Another amazing sleep with the only disturbance being the 6 am alarm. The sleeping bags were cosy warm, but the air felt cold and damp. How cold and how damp was demonstrated by the layer of ice that covered the tent and the frozen bottles of water we had left on the ground outside of the inner tent. Oh well, at least the changing weather is making the extra weight in clothes we are packing a little more justifiable.
It was still dark when we crawled out of the tent, but with the lights of the service station just 200m away illuminating the area, packing up camp was quick. One thing we seem to be finally getting the hang of.
We headed over to the service area and were again allowed to take our bikes inside, this time with permission from Brenda, the new shift manger. To our astonishment, Frank, the guy that was working the shop last night was still there, looking more awake than we did.
Deborah ordered the breakfast Subway and I bought the hot chocolates. I got chatting to a lady, Linda, and her two sons as we queued at the hot chocolate machine when the conversation got all Californianee (which I realise is a made-up word). The family were from Southern California, where we are heading, while Brenda is originally from Milpitas in the San Francisco Bay Area, where I used to work, and close to the centre of an earthquake which had just shaken things up over there in the past few hours.
I had said hello to Linda last night guessing then, for no apparent reason that she was a local, which clearly was not the case. So on gentle questioning, I discovered that she and her boys had slept in the monster RV parked up in the car park as they were taking a break from their long cross country journey back home. I also discovered that if Linda knew we were sleeping in our tent on the scrubland across the road we could have had a bunk in the RV. Lovely thought, but bad timing.
Breakfast consisting of tasty food, a hot drink, warmth, and a chair to sit on… what more could anyone ask for? Sometimes it really does feel like we are cheating.
It still looked cold when it was finally time to set off. We must have looked a little sloth-like, as seeing us mobilizing, Brenda kindly offered to drive us to Santa Fe when her shift ended at 2:30 pm. As that really would be cheating we declined, but another lovely thought and another demonstration of the kindness we keep receiving throughout this journey.
As we left the warmth of the service station a young chap with a cycle fastened to the back of his car asked Deborah what we were up to. We haven’t seen many others crazy enough to do what we are doing, in fact, we don’t know many, so took the opportunity to chat. Jasper has some big tours under his belt already, including a ‘modified’ Route 66 and one on our to-do list, the US Northern Tier. We are new to this cycling touring thing, but it’s always great to talk to someone with the same passion, even if it means that we were late getting on the road bearing in mind the 6 am alarm call.
The first part of the day felt fast (for us), with great roads and big swooping downs, followed by ups just a little bigger than the downs, allowing us to pedal in top gear and make it up without any effort. Repeat that a few times and we were gaining altitude effortlessly.
In the afternoon the ups and downs were similar, but the road surface had been recently replaced by some sort of sticky treacle syrup. From flying start of the morning it was a little frustrating to now be cycling on an industrial flypaper.
By early afternoon we had to make decisions on where to sleep. I was in need of a bike shop as my tyres weren’t holding up to the rigours of the US roads as well as I would have hoped. We checked Google and found a KOA campground 7.2 miles away along the interstate by car, but on pressing the cycle option it switched to an 11-mile cycle on unpaved roads through the Santa Fe forest. As it was only 2 pm and up for a change away from road traffic, we decided to head for the woods.
To cut a long story short… unpaved roads in the UK are roads that have been paved, but are generally good for cycling. In the US you may require any or all of the following skills in order to navigate an unpaved road:
- Orienteering
- Mountaineering
- Scree Scrambling
- Weightlifting
- Mountain Biking (expert)
- Imagination (extreme)
- Sense of Humour (dark)
Ultimately, after five hours of unpaved roads being either non-existent or existent, but requiring all panniers removed and everything carried, we came within half a mile of exiting the forest only to find a six feet high barbed wire fence with the words, ‘Private Property’. With the sun setting, we had no choice other than to set up camp.
Unlike the UK where we know the most dangerous animal found in the West Coast of Scotland Midge, we had no idea what would be coming out for a night stroll soon. That also includes humans, as we had found significant evidence of gun use, including a big white freezer (not plugged in), just a mile from where we were now going to be camping, with at least one hundred bullet holes in the side of it. Domestic appliances can be frustrating sometimes, but to take one out into the woods and do that to it is extreme, so obviously there are nutters about too.
We pitched the tent on as flat a piece of land we could find, doing our best to avoid spiky things, especially the floor hugging cacti that we thought were very photogenic just a few days ago.
With the tent up and our sleeping bags and valuables in the tent we stored the bikes and the rest of our gear a reasonable distance from the tent, just in case a grizzly was in the neighbourhood and was hungry for a feast of wraps and peanut butter, and unless it knew how to use an MSR Wisperlite stove, dried pasta.
We spent the night huddled together as we heard footsteps outside of the tent, branches breaking in the distance, and the distant howl of wolves…
Actually, it was so quiet it was too quiet. It was that type of quiet that you can actually hear ringing in your ears. So quiet that Deborah didn’t even need her earplugs. That said, the quietness of the night was still trumped by the amazing night sky. Without any light pollution, the Milky Way put on a magnificent display just for us… it even threw in a few meteors for extra effect!