Today was interesting, exciting, and brought back some scary memories.

We did not take enough time in Alamogordo to take in all the scenery, so Tom suggested that we drive around the mountains into a tunnel that was labeled as scenic.  This turned out to be a really good idea.  We drove through the tunnel, around a road named “Alta Vista Loop”, and down another with a warning “narrow, winding road” named – you can’t make this up- “Steep Hill road”

We then took off for our next landmark – the Very Large Array (VLA).  As we were buying Diesel, Scott checked for admission policies at the VLA, and found out that they had guided tours on the first and third Saturdays every month.  And this was the third Saturday!  Scott bought two senior tickets ($5) for 2PM – we figured even with a lunch stop we would make it easily.

On the way we were going to cross the “Valley of Fires” a large exposed lava flow across a valley.  We figured that this would be an excellent place to eat lunch – particularly as we discovered the Valley of Fires Recreation Area .

The recreation area was unmanned, but it did have a sign that said it was a fee-use area.  However, Scott’s newly purchased America the Beautiful Senior lifetime pass was all we needed for our day use of parking (in a camping spot) and eating lunch.  Everyone else was on the honor system to scan a QR code and pay to use the park – either day use or camping.  The lava flows went right by the campsite – and there was a hike we could have taken if we had more time – but, as always, we took pictures. It was a stark contrast to the white sand from yesterday.

When we departed Valley of Fires Recreation Area we were scheduled to arrive at VLA at 1:35PM – lots of time to get acclimated before our tour.  About a mile from the turn, Tom noticed the jeep was visible in the side view mirror. Normally, it can’t be seen in the side mirrors unless turning. Tom uses the jeep’s shadow to confirm its still behind us when he can’t see it in the mirrors. Just as soon as he finished saying to Scott, “There’s something wrong with the jeep.” and stepped on the brakes, there was a loud banging and grinding sound – something was indeed very wrong with the jeep.

It turns out it was the towbar. The failure of which was pretty catastrophic.  One of the tow bars that pull the jeep separated completely.  There was no replacement part that would fix this, and no safe way to repair it – particularly on the road.  It was toast.

Scott was fond of this towbar – though it had been in a similar accident on a previous trip to San Diego – the famous “Linchpin” incident while towing a minivan behind Scott’s starcoach bus ().  Scott was too cheap to buy a new towbar since they cost around $1000 and he already owned one, though it was – maybe – a quarter century old, and had seen maybe 50,000 miles.

So, we disconnected the towbar and drove both vehicles separately. We made it to the VLA visitor center just in time.  There were maybe 8 people on the tour and 3 volunteer guides from the VLA, so we got very good and very personal attention.  The technology – and the discoveries of space activity from millions of years ago (the radio waves they were detecting took that long to get here) were fascinating.  The guides were completely unwilling to get their maintenance people to come in and fix our tow bar or build us a new one on a Saturday, and we couldn’t use our phones to start researching until we left the facility to avoid radio frequency interference, so off to our final stop for the day, Pie Town, NM about 40 miles to go – Tom driving Khan and Scott driving Polo.

Pie Town RV Park was a pretty unique place – completely unmanned, but with spacious sites, and what appears to be a pretty nice bath house.  You fill out a registration form (unless you want to be anonymous – apparently some of their clientele are on the run from the law,) leave them $40, and plug in.

The first thing we did was set up our starlink and look for a way to replace the towbar.  Amazon and other mail order places sold them, but none would deliver overnight to anyone, much less a campground in a pretty rural part of New Mexico.  Tom found an RV Dealer in Flagstaff, which we would be going though on Monday, which had a towbar we could use in stock.  That’s our A plan right now.

After setting up the camper, we decided to have some of the delicious pies the town is known for – hoping they wouldn’t be too crowded at 5:30PM on a Saturday.  Turns out that one restaurant closes at 5PM, and the other was closing as we arrived – they said they were completely sold out of pies.

We then took a short and exciting trip through Pie Town, which while inhabited was featured on one site as a ghost town .  We did find a colorful resident who hangs toasters all along his front fence – though they used hubcaps when they ran out of toasters.

Our plan is to try to have a Pie breakfast tomorrow morning if one of the restaurants opens at 9AM as promised.