Yeti here,

I’m hijacking the blog for a couple of days while Walkabout is out hiking. I’m cooling my jets here in Grants, hoping a couple of days off will get me back on the trail.  Since he is a couple of days behind  in his writing I thought I would catch him up.

Anyone who has ever lived in a small town will appreciate the degree of pride and enthusiasm that the locals feel for the local youth sport teams.  Reserve is certainly no different.   

After a slow morning just hanging around the hotel we decided to walk back into town to get somethings  to eat.  Walkabout had been working hard to catch up on the past nine days of blogging and editing pictures and I had been watching nonstop series of old westerns.  We reckoned we needed to get out and take a break.  Plus the fact that I had to find someway to get to Grants. With no public transportation in or out of Reserve and no car rental I knew I needed to be creative. 

Town is about a half mile away and for long distance hikers you wouldn’t think that would be much of a big deal at all but currently, with my leg still a bit sore, it is a pretty slow walk.

Determined to find  ride to Grants I started stopping at every business along the way asking if there was anyone for hire to drive me.  Not meeting with any success we moved on to the sheriffs office.  As luck would have it I did find a woman, Stacy, who worked for the jail, who said she would take me.  Problem solved. 

 Walkabout and I had just made it into the center of town when we noticed that all the grade schoolers were showing up along Main Street with home made signs and banners and all the locals were coming out of their businesses and parking their cars to line the streets.   Curious, we walked up to the nearest car and started chatting to a woman and her husband about what was happening.  They proudly told us that the Reserve boys track team had just won State in the 1A State Finals.  There was going to be a parade in their honor in just a few minutes.  Of course we weren’t going to miss the excitement so we took a seat front and center and settled in for the fun.  Pretty soon we heard the blare of the fire truck and the siren from the police car and the team, in the back of a pickup truck, holding their trophy in the air, drove past us.  They drove the 3 or so blocks to the end of town and turned around and came back through. Everyone was cheering and clapping and it really was quite exciting.  

After the parade the woman we had been chatting with came over to sit on our bench with us and we got to talking some more.  She turned out to be the past Mayor of the town and retired teacher of about 20 years.  She introduced us to another guy standing near by and he turned out to be the County Commissioner.   We got a great rundown on the area and a little on the history of the town.  You just got to love small towns!  The people are so friendly and amazingly helpful.

We went for Mexican, topped it off with a homemade cinnamon roll from the little bakery , which coincidentally is owned by the same women who owned the hotel we stayed at, and called it a day.