Grand Canyon AZ to Carlsbad NM

We slept well, recovering from our long hike experience. When I got up in the morning my legs didn’t want to work, and they stiffen up again at any opportunity. We packed camp and headed out for a ten hour drive to Carlsbad NM. With 300+ miles yet to drive in our 600+ miles for the day our car started sputtering. NOT GOOD! Stephen took the exit that happened to be right in front of us and pulled into the gas station and auto repair, parking the car as it died. I called my mechanic brother in law (I think he knows that if I call the car is in trouble…otherwise I call my sister.) and asked for advice. He mentioned some possible problems and said we should get the mechanics to look at it.

Stephen went up and talked to the guys at the shop and they said pull it over and they would look at it. I started praying that 1) it would be an easy fix, 2) the mechanic would be honest, 3) it would not be expensive, and 4) it would be fast, not delaying our trip. The mechanic attached a code reader to the car but didn’t pick up any codes. They looked under the hood and said it was leaking a lot of oil from the oil filter, and sure enough, when they checked the oil it was not even on the stick. Apparently the filter installed before our trip was defective and had slowly failed, leaking more and more oil. They installed a new one, put in oil, and started the car. It worked! They only charged us the cost of the part…. $20. God is good! We could have broken down on one of the desolate stretches of road that had no cell service and been stranded for hours, but we didn’t. It could have been a major repair at great cost and lots of time, but it wasn’t. Thank God!

We continued driving, passing through large sections with no cellphone service. These two cowboys were on either side of the road. Not sure why they are there…

Our road took us through Roswell NM, of extra terrestrial fame.

We reached our KOA after dark. We set up camp, made dinner, and went to the restroom, where we saw THIS… a wild tarantula!!! It was as big as my hand!!

I’ve never seen a wild one before, and it was pretty unnerving to see one roaming our campground. We kept the tent zipped up TIGHT!