It was a weird start to the night last night, but after that there were no more incidents and we slept just fine. Being that we were at 6,900 something feet in elevation, it was pretty cold. It was probably about 25 degrees, but overall we were comfortable as long as we were in our sleeping bags. The only problem was getting out to get our breakfast. We bought some cereal and milk last night, so we were set. Despite the cold weather, it still sounded much better than oatmeal. We were in our tent, wrapped in our sleeping bags as we ate and it was wonderful. Once everything was packed we were ready to hit the road by about 7:30. On the way out we had perfect timing leaving because a lady had just gotten to the church to start preparing for a community Christmas dinner they were going to have at the church in a couple days. Anyways, we got to freshen up in the restroom before heading out, which was very nice. This morning's ride flew by. Almost all of it was downhill. We kept watching as the elevation signs got lower and lower. 6,000 feet then 5,000 feet... the miles are just flying by. As we got lower, all those beautiful trees we have been seeing and enjoying started to disappear and it was beginning to look more like a desert again. We passed through lots of little mountain towns with names like Tinnie, Hondo and Picacho. We were happy, yet surprised to see a gas station in one of the towns where we could take a little break. We watched as the mountains slowly stared to get shorter and shorter until they no longer resembled mountain but looked more like hills. It was a little depressing to watch because we knew there was a good chance we wouldn't be seeing any more of the Rockies on this trip after were done descending out of these ones today. As we got lower in elevation, the road began to follow a dried up river bed. The road twisted and turned as we peeked behind us too get the last glimpses of the taller mountains behind us. It is going to be so weird not having mountains in view off in the distance or just being able to climb through them. We've pretty much been in or near mountains since we were in Colorado back in April. We took our lunch break in a little pullout on the side of the road around the 35 mile mark of the ride. Joey had the tarp all laid out ready to sit on by the time I got there. After we were done enjoying our Voila pasta- veggie meal and some Cheetoes, a lady with a Colorado license plate stopped by because she wasn't sure if someone was broken down or not. We talked with her for a little bit and she seemed very interested and impressed by our trip. However, she made a couple comments that made me a little worried. First she was confused as to how we rode on the roads-I don't know if she thought that we rode in the dirt or what. But, the worst statement of all was that she thought it was now illegal to ride a bicycle on the roads. I explained how there are some interstates that we aren't allowed on or would even want to ride on, but that it was fine on regular roads. We've been seeing bicycle signs and share the road signs all over the place, so I told her to keep an eye out for those as she is driving. It was very nice of her to stop to make sure everything was ok, but with statements like that, some people just worry me, especially since these kind of people are driving on the same roads we are riding on. After lunch, we had one little climb and then we were out of the mountains. Once we were to the top we could see miles down the straight road, with not a mountain in sight. We were back in the flat lands. Unfortunately, once we were out of the mountains, the little bit of tailwind we had turned into a side/headwind. That slowed us down a bit but since it was relatively flat we did OK. Although it felt like we would never get there, we eventually saw Roswell off in the distance. As we got close, we saw signs for "UFO" and other alien themed signs. Roswell was a place that a supposed UFO crashed back in 1947. Although nothing was ever proven, the town is still known as the place the aliens landed, so a lot of things in town are alien themed. It was a long ride into town from where we first started seeing buildings. We passed by a car dealership that had a few giant blow up aliens on display. That was just the first of many alien things we saw. Our first stop was the library to see if our warm showers host for the night had emailed us her address, since we didn't know where in town she lived. When we called her, we found out that she was nearby, so she said she would just come to us. When she got there, she and Joey walked across the street to see if our package had gotten there yet. We were waiting on the warranty wheel that was from Joe's original back wheel, that has been waiting for us in Missoula, MT. We had found a crack in my back wheel, so we figured we better have the wheel sent to us just in case. Unfortunately it wasn't there yet, even though the bike shop said they mailed it on Monday ( it was now Friday). Our host, Peggy, drew us a map of how to get to her house from the library. That is when we found out she lived 6-7 miles out of town back in the same direction we had just come from. If we would have known that, we wouldn't have ridden all the way into town. Good thing we had an easier morning today so we weren't completely exhausted. By the time we got to their house, it was dark. They weren't home yet from doing what they needed to in town, so we had a few minutes to wait. Their dogs were barking at us for a little bit until they got used to us being there. It didn't take too long for them to get there and open the gate for everyone to go in. We were excited to find out that we were going to get to sleep in a bed tonight, as if it wasn't already awesome enough that we wouldn't be out in the cold tonight. We both got to take a nice hot shower and then enjoyed a wonderful meal of pasta Alfredo with mushrooms, mixed veggies and bread with Peggy and her husband Rick. They had 3 cats, Bridget, Jane and another I can't remember the name of. One was mean, and the other two were shy, so unfortunately I didn't get any quality kitty time. Later that evening, Rick, Joey and I got to enjoy a movie from their huge collection. We were just discussing today that it would be fun to watch an alien movie while we were in Roswell, kind of like how we watched Sleepless in Seattle when we were in Seattle. So that's what we did. They had the movie Mars Attacks, which ended up being pretty funny. Peggy made some popcorn for the three of us and then proceeded to make some homemade chocolate chip, marshmallow banana bread. Boy was that yummy, hot and fresh right out of the oven! Peggy gave us a little loaf to take with us along with a bunch of other food from school that the kids don't eat ( she is a teacher and all of the food that the kids don't eat just gets thrown out, even if t is perfectly good.) She is absolutely amazed that so much food goes to waste and that the kids just don't eat it. She gave us some yogurt, muffins, breakfast packets with cereal, animal crackers and juice, granola bars, and burritos. We would be set on food for a couple of days! We had another great day and are so glad we could be inside tonight. Hopefully we have a nice tailwind to get us far tomorrow. We ended up riding 74.99 miles today.
