Little Fish, Big River, Bigger City

I left El Paso and rode across to New Mexico only to get stopped by rain and poor shoulder conditions which turned me right back toward El Paso for a motel for the night since there was no camping to be found in a highly residential area. I've come up with the formula that I won't ride in rain/dark/traffic/bad shoulder conditions. I'll ride in rain during the day if I have good roads with wide shoulders, I'll ride at night if there are good shoulders and no cars, I'll ride in the cold as long as I can take it, but too many close calls, probably due to cars having their wipers on simply tells me it's time to call it a day regardless of the miles. I get a motel and some Kentucky Fried Chicken...10 pieces plus two potatoes plus biskits plus corn for $18. The girl at the register somehow upsold me from the 3 piece meal. Yea, I was out of it a bit.

I ate and passed out promptly, woke up and headed out in the morning to find a mailboxes, etc. to mail another 6 pounds of gear home that I wasn't using, including the paperback "Kon Tiki" which my friend Josse had given me for the ride but the sad truth is, I had only read four pages since Nov 14 and reality is that I'm always too tired to turn a page so I load it up along with other items and send it off. I meet a guy along the way who is what I consider to be perfect. I forget his name now, but he's driving an SUV, he's well dressed, he knows the roads for bikes, he pulls up next to me to give me directions out of town. I think his name was Jack. He could've been a movie star but I think he's probably just a businessman in El Paso. In any event, he's one of those people who just looks like he has his entire act perfectly together vs. me with my "oh man I don't know what I"m doing and I'm sure flubbing up a lot but oddly I'm getting there" approach in life. I head back out as the rain starts yet again and find that I've added nine miles to my trip by coming back for a motel the night before. I ride through the rain under angry skies. I ride through hail. I'm covered in mud and grit. Eventually, the roads I'm taking split down the middle of two cloud banks and I'm dry for the rest of the day as rain falls all around to the north and south of me. I talk to horses along the way, I ride through more pecan orchards. I eventually make Las Cruces New Mexico just as massive winds hit that bring rain then hail. I'm having a blast, riding through it and then the shoulder dissipates and cars are all over my case with horns blaring. Time to call it a day. I check into a motel and turn on the news. SNOW!??

I look outside as I hear sirens go by to one of the five accidents that has occurred in the 30 minutes since I checked in...sure enough...there's an inch of snow on the ground. I stopped just in time. The next day, I wait for it to warm up a bit before I set out. Turns out I waited for naught as the roads were dry as a bone despite snow on the grass to the side. It also turns out that the shoulder conditions from where I had stopped going forward were horrid. It's Christmas Eve and I'm going to go as far as I can to get as close to Emory Pass, the highest point on the ride. I ride all day, meet some horses along the way which I feed "snackwell cookies" to. I have great weather for the most part. A tad of wind here and there, cold, yes, some snow adds white accents to the clay-red rocks and cliffs of the landscape. I eventually make it to Caballo and decide to stop after feeding another horse and a small black goat more snackwells. I think I did about 68 miles for the day, not bad for a late start. It's really, really, really cold. I go to bed worrying about my laptop and digital camera freezing since the LCD screens in them might not be able to go below a certain temperature.

I wake up before dawn as ice falls on my face from inside my tent. As I turn on my light to look, the entire interior of my tent and rain fly are covered with thick frost. I check my watch, it reads that the temperature is 18 in the little pocket of my tent. I decide to get up as I here someone calling their dog outside. It's Jim the Lakeview RV resort owner. He wishes me Merry Christmas and gives me my tent spot for free as a gift. I thank him profusely and also ask for a styrofoam cup so I can make tea and not have to drink out of the pan. Turns out the one thing I don't have is a "cup" for pouring any hot liquid into. So much for planning.

The horse, "String" and goat, "Penelope" are his and he goes to feed them. The sun is beginning to warm the sky and huge flocks of geese in three enormous V's are flying off into the sky while honking from across an enormous lake that I didn't even know was there the night before. Ringed on the far side by a high snow peak range, it's an incredible sight for Christmas morning and the best gift I could've received. I then went to warm myself by the heater in the bathroom for a bit. I sit there for 45 minutes and just begin to thaw out and "Will" comes in, one of the RV resort's residents. He's an odd little guy, straight out of a movie. In fact, a lot of "characters" I meet along the way are straight out of movies, it seems. Will cautions me that there is "oh my, you CAN'T go up there on your bike, I won't even drive that, there's a foot of snow up there!!!!"

