Our Zapata Falls campsite was at 9100 ft according to our GPS. We had been increasing altitude for the past week. Kansas City was at 900 ft and days later our last Kansas stop in Lamar was at 3000 ft.
Our first stop on Colorado was the Pueblo Lake Campground. It was just under 5000 ft.
Then to Zapata Falls and 9100 ft. We took it easy on the day we arrived knowing that a 4000 ft jump in elevation would affect us.
On our short hike the next day we could feel that thin air on seemingly every steps.
Mrs Ram did not feel quite right after that hike. At first she thought it was allergies making it more difficult to breath. The headaches woke her in the middle of the night. She had blurred vision and queasiness. The headache worsened and at about 4 am she woke Mr Ram.
Luckily most things were already packed so grabbing the table, foot stool and levelers was quick and we headed down. After dropping about 400 feet Mrs Ram’s symptoms began to recede. At the bottom of the camp road at about 7800 ft, the pain was gone and Mrs Ram could sleep.
After a few hours of rest she was ready to head out and see if the post office had our mail. We were just about to start for paved road when a Mazda pickup that had been inching it’s way down the camp road pulled up to us. They were hoping we had an air compressor because their passenger front tire was nearly flat.
We had thought about carrying an air compressor and Mr Ram had even picked one out. But there was only room for one pump when we left, a bike pump.
We all took turns pumping and eventually had that tire inflated enough to drive on.
They were off to the Walmart Auto Shop to get that tire fixed. We were off to the post office hoping for some mail. We kept an eye out for a Mazda pickup on the side of the road and kept checking that our elevation did not start climbing.