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We woke up kind of early today, even though we had a little bit of a hard time getting out of our sleeping bags.The sun was shining and we had everything packed up by around 8. We had some cereal and milk left over from yesterday's breakfast, so we were all set for breakfast this morning. There was a nice little town park with picnic tables and a bathroom not to far from where we camped that was a perfect spot to stop for breakfast. On the way out of town, we planned on stopping at Wal-mart to get a little more food, but somehow while we were looking for a place to camp last night, we passed it, so we ended up not going to Wal-mart this morning. That was ok though because we had plenty of food to get us to the next town without starving. We were flying this morning on the flat portion of the ride because we had a great tailwind. Thank goodness! When we got to the next time, we stopped at Subway to refill on water. While there, we found out there was a Wal-mart in the next big town we were going to, so it would work out perfectly. The girl inside also lived in Irondiquoit, NY for a while, so she knew the upstate NY area. She told us that when we went up into the mountains, it would remind us a little more of home because there were trees, and it was much prettier than the desert. Once we left from there, we started to climb and did so for most of the rest of the day. Like all the other hills/mountains that we've gone through lately, it was a very gradual climb at first and then got a bit steeper as the ride went on. There were a couple sections that had a short little downhill, but for the most part we were climbing. About 20 miles into the ride, we entered the Mescalero Apache Indian Reservation. Unlike most of the other reservations we've been to, this one was very nice. There was hardly any garbage along the side of the roads, which was very unlike every reservations we've ridden through. They also had a lot of cement walls with beautiful murals painted on them. The girl in Subway was right, it was so much more beautiful up here than in the plain desert that we came from. There were even trees, and lots of them. The higher and higher we got, the prettier it was. I can't remember the last time we saw pine trees! It did remind us a little of life back east. Such a nice break from what we've been seeing lately, which isn't much. Around the 35 mile mark, we stopped for a lunch break in the Apache town of Mescalero. We came across a huge beautiful church that was actually the catholic mission. There were picnic tables outside, so we thought that would be a good place to have a little lunch. Not only were there tables, but there were also a hose with water so we could easily wash out our bowls after lunch. For the first time in a while, we had a box of mac and cheese and snacked on some of our cheese strings. We also enjoyed the Orange Crush soda that was given to us at the church last night. Just as we were cleaning up from lunch, a light blue VW bug pulled into the parking lot. It was then that we met Harry. We ended up talking with him for quite a while. He asked us lots of questions about our trip and also shared a lot of his own travel stories. We particularly liked the stories from his train hopping days because we knew that is something that people can't really do anymore because of the heightened security now a days. We learned that Harry was married to an Apache woman and seemed to enjoy living on the reservation. Before we hit the road again, we had a chance to use the bathroom to freshen up before continuing on. From our lunch spot, we only had about 10 miles of climbing left, and they went by pretty quick. There was a bit of a tail wind with us for a good portion of the climbing today, so that helped quite a bit. It didn't take us too long to get to the top of the pass, and I must say, out of all the passes we've done- this was by far one of the easiest ones. It was such a gradual climb almost the whole way up, so we were able to keep our pace between 7-10mph for most of the time. We were at an elevation of 7,591 feet at the top of Apache Summit. We had a quick Hershey kiss break at the top to celebrate getting to the top. While we were taking our little break, an Apache, who lived at the top of the hill, came over to talk to us for a little bit and find our where we were traveling to and from. He said it was all downhill into Ruiodoso, which we figured, but were happy to know it for sure. We started the descent down the hill, knowing that it might be the last time on this trip that we are at that high of an elevation. The guy we talked to was right- it was a nice long descent for about 7-8 miles right into the town of Ruiodoso. When we got into town we stopped at Wal-mart to get a little more food, like we had planned to do this morning. By the time we were done shopping, it was pretty chilly. Although we planned on riding a little further, we decided to just find somewhere in town to camp. We found a Baptist church that had a little thrift shop next to it. When we went inside to see if they were affiliated with the church, sure enough they were, and we got a chance to talk to the pastor's wife. She didn't have any problem with us setting up our tent in the back yard, but gave her husband a call just to make sure. We ate our pasta and sauce dinner on a bench in the little outdoor hallway between buildings before setting up our tent for the night. It was still a little early, so we had a little time to call home and relax in our warm sleeping bags. While Joey was talking to his Dad, I thought I heard someone walking around through the fall leaves. When I looked out, it was a police officer with his flashlight. He heard Joey talking on the phone and stopped what he was doing to try to figure out where the voice was coming from. It ended up being pretty funny because whatever Joey was saying wouldn't have made any sense to anyone because he was in a conversation on the phone. I unzipped the tent and told the officer we had permission from the Pastor and his wife to be there. He didn't seem too interested in what we were doing there and just went back to whatever he was doing. That made us a little worried because we thought that maybe it was a bad area or something and he had a nightly round he made around the church. About an hour later, we heard a whole bunch of footsteps of what sounded like a bunch of kids walking down the outdoor hallway towards our tent. At that point, we were VERY worried. Until, we heard a little voice say "Why is there a tent here?" That little voice was obviously a younger kid, probably about 9 or 10. When we looked out it was a lady with her two kids. About a minute later, Vickie (the pastor's wife) came by and said that we shouldn't be interrupted anymore tonight and that this was not a normal thing. She said everyone came through because a little girl was missing form bible class for about 10 minutes and she claimed to have been raped behind the church last night. The pastor's wife was pretty sure that wasn't true, and said that we should be fine here tonight. What a weird night! We only rode 50.09 miles today, but the majority of it was uphill.
Boy it sure was nice to sleep in a bed last night. We woke up nice and early feeling refreshed and ready to tackle the long days ride ahead of us. Since we had a chance to go to the store last night, we were able to pick up some milk and cereal for breakfast this morning. After a yummy breakfast we got everything packed and were ready to go by 8. We gave the doggies one last pet and said our goodbyes to Mary Beth. Having a place to stay really helped us get an earlier start because we didn't have to wake up in the cold. And it sure was definitely cold this morning. We started our ride with our coats and gloves. We toughed it out without pants because we knew it would warm up eventually. The ride out of the city wasn't too bad. There was quite a bit of traffic like expected, but it dissipated as we got closer to getting back into nowhere. For almost the entire morning we were climbing, gradually at first and then steeper as we got closer to the summit of St. Augustine Pass at an elevation of 5,719 feet. The wind wasn't helping all that much today either. Like yesterday the wind was in our face for a while. Once we started climbing the pass however, it changed a bit. Thanks to the road turning a little, the wind actually helped push us up the last portion of the pass. The first 15 miles that brought us to the top of the pass seemed to take forever, which made us worried we wouldn't make it to where we wanted to by the end of the day. But we knew we had a few miles of downhill which we knew would help. We had a chocolate kiss break at the