Yea, you got it, I reply with "well, I'll just go see and if it gets bad I can just come back down." I had a feeling that Will is a tad more cautious than I am in life and that he probably was over-estimating the snow as he had not seen it himself but had only heard about it. My thought was the roads would be in pretty good shape. However, it is cold and I need to warm up after freezing myself all night. I meet "Grandpa and Regeana" who invite me to their trailer for a bit. I go and have some coffee and meet "Pistol Pete" the chihuahua who is smarter than most college grads. He knows about 25 toys by name and has several different games that he plays with them. Regeana is a breast cancer survivor and Grandpa is a hulk-hogan look alike who has flown most every plane made and he fought in the Korean War. Now they are treasure hunters, possibly on the verge of a huge find. Regeana is painting the Gila Cliff Dwellings which is one of my stops in the next few days. After about four cups of coffee, I figure it's time to go and I go back to pack up my hopefully thawed out tent. Things are still a bit icy so I make some hot food, spaghetti and meatballs on my little stove after making another cup of tea. I open my gift to myself after giving WInnie The Pooh his gift: a packet of honey from KFC. He's thrilled to say the least. My gift is a "stellar scope" which is a small, lightweight contraption that you "dial" around like a telescope and look through after setting the month, time and latitude you're at. As you look through it, it will show you the stars and their names and positions based on what you dialed in.

It's 2 p.m. and time to go at least some distance. I pack up and head out. The wind, hills and cold are more than I expected and I make it about 17 miles just before dark to Hillsboro, NM. I'm thinking of pushing on to Kingston, about 9 miles up the road where there might be camping and as I'm pulled over and putting on as many clothes as I can to get warm, Ted French comes out of his house to try and quiet down Huey the incessantly barking Chow. Ted asks if I'm okay and we begin chatting. Before I know it, I'm invited inside to warm my hands by the heater for a bit since they had gone entirely numb. Then, after more chatting, I'm invited to Christmas Dinner by his ever-sweet mother who has made lamb, carrots and onions, salad and potatoes. Dinner is heavenly as I've not had a homecooked meal since I can recall. Ted has done quite a bit of motorcycle touring so he can relate to what I'm going through. We talk about maps and routes, etc. Additionally, Ted makes gold mining equipment for a living and he's been self-employed for 29 years. He goes to rock shows, sells on ebay and does just fine although he doesn't tour too much on motorcycles as they've gotten older and unreliable in his garage. Eventually, I bid them goodbye, go outside, find I"ve forgotten my map, go back for it and take off again. Then I find I've forgotten my lights for my head and I go back for those, too. Geez...

I ride back into Hillsboro to check out the park for camping. I know it was about 10 degrees or colder the night before and it's Christmas so I check the small motel and find a sign for "Debi" to call her if I need a motel. My cell phone doesn't even get analog roam but I notice a light on in the house next to the motel. I go knock on the door and meet "Paul" a great guy who lets me borrow his grandfather's phone to call Debi who shows up and rents me a room. Paul and I hit it off and decide to grab breakfast together the next day. I get a tour of his grandfather's house in the morning and I eat like a pig while he eats one egg, one piece of toast, I eat, eggs, toast, hashbrowns, sausage, french toast, coffee, oj...lordy...I'm a total glutton. Oh well. Eventually, I decide to stop procrastinating and take on Emory Pass as much as I fear it. I ride 9 miles to Kingston and pull off to see the little town. Not much there but I meet Kiki and her brothers, one of whom is a Chuck Norris Identical Twin. The other brother tells me that he read about me in the Naples, Florida newspaper. No way...He'll try and find a copy for me somehow. Wild. I was in a newspaper. I bid them adieu and hit the Black Range Lodge for a cup of coffee. Lodges are a new concept to me and totally cool. It's like being in a "lord of the rings" story when you go into one. It's a real lodge. I chill for a bit with some folks from Bellevue, Washington of all places and then they are driving up to Emory Pass as I'm about to ride it. They take off as do I.

Oddly, it's pretty easy going, in fact, I'm doing between 8-10 mph in 3rd gear and 2nd gear. There are tons of switchbacks but all said and done, I fly up the thing in an hour and 20 minutes averaging 8.4 mph the whole way. I'm floored. It was a piece of cake. I'm now done with the highest point of the ride. Wow. That was it????

