The morning’s ride through low clouds down the Conejo River valley was incredibly beautiful. We hit a pavement climb up La Manga Pass upon which Alyssa got our very first flat of the entire trip- 1800 miles in! Tubeless tires are amazing, y’all. The tire was a little worse for wear and she’d already bought a spare so she just converted to a tube and off we went. The map notes had waxed poetic about the Cumbres and Toltec Scenic Railway old-fashioned steam train (the writer is a train nerd, we have gathered by now) and we managed to catch it passing by chance. It was indeed very cute and sounded like a cartoon. Shortly after, we crossed the border to New Mexico and took what would be our last border crossing photo! The rain intensified and the road got chunkier and steeper, and when we hit peanut butter mud at the top of the climb our morale was quite low indeed. We had no choice but to keep going, but it was pretty slow with lots of cleaning breaks. New Mexico pulled no punches in welcoming us. Eventually the skies started to clear, but we were exhausted and made camp as soon as we found a decent spot. Once again, this mud is no joke!