top before descending down the pass. We ended up going down for about 6 miles which helped rack up the miles really quick. After that, there was a pretty nice gradual downhill for quite a while. At one point on the descent, we entered the White Sands Missile Range, which is the "birthplace of America's missile and space activity." The valley we were in is the same valley where the first nuclear bomb was tested, called the Trinity site. This sounds pretty exciting, but from where we were it was probably still 100 miles away. Before we knew it we were at 30 miles. We stopped for lunch at a pullout off the side of the road and had one of our frozen veggie pasta meals. It was a nice spot for a break except that there were beer bottles, broken glass, hypodermic needles, and a lot of other trash everywhere. We sat there on the curb and enjoyed our lunch, some kisses for dessert,and listening to country and Christmas music on our little radio. Towards the end of our lunch, we had some more entertainment. There was a couple cop cars stopped on the other side of the divided highway. They looked like they were setting up for a traffic stop. Time went on and another cop car showed up. There were a bunch of cones set up along the middle of the road and for a while the police officers just stood there chit chatting. We watched and waited for them to do something. Eventually they started doing something. When the first car came by after they put their yellow vests on, the next thing we knew was that the car was pulling over to the side of the road. This continued with all of the rest of the vehicles that came by. After a while, there was a whole group of drivers just sitting on the side of the road. Some people had gotten out of their vehicles and were walking around. At that point we were really curious what was going on. Once the cars were stopped, it didn't look like the police were talking to any of them anymore. When we asked what was going on, we found out that they were going to have a demolition and that it wouldn't be safe for the westbound traffic to continue until it was over, but that we would be OK going the direction we were going. They said everything was running on schedule, and it shouldn't be too long before it would go off. Since we still had a ton of miles to do, we decided to hit the road now that we knew what was going on. We got about a mile and a half to two miles into the ride before we both jumped to the moon. We heard the loudest BOOM ever! When we turned around there was this humongous smoke cloud researching high into the sky. That demolition they told us about was WAY bigger than either of us had imagined. What a huge explosion!! Good thing they stopped traffic because I can just see someone crashing if they didn't know that was going to happen and they were driving. We stopped and watched in amazement as the smoke cloud billowed. What an exciting day! Guess we timed going through the missile range pretty good! We still couldn't believe just how big of an explosion it was. After our heart rate went back to normal after being so startled, we continued on through the long valley. The great thing about riding through the range was that they had porta-potties all over the place, so I we never had to worry about not having a bathroom for a long time. One thing we were looking forward to today was visiting White Sands National Park. We had a couple recommendations to stop there when we went by. We kept seeing the signs for it telling us how far away out was still, and it just seemed like we would never get there. The wind wasn't horrible, but we still didn't have a tail wind either. At one point, we went through a border patrol check for the city of Almogordo, which was still about 20 miles away at that point. It wasn't much of a check, since they just said "US citizen, mam/sir?" and we replied with a yes. That was it, we were free to go. About 5 miles later, we made it to the park. There was the white gypsum sand creeping onto the road in a couple spots and white dunes all over the place on the left side of the road. We stopped at the visitor center, which was right close o the main road. We timed it perfectly to see the movie on the park right away. Afterwards, we decided to ride back into the 8 mile long park road for a little ways. We got in using our national park pass, so we were happy that we got to use that again and really get our monies worth out of it. Unfortunately, by the time we got to the park, it was already getting late and we only had an hour and a half left of daylight, and still 15 miles left to ride to get to town. We road into the park for about 3 miles just so we could get a feel for what it was like. We knew that the further we went into the park, the less vegetation there would be and the higher the dunes would be. Too bad we didn't have time to ride all the way in, it was pretty neat. The way out of the park we had a head wind which didn't help much. There was hardly any traffic on the road today which was really nice. That changed very quickly though, when we passed the military base (Holloman AFB). There was just a continuous line of traffic coming off there heading into town. Some how we made it into the city of Alamogordo before it was completely dark. It was such a weird thing because we went from being in the middle of nowhere to being in a city, just like that. At one point, Joey said " I feel like Chinese buffet." What a great idea!!! So, we decided that if we happened to see one, we would stop there for dinner. Almost right away when we got into the city, we saw a Golden Corral. As much as we love those, we were really hoping for Chinese, which would end up being cheaper anyways. Sure enough, a couple more miles down the road we found our Chinese buffet!! What a great day! It had been a while since we had a Chinese buffet, and it was just perfect. They had almost everything I wanted, right down to the little sugar coated Chinese donuts. I am so glad we went out. It was really dark by the time we fond the restaurant and it was nice that we would be able to figure out where we were going to camp without having to think about how hungry we were, or cooking and cleaning in the cold for that matter. After we were stuffed to the brim, we headed over to McDonald's to find out where things were in town. We figured our best bet would be to find a church again. It was perfect timing by that time because it was around 6, so there might be people at church for meetings or bible study. Sure enough, of the churches we rode by, the majority of them had cars outside. We found one and headed in to see if there would be a spot we could set up the tent for the night. We could hear they were right in the middle of their bible study in a room down the hall. Being that we didn't want to interrupt, we just sat in the sanctuary pew and waited for them to finish. We got to enjoy listening to a few church songs, too. It was so nice, I really miss singing songs in church! We didn't mind waiting at all because it was nice and warm in the church compared to being outside. After about 40 minutes, they were all done and we headed in to ask. They said "sur
"Sure !!, I can't see why not." So, we had a place to set up the tent for the night, what a relief! As we were talking to the pastor,we found out that the group was renting the church and that there were several church groups that rented that church, it was a pretty neat thing to have a bunch of different groups share the same church. They each have their own worship schedule, so it worked out perfectly. After we got our tent all set up in the side yard of the church, the side door opened. It was the pastor checking to see if we would like any chocolate cake!! Of course we couldn't turn down chocolate cake! It was delicious! They also gave us a full 2 ltr of Crush orange soda and a bunch of little snacks for tomorrow. What nice people! With happy, full bellies we headed off to bed. It was cold out, but not as bad as it has been the last couple nights we slept in the tent. We rode 77.98 miles today, and were happy that we made it to where we wanted to. Tomorrow will be a day of climbing as we head back into the mountains. It was another cold night, probably in the 30s again- and yes, still have that silly stuffy nose/cough thing. I look forward to the day I can breath again! It has to be something with this dry climate that is keeping me sick. I sure have gone through a lot of napkins lately! We had a bit of a hard time getting out of our toasty sleeping bags again this morning- that is probably the hardest part of the day! Claire got to the church just as we were packing everything up- perfect timing! Although a shower sounded awesome and we originally planned on taking one this morning like offered, we