I decide to head down after putting on extra clothes since I rode up in just shorts since climbing can get so hot even when it's cold out. In the process, I lose my favorite "Life Is Good" reversible stocking cap that I bought at the best bike shop along the way: "SpinCycle" in Gainesville where the employees were like kindred brothers of the spirit of adventure. Man, I wish I could have brought the whole store along for the adventure since they "related" to it. No one else really has the same attitude as they did for this entire ride.

I descend like a bat out of hell and hit ice and snow in spots but just hit the brakes and ease myself over it. It's easy so far. No wrecks. I pass a group of people "sledding" in a pickup hood being towed behind another pickup off to the side just seven miles down from the summit. They ask me to join them but I'm nervous about losing daylight and not making a town with a motel before it gets too cold out again. I keep going as they whoop and holler and land in the ditch, swearing and cursing the driver. I laugh and ride on while watching them dig their way out.

I continue to hit patches of snow as I descend at break neck speeds and then slam on the brakes. Bit by bit I get braver and keep going over them faster and faster. Eventually, I hit Mimbres after an amazing sunset. There is one small cafe open. I go past it and hit the post office where I mail the key back to the motel in Hillsboro that I had accidentally brought with me. I'm agonizing over my lost hat but didn't have enough in me to go back up the seven miles I had come down when I discovered it missing. I guess it's my "gift to the world." I run into a uniformed State Park lady in a pickup and ask her about the one restaurant supposedly 8 miles ahead vs. the cafe I just passed. She said to go to the restaurant. Turns out it was closed. I learned that when you're out here in the middle of nowhere during the holidays, take what you can get when you can get it because the next thing down the road is usually closed. After pounding hard in the cold for those 8 miles to find the restaurant closed I'm a bit livid but stay calm about it all. I guess I'll just press on until I hit Lake Roberts where there is camping and possibly food.

It's cold, damn cold. My watch reads 18 degrees but with the wind chill of riding at about 12-18 mph I know I'm colder. I'm losing feeling in my toes and hands. In fact, my right foot feels like some odd little "club" on the end of my leg. It's gone beyond hurting to just being "gone." I start to climb again, this time up the Continental Divide for the first time. Up and Up and UP...and arduously, I'm there, frozen, mustache and beard coated with icicles but I'm there. I try taking a self-portrait and keep getting just my head without the sign in view. A car stops and the lady asks me if I'm okay in a perfect "What on God's Green Earth is this person doing out here???" tone. I tell her I'm having the time of my life, I'm fine and wish her a happy holiday season. She drives on and I get my self portrait down before beginning the descent.

Now, I need to say something here...you simply have not lived until you've climbed an 8,228 foot pass, followed by climbing the continental divide, followed by descending it on icy, snowy roads in the dark in 18 degree weather. My daylight icy crossovers were just mere warmups for this part of the ride. Wind blasting me as I ride at 18 mph, I suddenly feel Bob the trailer going sideways....now my front wheel is straight, somehow, while my rear wheel and trailer are just skidding along next to me...magically, I get everything straight without wiping out. I'm not sure how, but I do. Wow...hot dog...that was a sweeet save!!! I pull off three more just like it in the next two hours before taking a few nasty hairpins right into the Lake Roberts Motel parking lot. I pull up to the large RV where Jim and Gail, the managers live. I learn that it was 2 degrees the night before. I'm beginning to think my watch is about 10 degrees off since I never actually "set it" to the current temp anywhere along the way and altitude/air pressure effect the reading. Oh well, 2 degrees, 10 degrees, 18 degrees...once it's cold, it's just cold. I get a motel room since I don't think I the laptop or my right foot can make it through a 2 degree night. I turn on the heater in the room and am trying to thaw out my all too white toes on my right foot, thinking "cool, frostbite! I've never had frostbite!" contrasted with "frostbite would be bad because you'll lose time with medical stuff" ... there is a knock at the door...it's Jim and he's got a cup of potato soup and a thick ham sandwich on wheat for me. Wow. I love people like this. I lucked out that night as the temp got down to zero. I take off in the morning for the Gila Cliff Dwellings, an easy "in and out" ride up over some smaller climbs than Emory Pass. Or so I thought. I stopped at the Greyfeather lodge for another huge double entree breakfast before setting out. Good thing. The pass into Gila Hot Springs is two to three times harder than Emory Pass was. It was a tad short in distance, but much steeper with a lot fewer switchbacks and many more straight up shots. I actually have to grind, scream and climb out of my seat to make many of the climbs along the route. It seemed endless but I made it to the Cliff Dwellings after many rest stops along the way...only 27 miles...in just 6 hours or so...averaging around 4.2 mph while riding...including the massive downhill...full of so many hard frost-heave ruts in the road that my headlamp flew off and exploded in front of me, making me dodge the flying pieces as they came at my face while I swerved around the rest of the tumbling parts under my front wheel. Crap...I stop the bike and run back as my headlight is my mileage bread and butter for each day since the daylight is so short. I have to find and pick up about 9 parts of diodes, face plate, top plate, four batteries, main circuit board, bottom casing before the cars with smoking brakes coming down the hill behind me reach me. I make it, I put it all into a pocket and hope it still works somehow.

