A day of two halves. Through necessity today was going to be a long day as there is nothing between us and the next town with somewhere to stay for the night, Grants. Also, because the area between the two is a Native American Reservation we are not allowed to wild camp. So at least a 70 miler with a few big climbs.
While I had a great night’s sleep the old girl’s knees were playing up, so she woke half rested. As I had my shower last night I packed up camp while Deborah took hers. Breakfast was a feast of cookies and bananas, washed down with the finest New Mexico water straight out of the tap, which unfortunately meant it was warm.
As we were preparing to leave, taking a final few photos, we got talking to Jackie. We had seen Jackie last night in the laundry room, but as we were all busy doing laundry and writing blogs, we didn’t’ get the opportunity to chat. We certainly made up for it this morning, talking about everything and anything.
While we talked another lady out walking her dogs, that we had never seen before, came over and asked if we would like breakfast. While we would have loved to have said yes, as while I did say out breakfast was a feast a few sentences ago, in reality, it was rubbish. Unfortunately, we needed to get off so a missed opportunity to feed and enjoy the company of another traveller, albeit a traveller in a rather large mobile house.
Jackie was heading to Colorado in her RV and we needed to get to Grants, so we said our goodbye and were off. There was a remote chance that Jackie would pass us on one of the stretches of I-40 that we would be forced to cycle on today, but to meet in a service station for lunch as Jackie suggested was a stretch of luck too far.
The wind that caused our pain yesterday had died off to a gentle breeze, so even though the first 9 mile on the service road next to I-40 was sine wave like, we were able to keep a good pace (for us), averaging about 15 mph.
For the next section, there was little alternative other than take I-40 for 21 miles due to there being no parallel service road to use. Again, the road went on a rolling, but without the wind, we were able to keep up the speed. By the time we pulled off I-40, we had covered 30 miles in three hours, including rest and photo stops.
We had lunch at the top of the off-ramp, then as we pulled away a white car passed us then pulled in to the side of the road. As we passed a big beaming smile was very visible through the open driver’s window. Rochelle lived close by and just pulled over to ask if we needed water or to use the bathroom as there were no services at this intersection. She explained that they get a lot of travellers passing through and the community like to help when they can. Rochelle explained that most people in the area are from the Laguna Pueblo clan and are all related in some way, either through blood or marriage. As we had not expected to meet such a lovely sole on our route today we had packed all of the water that we needed to get us through this remote stretch of land, so we thanked her and cycled on, our faith in humanity once again confirmed.
This is around about the time the second half of the day started… where did that headwind come from?
The next 40 miles were straight into as powerful a headwind as we had suffered all day yesterday. While the terrain was no different from the previous 30 miles, our average moving speed dropped from 15 mph down to about 8 mph. In addition, we needed more breaks to give our tiring legs a break. That said, the scenery we were now cycling through became more and more stunning, taking just a small amount of the pain way.
About 5 miles out of Grants, when we came off our last section of I-40 for the day, a Subway at the top of the off-ramp seemed to be shouting our name. It was already getting quite late and this may be the only opportunity to have a bite to eat tonight we gave in. By the time we had enjoyed our sandwich and cycled the remaining 5 miles into Grants the sun was already sitting on the horizon. We had almost talked ourselves into staying at a cheap Route 66 motel, as we discovered that every one of them sat decaying at the side of the route, possibly due to the more corporate named hotels that are located just off the nearby I-40 intersection.
By this time it was dark, so now our only option was a campsite. There were two on the road out of town that we would be taking tomorrow, so headed for them. This required us to cycle out across two lanes of traffic to make a left turn. As there was no traffic to been seen on the road, Deborah pulled out first, with me ready to follow 20 metres or so behind. Just as she did a small black car passed me with no headlights on, heading straight for Deborah. Luckily the driver, an old lady, must have seen Deborah (our bike lights are very bright) as she slammed on her brakes and hit her car horn. By this time I was parallel with the car, ready for the worse. As the car was stationary I pulled my bike in front of the car, pointed at the little circles of glass on the front of her car that should have been emitting protons that at this time of night and requested that she “Kindly switch on your car lights”, or words to that effect. At which point she did, I moved out of the way, then she sped off in a different direction to where she seemed to be originally going.
The first RV park that we stopped at was just that, an RV park. The reception was closed and there wasn’t a patch of anything on which a tent could be erected. The only sure bet was, therefore, the more expensive KOA site, a further half a mile down the road.
We cycled into the KOA site and was surprised to find the reception still manned. We received a quick guided tour of the facilities then handed over more dollars for a single night camping in a kitty litter that could cope with a pride of lions than the two night we stayed in a Shamrock motel. It does come with breakfast, so we will see if the extra dollars were worth it in the morning.
With the tent up and the bikes secured we then adjourned to the laundry room to charge up all of our flashing bleeping things while getting a little warmth. After a couple of hours sitting in front of washing machines we heading back into the cold… but to our cosy warm sleeping bags.