decided not to- that is the only time we've EVER turned down a shower! The reason we decided against it is because we know that we will get one tonight at our Warm Showers host's house. Also- it was really cold out this morning, and having wet hair would probably make us feel colder. It would have been nice to start off all squeaky clean, but it ended up working out just fine not taking one. Claire put some coffee on this morning for us and for the other ladies that were there (I am pretty sure there was also a pre-school at the church, but it was so big, I can't be quite certain). So, we warmed up with a cup of coffee with some vanilla caramel flavored creamer and had a nice little chat with Claire. Now that we had coffee here, we didn't have to stop back at the visitor center for any, although it was really nice that the lady there mentioned it to us. On the way out of town, we stopped at Wal-Mart again to get some cereal and milk. From there, we rode across the street to the Dairy Queen because we knew they would have tables outside and wouldn't be open for the day yet. We enjoyed our cereal and were happy and excited for the day, until we were almost done with breakfast and getting ready to clean our bowls. It was then that we noticed the direction the flag was blowing--- we would have a head wind today! We were so disappointed, especially after what a fantastic wind we had yesterday. Man, I thought the wind was supposed to come out of the west at least 95% of the time, guess not... So, the ride started of very slow today in comparison to yesterday's! Maybe we should have kept going yesterday and camped off the side of the road somewhere, but then again, we had a great evening, so I am still glad we didn't. But one thing I am glad for is that we didn't take showers, because it looked like we would need all the daylight we could get to make it to our destination since we had that darn headwind. We plodded along, going much slower than we would have liked. Unlike yesterday, the miles took so long to go by; it felt like we weren't getting anywhere. Today, our best friend was the semi- trucks! Although we normally prefer when they move over and give us an extra lane of space, the best ones were the ones that went by in the right lane. Those ones would have the best draft to give us the push we needed to keep our cadence up. Just as the wind was starting to wear on us, a truck would come along and give us the little push we needed. This is probably the only circumstance where I will say that I loved the semi's. By the time we were at the 20 mile mark, we were already feeling tired. We took a little break and had a quick "string cheese snack" and a "kiss" snack (we still had some left from the bag I bought yesterday- surprisingly!). The I-10 would make these big gradual turns, that would either help alleviate the wind, or would make it even worse. Either way, it was a slow going day. We stopped for our lunch break around the 35 mile mark and just found a little spot to pull off the road after getting off one of the exits. We leaned our bikes against that forever long barbed wire fence and laid out our little blue tarp for our "picnic." Another day of our new favorite meal- Voila dinners. We snacked on some kisses and had a nice hot lunch to keep us going. After having a little food in our tummies, the next few miles didn't seem so bad. Even though there was a headwind, it could have been a lot stronger. For most of the day we were moving along at around 10 mph, which is not a bad speed, but after yesterday felt like a snails pace! As we continued on, that good feeling wore off and I began to feel very tired and got a head ache, probably from the sound of the cars (which still weren't that heavy for an interstate). My stuffy nose was getting to me while I was riding for the first time in a while. Normally, I just blow my nose and I'm fine for a while. This time, I think the cold just made me feel way more tired than I should have been. At one point we came to a construction area. The whole right lane was closed and there was a cement barrier up down the middle of the road to keep the traffic in the left lane only. There was however still a nice shoulder. At first we weren't sure what we should do because we knew that section of the road was closed, but we also knew that there was NO way we wanted to try to ride between the cement barrier and the cars and semis- there would have been just no room, and a lot of angry people. So, we went through the closed section and stayed on the shoulder. The entire right lane was ripped out and there was a big trench where it used to be. As we watched the trucks fly by the wall with only a foot or two of room, we knew we were in the right spot. A couple times, we had to stop and get off the shoulder into the dirt to let one of the big trucks that were working on the road go through. After a couple miles, we came to a point where there was a whole bunch of those trucks all lined up waiting their turn to get loaded up with the ground asphalt they were digging up in the right lane. For that section, we ventured off the road and pushed our bikes through the grass and weeds. There were a few pricker bushes that weren't too fun and the bikes were sinking in the sandy like dirt which made it tough. As we were walking, the trucks being loaded were slowly creeping further and further down the road, meaning that we would have to keep walking in the dirt longer. Joey got his bike through first of course, and ended up parking his bike and coming back to push mine the rest of the way through. Thank goodness, because I was feeling even more tired after doing that! We got back on the shoulder once we were passed all the trucks and it was smooth sailing (downhill, too!) to the next exit. There we could get off and take a frontage road that had almost no traffic on it. We took that road for about 5 miles or so before getting back onto the I-10 for a couple miles. Before we knew it, we were flying downhill and in the city of Las Crusces. Thank goodness we had a little downhill to speed up the end of today's ride. We crossed the dried up Rio Grande on the way into town and crossed the I-25, which goes through Denver, Co- I can't believe we are already that far east! At first we weren't sure where our host's house was and planned on stopping at a McDonald's to look it up. But for probably the first time, there was no McDonald's in sight right when we got into the city. But, we had a backup plan; we looked at the screen shot I took of the map with her address plugged in, and were able to find where we were and where we had to go. Getting there was pretty easy. When we did arrive, she wasn't home yet, but we were told the back door was left open for us. We got our bikes pushed through the side gate and found a nice little note for us taped to the door. There were two super cute doggies inside-the friendly one's name is Flossy and the other dog, Bruno, had a bit of stranger danger and didn't really want too much to do with us. After they got used to us being there, and I played with the tennis ball a little, Flossy was ready for attention and jumped right on my lap. Such a cuddly dog! Although Bruno was more shy and cautious, he did let me pet him a couple times! We each took a nice hot shower and got settled in a little. Both of us were excited that we would have a bed tonight! Our host, Mary Beth, set out some hot cocoa for us to make if we wanted to, and that warmed us right up. We relaxed on the couch, played with Flossy, watched some TV and I worked on a little bicycle while we waited for Mary Beth to get home. When she did get home, we chit chatted for a little bit, and then since everyone was hungry, we headed out to eat. She took us to an authentic Mexican Restaurant, which is easy to find here, since we are only about 35 miles from the Mexico border! It was amazing- there was a salsa bar and all the tortilla chips you could ever eat. Joe and I each tried Flautos- fried tortilla with meat (I may have spelled that wrong) for the first time. Joe had chicken and I had beef. It was served with shredded lettuce and tomato, guacamole, sour cream, rice and beans. So delicious! I definitely want to go back out for Mexican again soon if we can! On the way back to the house, we stopped at Wal-Mart so Joey and I could re-stock on food a little. That was such a big help because we knew we had a lot of miles to do tomorrow and had planned on doing our shopping before we headed out of town. But, now it's all done! When we got back to the house, I got to cuddle with Flossy a little more and we just relaxed. Joe and I had a chance to do a load of laundry and we went to bed pretty early. Maybe my "sickness" will be gone by tomorrow. Our miles totaled 63.23 today.