I meet Katie and Scott, Park Rangers at Gila Cliff Dwellings right before I head up to view one of the all-time incredible things along this ride. If you haven't been there or seen these dwellings: do it. Just once in your life..see this. Trust me. Bring a tent and stay at the Gila Hotsprings Campground run by Jim and Loretta for $3 a night where you can sit beneath rock cliffs where God outdid himself a tad and perhaps he was showing off when he made them but nonetheless, you've got a spectacular backdrop next to a river as you sit in 135 degree hotsprings. Yea, I went in naked but alone the next morning. I had spent the night until 4 a.m. trying to get warm again by sitting next to a fire which I almost never got going even after using fire paste and almost a bottle of camp fuel. I eventually got into my tent and froze until dawn, went for a walk and picked up more wood, got the fire going again and then saw two guys just chilling out in the hotsprings with no clothes. What was my deal? Why am I bundled to the hilt, frozen while they're just hanging out? After they leave, I go for it, strip down and walk over to the hotsprings in boxers, a t-shirt and teva's. Oh man, oh man, oh man...my entire body instantly is in heaven. My aching joints are painless, I'm warm, I'm giggling with joy at how good this feels. I set Winnie the Pooh in up to his waist and take a self portrait. After forty gloriously warm, naked minutes where I feel at one with nature, finally...It's time to roll as I'm wrinkled and a family-filled range rover has pulled up. As I pack up, they finish with their hotsprings experience and come over to chat a bit. great couple, great kids. They drive off and then Jim (yea...every manager I meet is named "Jim" it seems) comes to chat a bit. Turns out he's from Seattle and went to Edmonds High School. Crazy small world. I set out around 11, then hit the local store where I go ape and buy all kinds of strange foodstuffs since I was basically down to three packs of ramen, period. I meet Eddie Roman and his girlfriend who's name is slipping my mind right now. We chat a bit take a photo and I set out. A few hours later as I'm digging my way back out of this intensely steep valley I make the top, legs burning, full of lactic acid after the last two days of intense climbing and riding, their car pulls up next to me to ask if I'm ok. I'm just taking a cracker break before racing down the backside to Lake Roberts again. They are too kind but I decline to stay with them that night as I want to push up and over yet another pass.

I drop out onto Lake Roberts 30 minutes later after an exhilirating descent with squealing, hot brakes most of the way to accompany my rattling frame over the frost heaves yet again. Now it's time to climb...steep, tight hairpins on bad road that doesn't even deserve a center line according to the New Mexico DOT. I peak out after again, a couple hours of climbing. Great sunset but I'm totally fearing being attacked by a Mountain Lion. Not sure why, just an odd, creepy feeling. I sing, out of tune and poorly but loudly to scare off anything remotely mountain-lion-ish within 1/4 mile as I ride. I don my cold clothes in full darkness to descend into Pinos Altos. My legs are utterly toast after two insane, enormous, long, grueling, brutal climbs. It had gotten down to zero two nights ago and about 8 or 10 the night before and this night was right in there somewhere. I'm freezing, descending, then climbing again, descending, up down, up down...what kind of sick roller coaster is this? Just get me there. I finally reach Pinos Altos, sopping wet from sweat, frozen, physically drained. I go into the saloon, get a table and order king's dinner...chicken wing appetizer, water, glass of merlot, new york steak, baked potato with sour cream, sauteed mushrooms, salad and a hot fudge brownie sundae for dessert with a cup of coffee. I eat every last bit including the mini-loaf of bread.

