US50 Phase 1: Cimarron Canyon State Park

Oct 22 Sunrise in the canyon

Got up this morning and spent some time taking a series of progressive sunrise photos up the canyon, then decided to stay where I was for today. By the way, none of the four campgrounds in this park show up in the Trailer Life campground guide, but other New Mexico state parks do, can’t figure that one out.

After chilling alongside the Cimarron River which runs alongside the campground (And pretty much everything else in the narrow Cimarron Canyon!) for a while I then made a morning run down the canyon, through Ute Park, which is a small wide spot in the canyon with some homes and a convenience store, to the town of Cimarron just beyond the mouth of the canyon. I used up the last of my fresh vegetables last night and was looking for a resupply.

I drove through town from one end to the other and back (Which isn’t very far.) but still had to ask where the grocery store was. I knew there had to be one since Raton, the nearest town of any size, is 40 lonely miles away. Turns out I was just two doors down from it but there is no sign on the place and it looks more like a gas station.

Fresh is a relative term, (I found out later that the place is called Sam’s Grocery and they get a truck on Tuesdays and Thursdays. And of course I showed up on a Monday!) but I got a few vegies anyway and headed back up into the mountains.

Spent the rest of the day chilling out, hiking along the Cimarron River and up Maverick Canyon, just down the road from where I’m parked. Other than a few people fishing the ponds near the campground I saw no one all day. Temps were in the 50’s but the winds meant keeping a jacket close. Inside the rig this evening the wind is making it sound colder than it really is and I'm hunkered down, glad that I'm not sleeping in a cot set up alongside my pickup as one of the fishermen I ran into today is doing!