We slept in a little bit this morning just because we wanted to get some cereal and milk from the store for breakfast and we knew it wouldn't be open right away. Once we were all packed up, we headed to McDonald's to pee and then to the grocery store- it didn't open until 8:30! So, we sat there and waited for a little bit. Then I walked over and checked the Family Dollar just by chance they would be open earlier- and they were, they would be open at 8- only 5 minutes away! So, once they opened, we went in and found our cereal- they normally have milk too, but this morning, they were all out. So it didn't help at all. We thought maybe one of the gas stations might have the milk, so we got the cereal anyways. The only gas station we found only had tiny little bottles-that were outrageously priced. Unfortunately, we were stuck waiting for the little grocery store to open. Once we got our milk, we decided to head back to McDonald's because they had a whole bunch of picnic tables outside that would be much nicer to eat at then on the ground somewhere. I am surprised- as much as we go to McDonald's to use their tables, or fill up on water- we have never had any of the employees seem upset that we were there, in fact if anything, they come to talk to us to find out where we are riding to. Luckily that's the case, because we can't afford to buy a milkshake every time we go there-that would be A LOT of milkshakes!! While we were cleaning up from breakfast, we met a nice couple from Colorado that were on their way to Arizona. They talked to us for quite a while and asked us quite a few questions about our trip. For some reason- they were really surprised that we could actually ride our bikes to Alaska, but we've heard that from quite a few people. Once we started our ride today, we were on the I-10 since highway 70 that we were following went onto the interstate. Compared to some of the interstates that we've had to ride on, which has luckily been very few-this one was actually quite enjoyable. Even though it was pretty much the only road, there was hardly any traffic, or at least not the amount you would expect to see on an interstate. A beautiful shoulder and a nice straight, flat road- couldn't get much better! Every once in a while a semi- truck would go by and their draft would give us a nice little push to keep us going. It was a gradual uphill for quite a while, but it was hardly noticeable as we kept a pretty comfortable speed most of the way up. I keep looking for license plates in hopes that we will find a Nevada one. I found 2 within a couple miles of each other- both were upside down, so I had to stop to check what they were. Both of them were California- so disappointing. After about 20 miles we stopped at a little gas station/ souvenir trading post for a quick break. By that time, there was just an incredible wind coming from the west-- what we've been waiting for FOREVER! It was amazing and was strong enough to keep the big flag at the shop standing straight out. For the remainder of the day, we just flew- 15-25 miles per hour without hardly any effort. About 5 miles later we crossed the continental divide for probably the last time on the trip (well at least while we are in the Rockies). This time crossing it was SO much different from all the rest. The "mountain" the divide was on was a very gradual hill and not steep at all. Our elevation at the time we crossed it was 4,585 feet which is very low in comparison to our first crossing which was at 11,307 feet back in Colorado. There was a rest area in perfect timing for us to have lunch- right around the 30 mile mark for the day. Boy does New Mexico have some nice rest areas! They had bathrooms and a ton of little shelters with picnic tables. Joey and I made a box of mac and cheese and used up the rest of our milk from breakfast this morning. While we were there at the rest area, we saw the cutest motorcyclist ever! His name was Buddy the biker- and he was this tiny little dog with a little leather like doggie vest on and a helmet!! I've never seen a dog with a helmet before- but it was just adorable! We got a chance to talk to his owner and we found out that the little doggie was "raised on a bike" right from when we was a puppy and couldn't walk yet. As they ride, Buddy just sits in a milk crate and is completely content. Never once tried to jump our or anything. It was so cute to watch them leave too, because Buddy just hopped up on the motorcycle and climbed in the back right into his milk crate, all ready to go! After a great lunch break, we were excited to get back on the road and just coast in the wind. This afternoon, we tried to go just as fast as we could with that wind. For quite a while we were going at 21-25 mph as we just tried to keep that speed up. The wind was just so wonderful. Before we knew it, we were in Demming, where we planned to stop for the day. When we got there, it was only around 3:30. We thought about continuing to ride since the wind was so great, but we still much prefer camping in town instead of out off the side of the road somewhere-so we decided to stay. We went to McDonald's for a quick internet break so we could familiarize ourselves with where things were in town, and then we headed off to find the library. Somehow we missed the library, but found a visitor center instead. We stopped there just to see if they had a New Mexico map that I could put in my map sleeve on my handlebar bag. Wal-Mart was right across the street, so we made that our next stop to get a little something for dinner. We got our new favorite meal- the Voila frozen veggie, pasta and chicken dinners, and also got some little rib eye steaks to enjoy too since we haven't done that in a while. There was a table at the visitor center, so we decided that would be the best spot to have dinner. The lady inside the visitor center was nice enough to let us use their kitchen sink with nice hot water to wash up our dishes and even told us she would have coffee in the morning if we decided to stop back on the way out of town. With the free wi-fi there, we double checked to see where the churches were. As we road around, not too many of them looked promising, so we headed to the Methodist church, which was a little further away. It was perfect- there were a bunch of cars in the parking lot, so there would be someone to ask! When I peaked my head inside the door, they were having choir practice, which I didn't want to interrupt. I went back outside and almost right away, a lady asked if she could help us. We asked if the Pastor was around (which we found out he was in choir practice). The lady we were talking to, Claire, was the secretary at the church and said she could help-so we told her what we were doing and that we were looking for a safe place to set up our tent for the night. Right away she said we could set up in the courtyard behind the church- which was all fenced in, so we would be nice and safe. She said she would let the Pastor know and said she would be back in the morning around 7:30 anyways. Claire even offered us a shower in the morning in the Gymnasium that was attached to the church if we wanted one! No wonder the church was so big- there is a gym! She made sure we got into the courtyard ok and bid us a good night. We were so happy to have a nice place like this to camp- with absolutely no worries. There was a nice security light, green grass to set up the tent, a bench to sit on, an outlet to charge our phones, and even wi-fi! We were definitely in a little camping paradise! While I worked on typing, we snacked on some Hershey's kisses that I got at Wally-world and even got a chance to talk to some family back at home. The wi-fi reached all the way to our tent with a pretty good signal strength. So, what did we get to do in our tent? Watch a MOVIE!!! It was awesome! What a great way to end a fabulous day of riding. Hopefully we will have some more days of great tail winds like this- after all, we struggled for the first half of the trip with the wind against us, now it's time for lots of days of tailwinds. If we have lots of days like this, we will be to Dallas before we know it! It took us under 4 and a half hours to do 65.71 today- Yay!
We got up nice and early this morning, just in time to see a beautiful sunrise. That stubborn stuffy nose and off and on sore throat that's been lingering since Vegas was still here this morning. It always seems to be the worst in the morning and then clear up by the evening. Once we were all packed up, Mike, Lauren, Joey and I headed next door to Mons' house to help with breakfast. Another great meal- more polenta and the rest of the spinach fortuna and some more of the veggies and potatoes from last night, along with some poached eggs. We were all so stuffed by the time we were done- looks like we will all get a lot of miles done today before we have to stop and eat! We left about 9:30 and enjoyed the flat ride we had for the first few miles or so. After that, there were some hills for about 15 miles that slowed us down a bit. We had a "cheese break" in Duncan just to keep us going. We have really been enjoying the string cheese that Anne and Lou got us when we were in Chandler (AZ). Even though it seems like we've been eating them like crazy, we haven't made a huge dent yet (guess that's because it was a HUGE bag of 48 cheese sticks!!). From there, it was flat or just a slight incline for quite a while. After crossing a little hill, we were out of Arizona and onto our next state! When we crossed the border into New Mexico they really wanted to welcome us because there were two welcome signs! There was also quite a lot of beer bottles and trash near the sign too. For a second we thought we were back on the Reservation that we were on yesterday (boy- the roads were just so lined with glass and trash that it made it an ugly road to ride down). Once we went down the other side of the little hill, the road was flat or only small rollers for as far as we could see. About 5 miles into NM Joey got a flat tire on his rear wheel from a tiny piece of wire from a shredded truck tire. We had a fun time changing it because there was a group of 4 horses that were in the field next to the road. As we were standing there, they slowly trotted over closer and closer to see what we were doing. It was pretty cute to watch them. Once we were all fixed and riding down the road again, we continued on down the long road that seemed to go nowhere. Eventually we saw a town off in the distance. We got closer and closer, but it seemed like it was taking forever to get there. At one point when we could see it a little better, I took a picture, but even still- we were 8-9 miles away. The last 5 miles were a struggle for me. By that time I was just so hungry and I think because of that I just didn't have any energy left to make the ride enjoyable-not to mention it was getting cold fast because the sun was setting. I think we were both very tired and hungry when we got to that highway town of Lordsburg. As we were riding into the town, we weren't very excited because it was a weird town. There were lots of vacant homes and there were a lot of police cars everywhere (which we found out later was because there was the town police, the highway police, the state police, and border patrol- all in one town). The town just gave off a strange vibe- it wasn't very homey or welcoming feeling. Although we were worried we would have a hard time finding a place to camp, the most important thing on our minds when we first got there was food. We found a little grocery store and were sad to see that it wasn't open on Sunday's. McDonald's was right across the street, so we went there to check Google maps to see if there was another grocery store in town. Unfortunately, that was the only one! We were both just so hungry that we decided to get chocolate milkshakes while we sat there in the warm restaurant. We looked up some churches in town because we figured that would be our best bet. We had already done a lot of miles and did not want to ride on the I-10 at night, so we had to find a place in town. Before riding around town to see if there was a church we could go to, we stopped at Dollar General and got some snacks since the grocery store wasn't open and it was pretty cold- so we didn't feel like cooking. We got a big can of apple sauce, cheesies, and zebra cakes- nothing that is all that good for us, but it was better than cooking in the cold. We found a spot to camp behind the first church we came too, which was great because we were close to McDonald's if we needed a bathroom and we didn't have to backtrack hardly at all. We didn't see anyone at the church to ask like we normally do, but at that point, we didn't have many other options. The church was perfect because there was a security light- which makes us feel a little safer and also it was great because we don't have to sit there in the dark. We set up our tent quickly and got in our sleeping bags as fast as we could. Now that we don't have to worry about bears like we did when we were up North, we could easily eat our snacks inside the tent so we could stay warm. The end of the day was a bit tough, but once we got a little something in our bellies, everything was better. It is still really hard to type now that it is so cold out. I have my little gloves and I am all bundled up in my sweatshirt, 2 coats, pants and my sleeping bag, but my arms and hands still get so cold- it's crazy. But at least we aren't cold when we are sleeping, that's the most important thing- especially since this is going to be the norm for the rest of the trip. We rode 73.43 miles today.