I had been telling a couple of the employees about my ride, etc. and in the end, I get a ride from "Jessica" into Silver City, just seven miles away. I could've done the descent most likely in about 25 minutes and it's now 26 degrees, warm enough that I could make it but it's saturday night and something is telling me to stay off that roadway...just a gut feeling. Jessica is totally cool. She knows how to shoe horses, went to school for it actually. She puts Guns 'N Roses in the tape deck and we chat for 15 minutes about all kinds of stuff from "deadman's curve" on the drive to Javelinas, small wild pigs that actually attack people in the area and hospitalize them, I guess. And here I had thought that they were so adorable and shy on the postcards but it turns out the "domesticated ones" near small towns are nasty. Jessica drives me to the Super 8 Motel and after I unload my bike and say goodbye she surprises me with a hug which I find so nice to get from people who are most likley hugging me thinking "Dear God, he's going to die on this ride...the poor thing..." In any case, Jessica has a sixth sense that probably made her give me a hug, which, like the hug back in Ft. Davis, Texas made my week in so many ways. You can't say enough about people who are so kind as to give me a ride and a hug...it's the kind of stuff that is all too rare in this world of jerks racing around honking at me in their cars which carry them and their self-important lives about at breakneck speeds.

I fall instantly asleep in my room at 9 p.m. then wake up at 3 a.m. for a few hours, then fall back asleep. I end up leaving around 11 a.m. after packing up and checking out with "Crystal" at the front desk. Crystal should be in Hollywood or the fashion district of New York instead of behind the desk of the Silver City, New Mexico Super 8 Motel but I figure a talent scout hasn't discovered her yet as not many talent scouts make it to Silver City each decade. I head out and start up the hill that Jessica gave me the ride down. My rear derailleur has been acting up the last few days, skipping second gear, jumping all over it, up or down or anywhere but on second, or third for that matter so I've got first and fourth gear. I've had enough. I get out my screwdriver, detach the trailer and begin adjusting the screws to fix the jumping derailleur. It gets worse. Now the chain goes clean off of first. Oops...wrong way. I readjust...now it won't shift into the high gears...more adjusting...more testing...okay, now it won't stay on the gears at all, it jumps all over and it's not hitting the top gears. I give up on the derailleur and the 7 mile hill I would've coasted down the night before. I hit McDonald's where I'm stared at in my strange gear with my strange bike and trailer by cowboys and their kids.

I ask the kids behind the counter of McD's where the bike shop is and I get directions. I eat a quarter pounder, fries and root beer, which I've grown to detest yet I keep buying them because they are fast and filling enough to get by. I head to the bike shop which is run by Jack. Jack helps me out big time. He adjusts my derailleur after discovering that the hanger is actually bent a tad. He bends it back, most likely due to one or several of the 13 wrecks I've had. During the bending process, it cracks but he says I should make it. I buy an extra fuel bottle from him and he tops off my old fuel bottle as well as filling the new one. Now I've got enough to make the rest of the ride, I estimate.

I take off, it's around 2 p.m. a very, very late start for the day after all the repairs. Oh well. I simply don't care any longer...I'm just going to ride and keep having the time of my life. I make it pretty far that day, up and over the continental divide one more time..the THIRD time in three days...and hopefully my last 6,000 foot plus climb of the ride. I ride and ride and ride until I hit Buckhorn. I'm not sure what's beyond but I'm tired and need to stop. I'm dragging so much that I'm barely making 6 mph on a relatively flat road and I'm aching beyond belief. As I pull over into the RV/campground, I turn off my headset and hear an odd humming/rubber/buzzing noise...I stop...what the heck? I get off the seat, look back at Bob and it turns out he's got a flat. No wonder...I've been dragging an extremely heavy trailer for about 10 or 12 miles with a total flat. Brilliance. Sheer brilliance. I consider becoming the first person to row across the Pacific in a boat with a leak for my next act.

