We arrived in Carlsbad NM the afternnon of Jan 18th. We spent the 19th in the Caverns - hiking some more. We did a self guided tour that took us over 2 miles through the caverns. It is huge and hard to believe that that a "cave" can be soooo big. The sites were awesome. At least most of this hike was going "down". We left Carlsbad on the 20th heading towards the Phoenix area but had more bad luck - we had "another" tire blowout in the middle of nowhere (not sure why this can't happen near a city). This time we were about a mile from a junction in the road were there was a tiny tiny cafe and a 1970's gas pump. No cell service but there was a pay phone and a guy who gave us a name of a tire shop in ElPaso. Well, once again we were off in our tow car for a 160 mile round trip to buy a tire (this time we bought 2 tires which will give use 4 new tire all purchased within the last 6 weeks). Once we got back to the motorhome we had to drive it 13 miles (OW) to a small town called Dell City to have the tires put on (another "spot"in the road - they don't see to many RV's and weren't real familar with changing an RV Tire- which didn't give us a warm fuzzy feeling). We were finally on the road again.. Needless to say we didn't get as far as we planned. That wasn't enough fun - when Mike went to check the tire air pressure the next morning he realized they had mixed up the dual tires when putting them on....this meant we had to stop this morning and have the tires switched around at a Camping World in Anthony TX (north of ELP). We were finally on our way around 11am. We are now at our destination in Casa Grande, AZ where we will stay until the 28th. It's time to relax!