Well, camping on reservation went just fine. No one even knew we were there and so no one bothered us. I am very glad that we just found a spot to camp when we did because it would have been pretty scary riding along that road at night. There are an incredible amount of beer and liquor bottles lining the road, which makes me very worried. It also worked out perfect miles wise where we camped because otherwise we would have had to practically kill ourselves riding to get off the reservation after a tough morning and would have ended up with a lot more miles than we wanted. Also, if we did that, we would have only been about 20 miles from our Warm Shower's host for today, which would have been a waste of a day. Everything worked out perfectly. December is here! It was a very cold morning, so for once I could actually believe what month it was. Wow--- December!! Time goes way too fast! We ate the last of our muffins and then hit the road bundled up in our coats. Compared to yesterday's ride, the road flattened out quite a bit, and got flatter and flatter the further we went. About 16 miles into the ride, we stopped for a little snack break in the little reservation town of Bylas. There was a wonderful rest area with picnic tables and a bathroom that made the perfect place to take a break. As we were snacking on our cheese and carrots, we met Dorothy who was born and raised on this reservation. She stopped and talked with us for quite a while. At one point she told us about how life was living on the reservation and how in the summer when it is really hot, a lot of people sleep outside because they don't have electricity in their homes. It was nice to get a chance to talk to a native of the area and get to learn a little bit about how it was living on the reservation. After our break, we continued on and climbed over the last little hill we had for the day. After that we were off of the reservation and found ourselves in another long valley that seemed to go on forever. As we rode through that long valley, the majority of the time we were on the gradual incline. We stopped for our real lunch break in the town of Fort Thomas and found a nice spot in front of the school grounds to relax. We ate the rest of our sub sandwiches and snacked on some more cheese and the rest of our Doritos. It was another beautiful day of sunshine and in the 60s-70s- perfect riding weather. We continued on for another 15-20 miles before stopping for another break- that seems to be our thing today - taking lots of breaks, very unusual for us. That break happened in the town of Pima. For about 8 miles before getting to this town, there were signs all over the place for this ice cream stand saying all of the wonderful things they had available there. They did a darn good job of making us want nothing but ice cream! So, that's where we took another break- and had a little ice cream. Oh was it delicious! Joey got his normal out to eat flavor- a twist. This was one of the places that had 24 flavors of soft serve available. I wasn't in the mood to be daring and try anything fancy. So, I got a twist too, except I hadOreo cookie pieces swirled into mine. It was amazing because it was like a flurry sundae on top of a cone- such a good choice! From the ice cream stand, we only had about 10 miles left to go to get to our destination for the night. When we arrived in Safford, we stopped at Safeway to fill up on water. We decided to put a little ice in our cups and somehow figured out that when you shake a water bottle that has just ice, it worked to take out a little of the inevitable mold that grows in the water bottles. We were happy to get them a little cleaner, but I was still not satisfied with how dirty they still were. As we were riding through town, we saw signs for the Christmas Light Parade, which would be this evening sometime! Our Warm Showers host, Mons and his family, lived about 3 miles outside of town. We didn't have any trouble finding our way and were really excited that we would get to stay with someone again tonight! When we got there, Mons wasn't home, but his parents, Gene and Norma, were next door. They invited us in, and got us all settled, since we would be sleeping in their sun porch. I was really excited because there were a couple kitties (Flipper and Tanner) in the house, which were friendly and would let me pet them and cuddle them. We knew that there were a couple more cyclists coming today, and about 15 minutes after we got there, so did they. There names were Mike and Lauren. Lauren was from San Francisco and Mike was from Washington. They were riding from Connecticut to San Diego, so like Kumar (from Thanksgiving), they were almost finished with their ride, too. Once they got settled too, we all took turns showering and relaxing in the best thing ever-- the massage chair! It was 20 minutes of pure heaven, especially since it was a full body massage, from your head right down to your feet. When it was getting close to dinner time, Mons solicited all of us to help with dinner. It was so nice to be included and get to help fix dinner- so much better than just sitting there! We cut up bread, veggies, peeled sweet potatoes, all while enjoying some yummy snacks of bread and goat cheese dip and freshly made pesto. Bryant, Mons' 15 year old son, prepared and grilled the chicken for the carnivores of the group (Mike and Lauren were vegetarians). He had his own concoction of cocoa powder, brown sugar, garlic powder, and a whole bunch of other seasonings that he put on top of the chicken- it turned out SO yummy! While we were getting dinner ready, we had a chance to chit chat with Mon's wife Sarina. Dinner was amazing. We had the chicken, polenta, spinich fortuna ( I could be spelling these wrong ...), roasted veggies and really yummy Brussels sprouts ( I don't know what they did to them that made them so good- but they were awesome!). For dessert, we got to have some really creamy cheesecake- what a treat! At Mon's house, there were also a couple of kitties: Pete and Shiska, who were also pretty friendly. After our great meal, the 4 of us headed back next door to get ready for bed. There were 2 pull out couches in the huge sun room so we all had a bed to sleep in! I worked on making a little wire bicycle for a little while since it was only around 8. It was so much more fun than normal because little Flipper decided it would be a lot of fun to play with the end of the wire while I twisted and turned it to form the bike. It was so cute and so fun to have a kitty playing on your lap. That is one thing that I do miss is having a kitty. That is the one of the things I look forward to most for when we are home-- getting all settled so we can get a kitty of our own! What a wonderful day, yet again. We rode 51.83 miles today.