I don't have cash but the manager lets me slide since I promise to send her a money order when I get to a large city. I also borrow an extra dollar in quarters from her for doing wash. I have no detergent, but I figure a hot water rinse will be better than nothing at this slimy point. There is a young-ish girl, barefoot despite the cold weather and a half-naked baby boy in the laundry room along with an older lady sporting a yodeling type accent I have to swim through to figure out what she's saying. I make out her sentences without drowning. She leaves and I'm now free to figure out this whole baby thing. So, it turns out she's a "welfare mom" who used to bop around the country by any means including train hopping at times. Wow, I have yet to hop a train. She asks me if anyone has thrown anything at me yet (nope...I'm through with that kind of crap I tell her) then she tells me about train cops which I had no clue about and then with the sound of a burping duck that a gorilla just sat on, the baby lets fly from his naked lower half all over her arm and jeans...she's soaked with urine and the air is drenched with it's odor. I'm smiling but gagging as I rush back to my tent to make dinner while my laundry goes through a non-soap full cycle. As I set up my stove, I'm sort of lambasting myself for not giving this girl at least a granola bar or something...people have been so kind to me. I'm thinking of going back and asking her if she needs anything. She was in there waiting for a friend of hers who lives in the RV park to give her a ride to Silver City so she can get some money out of an account and do laundry. She lives 12 miles from town, has no car, no job, etc. What a situation. Before I can finish heating my dinner on my stove, the manager and two of the resident men are at the laundry room trying to figure out what to do, I guess. The girl is just in there hanging out waiting for this ride from this other guy. I hear her getting angry and the words "the baby's not endangered" and the next thing I know is she's walking off toward one of the rv's, baby, baby chair, etc. I'm torn on how to view situations like this...do you feel sorry or do you just figure this person got themselves there and they'll get through. I decide to let it all go and focus on getting through with my own challenge.

I get smart about the cold weather after the manager warned me a storm was coming through, rain or snow that night. I put my two large bags inside the rainfly as walls against the wind and it works really well in terms of keeping the wind out of the tent. I sleep much better than the other nights. I wake up early, before dawn and as I'm lying there, I hear a small crashing, then a loud thump as the ground shakes a bit and something is falling on and about the tent.

"Oh, how cute! Snow is falling out of the tree onto my tent!" I think as I had spent the night before picking out a spot under a tree which would protect me from wind, rain, snow in the event of a bad storm. I look out the tent flap as dawn approaches. There's hardly any snow out. Weird...I get up to hit the bathroom and discover that a 30 foot branch, about 12 or 15 inches around has broken off and fallen just feet from my tent and some of the branches actually hit it on the way down. Okay...now that was a bit too close to death...and that wouldn't have been a pleasant feeling to get nailed by that. Yowza. Note to self not to camp under oak trees from here on out.

I pack up and get dressed and get a nice early start to the day. I'm in headwinds, slogging it, up a hill, a long gradual one. Ouch. Eventually, I turn left onto a country farm road and now I've got the wind to my side, but it still impedes progress. An old white pickup slows down next to me, I feel something hit me and notice the passenger window is open as it races off.

"What the heck???" I wonder as I turn and go back to find that they had thrown a roll of black electrical tape at me. I'm sort of furious but I eventually calm down. I saw a piece of rebar, about 15 inches long bent in the shape of a big U like a giant staple on the side of the road. I picked it up and packed it onto the trailer in case my friends came back down the road for me. I figured if they were going to throw stuff, I was going to have a retaliatory plan of sorts. I eventually made it through all of the farms of mule creek and begin climbing up another pass so I toss the rebar off. I boogie as best I can up the last big one for awhile, I hope...and I have a rocking descent. I cross into Arizona and give a whoop! I fly down an awesome, huge, smooth, semi-flat, but steep enough to rock and roll hill skirted by Roadrunner Cartoon-like rocks on the sides. Yep...I'm in Arizona and I set a new speed record for myself: 31.0 mph...a full 1 mph faster than the old record. After the semi-long climb earlier in the day, it's glorious to just fly down this thing and it's WARM...at least it's 46 which is really warm compared to what I've been in. I pass a copper mine and stop at a store for gatorade and crackers, etc. A young girl walks by in bedroom slippers into the store as I fill my water bottles outside. A few minutes later, she leaves and another young girl, probably in highschool, too walks up in a white tank top, red athletic shorts and yep...fuzzy bedroom slippers...must be a regional thing. A kind stranger comes up and hands me a $20 donation...wow. I've ridden about 45 miles for the day and am closing in on Safford, my goal for the day just 37 miles away. I'm also about to cross the 3,000 miles ridden mark. Aside from the tree and the electrical tape tossing incident, it's been a great day...I start up a really, really, really steep hill as cars rush past...I'm climbing, groaning, bike creaking...geeeeez...then snap...whizzzzz!!!!!!!!!!!! ARRGGGHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WHAT NOW????!!!!!!

