It’s an easy couple of miles to CO17. We decide to walk another two miles to Cumbres Pass because we guess that’s where the next segment will begin.

There’s a little railroad station for the Cumbres and Toltec narrow guage rail line on the pass. We sit there and try to hitch a ride. In an hour a dozen cars have passed with no offers. We start walking the 11 miles to Chama.

Lucky for us Dani from Regina, Seskatchewan is on her way to see her parents in Farmington this morning. She stops, piles all her junk in half of the back seat, and we cram in. She helps us find the Post Office in Chama and wishes us well. We offer her breakfast, but she’s charged up for the road already.

We don’t waste any time getting to the Village Bean coffeehouse, where we have the best breakfast of the trip so far. We make plans to hang out here some more later. Meanwhile we set up camp in the Rio Chama RV Park and go about our usual resupply chores. There were surprise items from my Mom and Pete waiting for us. Pete’s box featured two 8×10 gift-wrapped rice crispy treats. They are absolutely outrageous, almost too big to bite into, but they demand to be eaten.

During the day a few people recommend that we eat at the High Country Inn. We’re on foot, so we always ask how far it is. “Oh, not more than a mile,” is the standard reply. After hanging out some more at the Village Bean, listening to good live music, and chatting with Kevin, the owner, we set out. It turns out to be at the other end of town, about two miles. It also turns out to be a steakhouse, not usually our favorite. But we have a couple of good beers with dinner and the walk back doesn’t seem so bad. We figure just the main stretches we walked today add up to 10 miles.

Back at camp we start into the rice crispy bars for dessert. They’re a little dry, and the gift wrap sticks to them. They’re also almost impossible to stop eating. I finish nearly half of mine before bed.