It rained all Sunday night. Not a deluge, but just steady rain. We had been lulled into the security of day after day of sunshine and were really not very well prepared for rain… especially rain that slipped in under the cover of darkness.
Luckily, I awoke and scrambled around getting our stuff either covered or in the tent. There were only a couple of misses.
This morning, the rain let up in time for us to break camp. It was in the low 40s and the sky threatened more rain. So, we broke out the rain gear and even went so far as to line our shoes with plastic bags.
Lesson 38… Do not deploy rain gear unless it is raining. Once upon a time there were these things called “wet suits” that stupid high school wrestlers used to cut water weight (some still do – not good). Well, rain gear for cyclists acts very much in the same fashion. So while trying to stay dry in the non-existent rain, we managed to get completely soaked by our own sweat!
Sweat? Low 40s and climbing to higher altitudes? Oh yes… our ride today was not horribly long in miles (46) but it was an absolute killer. The first 14 miles were pretty much straight up… we encountered our first bunch of switch-backs as we climbed out of and above various canyons on the Arizona side. When we got to the top of the pass, it was really cold and we were really wet from our rain gear… sadly designed to keep us dry!
Anyway, the temperature was around 35 as we had our brief break of a 5 mile plunge to just short of the New Mexico border.
Marty and I noticed the weirdest thing – all the way up the mountain, we were looking at craggy rocks, precipices, cactus and scrub. As soon as we crested, we were in forest. And then as we got lower, we were in rolling prairie land. If you ever get the window seat as you fly into Phoenix, you may notice that the instead of mountainous terrain rising out of New Mexico, it appears more like the earth was gouged creating the canyons and such in Arizona. At least that is how it looked to me flying to San Diego.
Sadly, the climbing did not stop. We continued up and down in New Mexico and finally said ENOUGH in Buckhorn. Odd place and zero cool stories about cool friendly people – sorry!
Neither Marty nor I have set foot in New Mexico before, so yet another first.
Tomorrow we climb into Silver City where we just might call it a real short early day. Today was really rough – six and one-half hours for 46 miles is just sick.
Jake
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Wow guys, just reading your accounts made me tired, that is one killer ride. I don't have anything overly amusing for you today although I did have an interesting arguement with Kacey at 4 AM concerning why the newborn can breast feed and she cant. For a three-year-old she had some convincing points but I managed to distract her with a popcicle and we both watched the sun come up together.
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