My derailleur is hanging, limply by the chain, like an old west cow rustler by a rope from a tree....dead. I take a deep breath, get off the bike, try to balance the trailer a tad in a soft gravel turn out I happen to be near but it starts to go over and as it does so, my sign splinters into about 8 pieces...I take a deep breath...right the bike and trailer, pick up all the little pieces of the sign, stuff them into a bag and take a look at the derailleur....nope...duct tape is NOT going to fix this. It looks like the frame of the bike has broken clean off...no...it's not the frame...yes...it IS the frame. Hm...how am I going to get out of this one? I stick out my thumb. Car after car goes by. Then a white truck with three tough looking dudes goes by. They could be rapstars with their black stocking caps and sunglasses. I keep my thumb out and my hopes up for a few more cars and start to consider how long it might take to walk 34 miles. My brain is doing the math when the rapstar white pickup comes back down the hill and turns into the gravel where I'm waiting. They ask if I'm broken down and help me load my bike, trailer, etc. into the truck. Gabe, Marty and Preston turn out to be great guys who work on the leeching line at the copper mill and were headed home. I guess as they were turning around to pick my up, Preston said "he better be broken down and not just too tired to ride up the hill!" We laughed hard over that one since they were a bit surprised I'd come all the way from Florida. Marty drops off Preston and Gabe at their cars at the edge of Safford and then he drives me to the bike shop. No dice. No way this guy can fix it. I have Marty drop me off at The Western Motel and I'm going to have to buy a new bike online or something I guess since I've broken the frame. I thank Marty, wish him happy new year and he's off. Great guys...again...there are too few people like this in the world.

I hit the phone after buying a new prepaid calling card but have no luck calling every bike shop in texas (all closed on holiday hours) so I try the west coast with no luck. No one has the part and can't get it for a week, I guess. One shop gives me Cannondale's phone number on the east coast. I give up for the night, get some microwavable food at the Circle K and another kind stranger gives me some liquid metal as my quest for some has turned up nil so far. I'm thinking I could possibly use liquid metal to get the last 500 miles to San Diego if I can't find the part somehow. I wake up and try Cannondale. They give me some bike shop phone numbers in Pheonix and Tuscon and Houston that I don't have numbers for...Landis Cyclery in Phoenix has the part...no one else does. I call "Rent-A-Wreck" and rent a car for the day and drive all the way to Phoenix, get the part for $19.99, four new water bottles, a new rear-view mirror that had broken off back at Lake Roberts in the cold, a mocha at Starbucks, a $3.98 bottle of Andre champagne for New Year's Eve when I got back. The broken part was actually a blessing in disguise as my drive to Phoenix along the route has shown me that it's entirely treacherous...steep climbs with and twisting descents, complete with a long tunnel and often times no shoulder at all...we're talking rock wall face leaning over the highway, trucks roaring, cars racing and I've got to ride through this. Ouch...It lets me know I've got to do it during daylight and probably in the a.m. when there is light traffic.

I make it back to Safford at 10 p.m. after 370 miles round trip to get one little part so that I can ride my bike right back along the same route. Kind of ironic...like taking the elevator at the gym so you can use the stairmaster.

I watch the ball drop in NYC, skip opening the champagne and I simply fall asleep around midnight after watching the Go-Go's sing waaay out of tune in Tempe's celebration. I wake up, start to fix the bike. The part is the right shape, but the screws are the wrong size. What now? Egads...it's never-ending it seems. I take a deep breath, like I have so many times and carefully start to force the screws through the threads on the frame. I simply don't care...they're going to go through there and they're going to hold. It works. I'm in business an hour later. I pack up, fill all of my water bottles with cytomax and head out the door. It's 1 p.m. My New Year's Resolution is "to do things right." I hem and haw a bit at the street. Then I turn right. Yep, I'm heading back...34 miles back...to where Gabe, Preston and Marty picked me up. If nothing else, I'm doing it for them so they don't think they gave some lazy guy a ride. It's a long haul up the hill...28 miles through some sick road construction....and not much good shoulder to ride on at any point along the way except right at town...at one point, I'm on broken paint, no room at all, sheer sand and gravel to the right...I hear a huge truck that is not taking his time rumbling in behind me...damn...this is going to be close...next thing I know, I can practically lick his tires as dust, dirt and wind are pitching me into the gravel and rocks off the road and I'm wondering how I'm not hit...I'm going sideways...I'm going to go down hard...and right in front of me is a three foot long pile of shattered green glass about six inches high where someone seemed to have lost an entire windshield in one pile. That is going to be my landing pad...a pile of glass...lovely...

