Pie Town to Grants New Mexico

Trail Day 20
It is now Day 20 and we are walking out of Pie Town down the road towards Grants, New Mexico where we have a resupply box, shoes, insoles, and a battery replacement kit for Trouble’s phone that fell in the Gila River! The alternate we are taking is about 75 miles between Pie Town and Grants. We seem to have a “bubble” of quite a few hikers around, and I’m not really feeling too bad if we have to slow down a little bit so that we’re not right in the middle of it. We’re walking down this dusty dirt road, and the few cars that pass have mostly been slowing down so that they don’t kick up too much sand at us. We ended up spending the night last night at The Toaster House: a free hostel for CDT hikers. Before heading out of town, we made our third stop at “The Gatherin’ Place”, one of the main restaurants in town for breakfast potatoes, toast and orange juice.

Road Walk
Another road walk began on the way out of Pie Town. It was sunny at first, but then it started to become cloudy and rainy. We ended up stopping at this abandon shack that was covered in mouse shit. There were a couple other hikers there who were eating, but I just couldn’t imagine eating food and a place like that lol. We made it out to TLC Ranch, where we had something to eat and refilled our water. When we were there another hiker who had started the same day as us: Eli arrived and was going to set up there for the night. We talked for a bit, but ended up continuing on. Before we left, Eli told me about another layer I could add to my Gaia map so that I could see which land was owned by a Rancher, which was BLM, ect. This worked great because all along the stretch there were signs that said no camping from ranchers. We were able to use this to find a spot on BLM land. When we got to our spot it was pouring rain again. Unfortunately, Trouble thought that we only needed 6 tent pegs, so she had gotten rid of the rest of the plastic ones in a hiker box. Little did she know that we actually needed those for when it is raining or windy. We ended up using her poles as extra tent pegs, and tied the rest of the tent to a tree. I was not impressed, but it ended up staying dry inside the tent so there are worse things!

Rain and Curious Cars
When we woke up in the morning, it was day 21. I was warm enough last night, but didn’t feel like getting up and dealing with the wet tent! Throughout the day it rained off and on and even hailed for a little bit. The trail was muddy and slippery at times, and in some areas the mud stuck to your shoe and attracted more and more mud until you were left walking with five extra pounds of mud per foot. During the road walk sections, there were four cars that stopped on the road to talk to us. One was an old guy who wanted to share his life story as he looked out of his truck as it was raining down on us. The second guy wanted to ask us if we had seen any snakes, and then he warned us about the “Mojave” snake that was apparently vicious and invasive in this area. The third car later at night stopped quickly to ask us if we each wanted a clementine! Finally, the fourth car pulled over just as Eli was catching up and offered us water at first, but then got us each a 6 pack of Oreos from his car! We got to our camp spot not long after.

Road Walk Continues
In the morning, we ran into Pack Runner, and Free Will who happened to be camping nearby. We talked a bit about who we knew were around us (sometimes you are hiking just a mile behind someone at the same pace and you don’t even know that they’re so close to you!) We started walking down the long highway road walk towards where there’s supposed to be a subway and a gas station in about 21.5 miles. I’m not getting my hopes up too much that it’s going to be open when we get there- but at least the gas station will have orange juice or something!
At lunch time we stopped at “The Ranger Station” and I was singing the song I made up the whole way there… “Ranger Rick, he’s a dick… Ranger Dan, he’s the man!” When we got there I forgot to ask the Ranger what his name was, but I’m pretty sure that he was Ranger Dan! When we got there “Knight Shift” was there, a hiker who we met in Pie Town and is currently off trail helping other hikers. He remembered that I was vegan and shared a huge salad with Trouble and I. We saw a couple other hikers at the Ranger station and went on our way.
Luckily there was service on the road, and we were able to make much-needed phone-calls home 🥰

TED Talk: Entitled People at Fast Food Restaurants
On the way to the Subway, I noticed a pretty shitty comment left this morning from another hiker on the FarOut app.

Pro Tip: If you want to learn about someone’s character, take them to a fast food restaurant and watch how they treat the workers there.

I feel grateful and understand that I am extremely privileged to have the opportunity to take half-a-year off of work to hike this trail. The impression that I get from most of the other hikers on this trail is that they feel the same way. People who work in the service industry all deserve a raise, a day off, and are entitled to having a bad day or two at work!
When we FINALLY made it to the Subway it was actually open and we found some plant-based foods to eat there. They let us bring our huge bags into the store, gave us great service, and didn’t mind us hanging around for a while!

Homestretch
When we looked at the map, we realize that there weren’t many places to camp except for in town of course! We saw that the “Junkyard Brewery” (which allows hikers to camp in the back after close), was only about 5 miles away and decided to keep walking. I was having a little bit of pain in my leg from walking on the road for so long, and was definitely going to need to stretch a ton. On this roadwalk, we made some more phone calls, and I signed up for a marathon in October! (The furthest I have ever run is 5 kilometres.) This will be interesting…

Junkyard Brewery
The staff at the Junkyard Brewery were extremely friendly and inviting. We arrived just in time to sit for a while with some fellow hikers: Big Spoon and Slay, and meet their friends. We just had some pop and beer (which was great!), and were shown by the bartender where we can set up for the night to camp. It seems like they really want hikers to feel welcome at this place. The spot where we set up was actually part of their patio! Surprisingly there were no other hikers camping back there tonight- but there were many RVs around.
Goodnight world! 🌎