We had a great nights rest in the Air Stream and were ready to tackle the tough ride we were told we had from here to Globe. After getting to share some conversation with Charles this morning, we had a chance to make some scrambled eggs and toast with strawberry jam for breakfast. We gave a little attention to Sadie Sue before we got everything all packed and ready to go. Charles gave us a little for warning that we had quite a bit of climbing ahead of us. Sure enough, there was lots of climbing to start the day off. As soon as we left town, we were headed up into the canyon. Shortly after we left, Charles was headed off to work and beeped/waved when he went by. About 3 miles into the climb, we had a tunnel to go through. It wasn't a super long tunnel, but it was still long enough that the cars and trucks would have a hard time seeing us. We turned our lights on and rode as fast as we could- which wasn't very fast at all because it was all uphill. The road we were on along with the road through the tunnel had two lanes going in each direction. This was pretty helpful for us so that it wasn't as scary. There were still a couple times that we decided to stop completely and get as close to the wall as we could so we weren't in the way for the oncoming traffic. We got through the tunnel without any problems, but had fast heart beats by the time we were out in the sunshine again. I had to stop to just give my self a breather because for some reason I got myself a little worked up going through the tunnel because I was so worried the cars and especially the trucks wouldn't see us. Overall though, it wasn't too bad because there wasn't that much traffic as a whole. It was indeed a hard ride from Superior to Globe. When we got to the top of the first hill, which ended up being about 6 miles into the ride (95 % of which was uphill), we saw a "truck hill" sign that said "7% grade for the next 15 miles." Usually this indicates a nice LONG downhill. After seeing that sign, we were pretty excited, until we started going down and got around the corner to where we could see the road ahead of us. Right when we started going down, we could see the road had a nice long UPHILL just ahead of us. So, we got excited for nothing. After our quick patch of downhill, we began to climb again, this time only for a couple miles. Then, we went down again, crossed a bridge, and began to climb once more. Eventually we had a nice downhill into the town of Miami and then into the town of Globe which was only about 5 miles away. We took our lunch break in Globe and enjoyed ham sandwiches with the rest of the loaf of bread that Anne sent with us, plenty of cheese sticks also from Lou and Anne, and some Doritos that I picked up in the store because they just sounded yummy. While we were sitting on the bench outside of Safeway, we had a little entertainment. We watched a couple of people and a little kid standing around, then watched the guy walk away to somewhere else in the parking lot and a few minutes later saw him come back with a puppy! That is when we saw the van that said "Puppies or sale!" That little puppy was so cute and it was fun to watch the little girl because she was just so excited. After lunch, we rode for about 5 more miles before stopping at a McDonald's to refill on water and use the internet for a couple minutes. We also decided to get a little dessert- ice cream cones off the dollar menu, YUMMY! It was a perfect day for ice cream since it was another nice warm sunny day. From there, we continued on down the road and entered into the San Carlos Apache Indian Reservation. The ride wasn't quite as hilly as the first part of the day, but there were still some big rollers for the rest of the day. We went through a little town on the reservation that had some road construction going on. There was one way traffic while they were working on the other side of the road, but they did have a pedestrian lane, so we were able to get through without having to hold up traffic or worry that the light would change and there would be cars coming towards us. About 5 miles outside of the little town, a car pulled over to talk to us. It was Charles's wife Mari! We got to meet here after all! She told us that we wouldn't be able to camp on the reservation and that we still had about 30 miles to go until we were off of it. She also mentioned that at one point the mile markers jump from 214 to 226 in one mile! It's a good thing that we don't count on those to track our miles because we would have definitely been confused if she hadn't mentioned that to us. Despite the fact that she said we wouldn't be able to camp on the reservation, we had no choice but to do so since it was pretty much dark about 5 miles down the road after we had talked with her. Just like any other place that we've camped, we found a spot that we felt we would be as hidden as possible and made that our home for the night. We found our spot somewhere near mile marker 180 on highway 70. It wasn't all that easy to find a spot because there were not very many tall bushes and we were restricted by how far off the road we could go because of the barbed wire fence that seems to line all of the roads in Arizona. We enjoyed a half of a sub sandwich and snacked on our carrots and string cheese before setting up the tent. Another cold night ahead of us! Tonight would be the first night Joey would sleep in his new sleeping bag- so glad that we got that for him! We huddled in our sleeping bags and went to bed nice and early since there was absolutely nothing to do. We were worried to even have a light on, so we didn't do anything, including typing my journal. Either way, we've camped on reservations before and had no problems whatsoever- so I think we will be just fine. We are probably paranoid because Mari told us we couldn't camp there, when it ends up being pretty much like all the other places we've camped at before. Guess we will see how it went in the morning. Our miles totaled 55.75 today. Happy Birthday Uncle Larry!
