A great night’s sleep until the point Deborah’s alarm went off when her watch read 5:45 am, as she had set yesterday’s alarm to repeat daily. I said, when her watch read 5:45 am as she hasn’t changed the time on her watch since we cross a time zone yesterday, so it was actually 4:45 am.
Not to worry, we were so tired I think we were asleep again before 4:47 am. My alarm woke us at 7 am so we could have an early breakfast.
This was another free breakfast hotel, so my hopes were not high. In fact, the breakfast itself was probably the worst so far, but that was not for the want of trying by the new Chinese owner of the Bright Morning Motel.
We were the first in the small breakfast room adjacent to the reception. I have no idea how long he had been standing there, but as we entered the owner was behind a table in front of two small electric rings with frying pans on and a large number of eggs. He was wearing a big smile, a large unintentionally comical chef’s hat and ready for action, with a whisk in one hand and an egg in the other.
As we filled our bowls with cereal, poured a coffee (hot water for Deborah) and put a couple of slices of bread in the toaster, he continued to stand, ready for action. He didn’t move even when we sat down and started to eat our cereal. It was like a scene out of an untelevised episode of Fawlty Towers.
Not liking eggy things I urged Deborah to ask for an omelette as it was starting to feel a little awkward, which she eventually did. Within ten minutes the breakfast room was full and the one man omelette making marvel was in his element.
As we packed we reassessed our clothing choice for the day Yes, we were back to shorts, t-shirt and sandals weather. Yippee.
First stop after checking out of the motel was the local supermarket, 200m up the road. While we planned to make it to Santa Rosa today there are no other towns or even service stations if we fall short, as there has been every day to date. This will happen more frequently as we head out into the New Mexico and Arizona deserts, so we decided to buy real food that we can cook in the wilds rather than relying on peanut butter and jelly sweets. Water is also less available as we head west, with no water, let along brain freezing drinks, available for the entire 55 miles of today’s cycle.
Provision purchased and stored in Deborah’s front panniers we headed off up the Main Street and Route 66.
The first 10 miles of today’s cycle was on I-40, followed by 28 miles on old Route 66, then another 16 miles on I-40. There
We had no choice other than cycle those sections on I-40 as there are no reasonable alternatives and therefore cycling on the hard shoulder is allowed.
While cycling along the original Route 66, we were passed by three car in all of those 28 miles, so having the road to ourselves spent it cycling shoulder to shoulder across the lane chatting, watching the increasingly beautiful desert scenery go by and stopping to take photos all too often.
Rather than spending the night describing the cycle, I’ll leave it to the photos to do that talking.
As we cycled the last few miles into Santa Rosa I thought how easy this blog would be as we literally hadn’t seen anyone all day to speak to.
We even managed to avoid a conversation with the first person we did see, the chap the sold Deborah two brain freezing drinks at the first service station we came to in Santa Rosa, although that wasn’t too hard.
It was, therefore, a shock when a lady, also visiting the service station asked us where we had cycled from.
Quintessa as travelling from her home in Missouri to California, although originally from New Mexico. She was missing out travelling through Colorado due to snow, which reminded us that winter is indeed approaching.
Quintessa asked us a few more questions than usual, so I could see the was a cycle tourer in there somewhere. When asked, she confirmed that she would love to go touring too. She has a bike and a tent, but her husband PJ isn’t quite there yet.
PJ… We aren’t cyclists. This is our second tour. We bought the bikes after reading the book ‘The Man Who Cycled The World’ by Mark Beumont (check Kindle and Youtube) and without any knowledge of what we were doing went out and bought similar gear to Mark and through ourselves into an amazing new world…. it’s not for everyone, but if there is even the slightest interest go for it! You only live once and I know someone that will be very happy if you do!! 🚴♀️🚴♂️😊
After saying goodbye to Quintessa we tied up the main road through Santa Rosa toward the RV park. Checked in, we put the tent up, had a bite to eat (not telling what we had as I haven’t the time to respond to all the about nutrition), then I started writing this while Deborah went off and did the laundry.
While sitting at the table next to the tent writing a number of stray cats appeared determined to get into the tent, but it seems the ultra-sonic dog dazzer works on cats too!
Chores done we settled down for an early night with the hope for an early start in the morning.
I got a steripen for water purification which admittedly won’t help when no water available. But, I might carry if I ever contemplate your our a similar ride.
I expect colder temps for you so know you’ll watch the weather for sudden or general trends ahead.
Some beautiful country ahead. Enjoy!
JC
Thanks again John. We didn’t have any water purification tablets, but do have quite a good water filterration system, designed for what we are doing. You are correct though, we need water for tgat and there isn’t any to be found out here.
The scenery is already quite spectacular, so looking forward to the next few weeks.
Thanks again John. We didn’t have any water purification tablets, but do have quite a good water filterration system, designed for what we are doing. You are correct though, we need water for that and there isn’t any to be found out here.
The scenery is already quite spectacular, so looking forward to the next few weeks.