then plain mad and ugly. I had a talk with the manager was not sure if we would return for dinner tomorrow night.

Clouds had been building since we arrived in Taos. By the time we were ready to leave Michael’s they had formed into storms. We were given a great light show and it began raining lightly.

Back at the hotel, all four crews met up for a few minutes to discuss tomorrow’s plans. Some of the young men would not stop talking, and I got pretty mad in front of group about it. I think that will probably fix the problem.

After the meeting broke up, I stayed out by the van for a while watching the lightning over the mountains to the south. When I returned to our room I cleaned up my stuff a bit, journaled most of the day’s events, and got to bed about 10:20pm.

This was a very long day. Taking on the logistical responsibility for the group with very little back up had put me on edge. I let a few of the advisors know I needed help corralling the crews.

The weather today was perfect. We beat the heat to the mountains. At Philmont the sunshine was warm, but it never got hot. The clouds and lightning over Taos were beautiful.

(journal of Shane Hoffman)