Day 17 – The Shortest Day

Miles Completed: 22.9

Cumulative miles: 848.9

Miles to St Augustine: 2,212

Today’s ride was only scheduled for 23 miles, and is the shortest riding day of the entire adventure. I’m not sure why they scheduled it this way, but it felt like another rest day for most of us.

We had camped at the Hillsboro Community Park and we voted it the second worst campground so far, mainly because there was only one shower in a shack a couple blocks from our campsite, and there were only pit toilets. Also, the only way to get cellular service was to walk to the highest point in the town and you might get Verizon service only. We had WiFi but we had to walk across the street and sit by the local museum to get a signal.

Instead of riding out early, we decided to eat breakfast at the Hillsboro Cafe. My omelette with green chiles was awesome and the service was great. So at least the town had that going for it.

The ride itself was mostly downhill through a desolate part of New Mexico but we had a beautiful view of the Caballo mountain range in front of us for most of the ride.

We arrived at our new campsite in Caballo Lake State Park and had a lot of time on our hands. So we all jumped in the van and took a ride to Truth or Consequences. I always wanted to go there not because there was much to see, but because it had a cool name. Truth or Consequences was originally called Hot Springs, New Mexico but changed its name to Truth or Consequences after the game show in 1950 as a publicity stunt, and the name stuck.

Felix, Dana, and I ended up at the Truth or Consequences brewery. Who would have guessed? They had a Green Chile Amber beer on draft that was quite good.