Winter in April...

Heading north from Sante Fe I stopped to car camp. The intention was to get up and ride my bike in the mountains. It's April 11. 

It was after dark when I put up my tent. The weather was mild and the ground was sand and rock. Sand and rock don't hold tent stakes too well. The wind kicked up during the night. 4 times it ripped tent stakes out of the car, twice they were gone for good and I had to find new ones. Once the stake is out of the ground, the tent will flog itself to pieces, and you have to get up and deal with it. Then came the rain. Horizontal. The rain comes inside the tent when the stakes come out of the ground. An amazing amount of rain can find you inside your tent. It turned to snow at dawn.

Sunrise, well daylight at least, found me cold, maybe a little crabby and certainly wet. I drove out looking for breakfast. No way I was going to sit there and get the stove out etc, when civilization might be found nearby.

I stopped at a diner, I think in a town called Rio Chama. Coffee, eggs, chorizo, beans, potatoes, and a giant tortilla. The waitress was impressed with how fast I could eat. I mentioned I slept in a tent at Abiqu Lake. 

"Abiqu Lake?"she says. "That's a shit-center for bad weather. Why would you camp out there in April?" 

Like a moth to flame, that is a good question.