If there were trains passing through Flagstaff last night, the noise of them was drowned out by the noise of the wind.
By the time we crawled out of our tent at 7 am most of our fellow campers where already in the process of collecting together the collection of poles, pegs and canvas that was once their tent in preparation for heading home. The few tents that had survived the night remained lifeless, which is exactly the state ours would have been in if we didn’t have a 50-mile cycle to do as the staging post prior to cycling through the Grand Canyon National Park. If we had been a few weeks earlier we would have planned on a long day to make it to the South Rim Campground, but all sites apart from the Mather Campground, a further 50 miles along the road, are now closed for the winter.
Breakfast was half a melon each and a large tub of yoghurt between us, which under normal circumstances would have been great, but as it was bitterly cold something warm would have gone down well.
After a shower in a cubical, that was clearly designed by someone that doesn’t’ like getting his hair wet, as the only way to wash your hair in it was to kneel down, we packed up camp. Just as we were loading the panniers onto our bikes Deborah spotted another flat, this time her front. We are both getting good at changing inner tubes, so Deborah got on with that while I sat and watched with a camera in hand.
With four inflated tyres, we cycled out of the Flagstaff KOA campground at shortly before 9:30 am, a little later than we were hoping. While it was windy amongst the trees of the campground, once we were out on the road we felt the full force of the wind and why a severe wind warning had been issued for the area.
For once the prevailing wind was in our favour, blowing from behind us for 80% of the time. Unfortunately, the other 20% had a tendency of hitting us from the side, which knocked us sideways. The forecast of 30-40 mph wind, with 50-60 mph gusts felt accurate and was supported by the pretty picture on our Windy app.
As if the wind wasn’t enough, we also had the additional challenge of tumbleweed to contend with. Some weeds of up to 3ft in diameter came tumbling across the road, giving us only second to take avoiding or bracing action.
If we had a choice we would likely have turned around after a few miles, but as we were being pushed off the road as we headed north, if we turned around and headed south, the wind would have pushed us straight into the path of traffic.
The advantage of the wind when we were able to remain upright, was that we were pushed along all day, whether downhill, flat or uphill, without the need to pedal. In fact, on the downhill and flat sections, if we didn’t dab the brakes on a regular basis we would easily have reached speeds in excess of 40 mph.
Occasionally, due to the topography of the land, we needed to dismount and push the bikes as cycling was not possible. Even pushing was a challenge, with both bikes ending up in a horizontal position on more than one occasion. Seeing us pushing the bikes, a local chap pulled over at one point and offered us his home until the winds died down.
About 5 miles before we reached our destination for the day the hard shoulder disappeared, just as a two-mile stretch of the old Highway 89 opened up the opportunity to take a break from the busy highway that we had followed all day. After messing about for a while and fixing Deborah’s bike after it got blown over in a particularly strong just, we pushed on.
Even though we stopped on a regular basis to allow gusts to subside, or hide behind anything that we could use as a windbreak to escape from the windy onslaught, we completed the 50 miles along Highway 89 to Cameron by 2:30 pm.
Cameron consists of a residential mobile home park, three service stations, a couple of gift shops, a Burger King, a small restaurant. It also contained a very small RV park, which also doubles up as a small patch of gravel and an even smaller patch of grass when there are no RVs or tent in the area. The Conoco service station took the $10 fee for us to pitch our tent. For that fee, we get to use the service station toilets until it closes at 8 pm, then again when it opens at 6 am. Between those times there is a patch of desert with a couple of small trees nearby.
With the tent erected behind a windbreak consisting of a picnic table and a large butane gas cylinder, we headed over to Burger King. While I had promised myself not to eat another ‘Impossible Whopper’, that was before I was presented with that or a veggie sandwich. While the veggie sandwich looked okay, the ability to sit in Burger King for an embarrassingly long period of time in a seat next to a power outlet won the day.
Just finishing writing up the day now, then we will head back to the tent for an early night. Another 50 miler tomorrow in the direction the wind is currently blowing, so hopefully, that will subside overnight, which appears to be the case from the weather forecast that has just been presented on the TV above my head. While it didn’t seem like our timing was good with the wind today, tomorrow’s forecast for the towns that we have passed through over the past 4-5 day is snow!