For some reason I had trouble falling asleep last night, despite having such a wonderful bed to sleep in. Maybe it's because my body didn't use enough energy without having cycled in a couple days. For breakfast, we cooked up the left over steak and made some home fries with the left over baked potato. What a yummy way to start the day. It was so sad to be leaving, but we knew we had to leave at some point. The good news is that we will hopefully get to see Anne when she gets back to NY for the summer! We repacked our food that we had put in the refrigerator, and were excited to get to pack a whole big bag of cheese sticks (48 total!) that Anne and Lou had picked up for us- they will help keep us going for a long time! We sadly said our goodbyes and then started riding again. It was so hard to leave the little paradise that we got to enjoy for a few days. We will miss spending time with Anne and Lou, that's for sure. We didn't get very far at first because neither of our bike computers were working. Somehow, when Joey changed the tires yesterday, he managed to put BOTH of our front wheels on backwards. That's never happened before! So, we stopped in a little pull off and took our front bags off so we could flip the wheels. On the way out of town, we stopped at the barber shop because we told the guys we would when we were leaving. Only one of the guys was there, but we at least got to say goodbye to him. It was a pretty easy route to get out of the city to where we would head out of the valley. In the midst of flipping our wheels just after we left, I forgot to re-tighten my front brake and almost had a crash stop at one of the stop lights. Luckily I yelled "no breaks" and Joe was able to catch and stop me so I didn't crash. The bar end shifter on the left side jabbed me in the leg, but all I got was a bruise, so it wasn't bad at all. When we were riding out of town, we went from being in a very populated area with stores to a lot less populated area full of a bunch of fields. A few miles later, we were back in the populated area. We planned on stopping at the grocery store on the way out of town, but our plans changed when we saw a pizza buffet right next to the grocery store. For some reason that sounded like a much better idea. Guess we weren't ready to leave the "spoiled life" after all. It ended up being a very good decision to eat at the buffet, because then we didn't have to go to the store at all, and we didn't have to eat dinner later because we knew we would still be full. We had a tiny bit of a head "wind." It was more like a light breeze, but was still enough to make us feel slow. The majority of the first half to 3/4 of the ride was either flat or had a slight grade. Towards the end though, we had quite a bit of climbing to do. As we were climbing up into the mountains, we entered the Tonto National Forest that was just full of the big huge cactus. In fact there were all kinds of cactus everywhere we looked. It was really neat to see so many! Eventually we got to the top of Gonzales Pass. The view on the other side was just beautiful. There were mountains in view, some close and some off in the distance. We had a nice downhill for a few miles and found ourselves getting close to the town of Superior, where we planned to stop for the night. At one point, we passed the Boyce Thompson Arboretum State Park. We didn't stop, but we did find out later that it was full of live models of all of the different kinds of deserts of the world. So, that would have been pretty neat to see. Just before getting into town, a guy pulled over and got out of his car to talk to us. It turns out that he hosts cyclists and is part of Warm Showers! He lives right in the town we planned to stop in. For some reason we didn't know he was there, and I guess if we did, we didn't think to contact him just because we just got to enjoy a couple days off with Cousin Anne. Either way, he was excited that we would have a place to stay tonight, and so were we! Surprises like this are the BEST! Who would have thought that we would have a place to stay tonight, too! His name is Charles and his wife's name is Mari. When we met him it was around 4:00 and he was on his way into Phoenix for a meeting. He told us he wouldn't be back until around 7, so we planned on just finding a spot to wait in town until he got back. But, instead, Charles said to just take his house keys and make ourselves at home. He told us about the hot tub, his big dog named Sadie Sue, an Airstream camper that had a bed we could sleep in, and to help ourselves to anything we wanted to in the kitchen. We were so excited that we now had a place to stay tonight- it is always so much more fun than staying in our tent! The last 3 miles or so before we got to his house flew by. We didn't have any trouble at all finding where he lived. Sure enough there was a super cute doggie waiting there for us. He mentioned that she was a big dog, but she was HUGE! I wasn't sure what kind she was, but she was as big as a St. Bernard, if not bigger. Sadie was so cute because she wasn't much of a guard dog- all she wanted was attention. She was also very photogenic- she would just sit there nice and still and let you take as many pictures as you wanted of her. Not only was there a super cute doggie, there were also a ton of kitties running around (we later found out that they were all neighborhood cats and that they really only owned 1 cat named Buttons). Unfortunately, the kitties were all skittish and so we couldn't give them any attention. After we got settled a little and spent quite a while playing with Sadie, we decided to head for the hot tub! It was SO relaxing after a day on the bike! Afterwards, we headed inside to relax and wait for Charles to get back. We decided to watch a movie from his collection. It was truly amazing- we are pretty sure that he has more movies than Netflix! They are all organized into folders that are alphabetized, and they take up about 4-5 cupboards worth. Just trying to pick one movie to watch was a little tough because there were just so many great movies! Since we were still pretty full from lunch, we just split the last little bit of chocolate moose cake that Anne sent along with us. That cake was just awesome! When Charles got home, we enjoyed getting a chance to chit chat with him before we headed off to bed. Unfortunately, Mari was still at work until around 10pm and would be gone again by 6 in the morning, so we most likely wouldn't get a chance to meet her. We headed towards the Air Stream to retire for the night being very happy that we would get to sleep in a bed again! We are just so lucky! We rode 51.75 miles today.
I woke up feeling much better today. The sore throat was gone- I think the humidifier helped a LOT with that! The stuffy nose still lingers, but I've had that for quite a few days now, so I'm used to that now. For most of the day we just relaxed. It is nice to just "hang out" and not really do anything productive once in a while. I even got to play some computer games with Lou. I introduced her to the a new game- Song Pop, which I've really learned to enjoy, even if I'm not very good at it. Part way through the day, I repacked my bike since all of my panniers and gear were sitting in the living room from being taken off to fit the bikes in the truck. We enjoyed just watching tv for a couple hours. Later on that afternoon, we walked over to the Barber shop around the corner and got Joe's hair cut. He hadn't had it cut since we were in Alaska and it had gotten pretty long. He got it cut nice and short so that hopefully he will make it all the way back to NY before needing another haircut. The barber shop was doing a special promotion where they gave out a free Powerball ticket with a haircut or shave. We got our ticket and had fun thinking about how cool it would be to win 550million bucks just because we decided to go get Joe's hair cut. We talked about all the things we would do with the money and how we would be able to afford a hotel every night if we wanted one- but still wouldn't because it would take the fun out of finding a place to camp. The guys at Papa Joe's Barber shop, were really interested in our trip. I gave them one of our little website cards just in case they wanted to know any more about it, which they did. About a half hour after we left, we got a call from them asking if we would come back to take a picture with them. They had looked at our website and were even more excited about our trip. Papa Joe even contacted a couple of the newspapers in hopes that they would write a story on us. So, a little later, we walked back over to the shop and got a picture with them. We had just missed the news cameras being there to do a quick little clip on the shop to go with the Powerball Fever story. They were already on the news when we walked in- it was pretty neat! One of Joe's friends from High School who he played baseball with lives in Scottsdale, which is another one of the suburbs of Phoenix. We planned to ride to his house before coming here, but since we didn't get to ride here, our plans changed a little. Being that we were already here, it would be a little backtracking and out of the way to ride back to where Michael lived. But, luckily it worked out very well because Anne and Lou said he was more that welcome to stop in here for dinner if that would work for him. Sure enough, he worked just down the street from where Anne and Lou lived- it couldn't be any more perfect! So, for the last couple days, Joe's been in touch with him and they made the plan for him to come visit for dinner tonight. And so around 5:30 when he got out of work, he came over for dinner. The boys seemed to have a great time catching up and reminiscing about high school. It was really nice to get a chance to meet him too. We had a great cookout dinner of cheeseburgers and hot dogs and potato salad. Its been a while since we've had a picnicie type dinner, and it was very much enjoyed! We had some more of that super awesome chocolate moose cake for dessert, too! Since Lou goes to bed so early because she has to get up around 2:30 to get ready for work, we had to say our goodbyes tonight. It was just so sad that we wouldn't see Lou in the morning. As we were saying goodbye, there were some tears. I knew it was going to be hard for us to leave, but I guess it was hard on Lou that we would be leaving too. We had just SO much fun when we were here. Lou and Anne are just so much fun, especially when they are together- they are very lucky to get to be roommates! After Lou went to bed, Joe and Michael went to a nearby bar just to catch up a little. I stayed home with Anne and we had fun watching one of the Transformer movies while waiting for Joey to get back. I can't believe it's already going to be time to get back on the road tomorrow. As much as I love the whole traveling thing, the hardest thing is anticipating getting somewhere and then having it get here so fast- and then in the blink of an eye having it be time to leave and move on to the next place. It's very overwhelming after a while, but there is no escaping how fast time goes. We just have to enjoy every minute for what it is because before we know it this will all be just a memory and we will be riding back into New York- that will be a very emotional filled day, I already know it. Another great day to add to such a wonderful trip- we are so lucky!
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