Something inside me clicks...nope...I'm not going to go down...I don't have time for it and I don't feel like bleeding and picking glass out of the right side of my body. I pull out a miraculous save after being almost totally sideways one way then the other with a madly skidding front, rear and trailer tire...I felt like a sidewinder rattlesnake dancing through the dirt...then I catch the edge of the highway again as my front tire grabs and pulls me straight onto asphalt-firma once again...I do the wrong thing and yell "sweet mother" while flipping off the truck driver with my right hand. Maybe I shouldn't show anger like that, but damn...the guy is supposed to be a professional and he has TWO FRIGGIN' LANES to use by simply crossing over the yellow line instead of forcing me off the road. I let it go after that...I was the guy who decided to bike back here anyway...I push and push and push and make the top, then descend five miles down to where Marty and crew picked me up. I spin and head back up the hill as the sun is going down. I make it back as it's getting dusky. I start to race down after putting on clothes for wind protection. I ride and bounce and ride and bounce and take to the street whenever I can. My new rearview mirror is heavenly. The old one sucked eggs. This one rocks...Blackburn. Don't buy anything but a blackburn rearview made for mountain biking. Turst me. I ride all the way back to the town of Safford and pull into KFC where I learned that there is a manhunt for a murderer down the highway somewhere. Okay, that's good enough for me. The highway is closed. I check into the Western Motel one more time. They welcome me back and I fall asleep feeling really, really, really good that I went back to where I was picked up and re-rode it all. I'm now only 10 miles short of making up for the ride I took in Texas...and I did the long route through the mountains for 97 extra miles instead of taking the 22 mile alternate shortcut straight to Silver City. I feel really, really good about redoing those miles now.

I wake up and head down the road to Jerry's restaurant, sit at the bar and have eggs, hashbrowns, pancakes, oj, sausage, coffee and water. Twenty minutes later and I'm outta there and riding. I have tailwinds...glorious tailwinds...for 10 miles then I get headwinds...horrid headwinds...for 10 miles...then it's tailwinds again. I ride and ride, up and up all the way to Globe, Arizona...96 miles for the day. I rocked. I pull into a Dairy Queen, starving after bonking so hard I thought I was going to pass out at one point. The day had it's moments including a 46 mile section that had 40 miles of hills and alligator patch-like asphalt...cracks, holes, breaks etc...it barely was qualified to be a road...it was so rough that the threads in my bike shorts cut my skin from all the bouncing I did on the seat over the day. Yea. It hurts. Enough said on that.

While I'm in the Dairy Queen, some lady has driven all the way back after going through the drive-in and having some issue with not being able to use an expired coupon to save $2.88 but she had used another expired one two days earlier. She was demanding an apology or she would write the manager. The population in Globe is 7,000 and this person is one of them. Meanwhile, she's been holding up my cheeseburger and fries for 20 minutes with her snivelling. I get up. I've had enough. It's been a hard day. I walk over to the counter, pull out $10, slap it down and say "here...will this solve your problem?" and then I walk away. She's stunned for a minute as is everyone else in the place. All 8 of them. Then she says..."WELL!!! It's not about the MONEY!!! IIIIIIIII dooooon't neeed YOUR money...." as if she was made of money or something but it sure seemed to me to be that it was the coupon or whatever. In any case, I tell her back as she puts the ten on my table..."look lady, it's a stupid hamburger" "No, it's not a HAMburger! it's a chicken meal" "whatever lady...life is way too short to be in here arguing about whatever it is your arguing about on a thursday night at 8:47 p.m....puhleaaase"

She didn't really know what to do after that but she finished up and sort of snooted and walked out and she passedmy bike and sign along the way. I got my burger...finally...after a 30 minute wait. I'd had enough of riding...I checked into the Globe Comfort Inn, complete with small shampoo packet and I passed out to wake up at 5:30 a.m.

Time to tackle that hill. I packed up, chatted with the two guys who had stayed in the room next door for a bit, grabbed breakfast at the Country Kitchen...again...huge thing..four eggs, sausage, hashbrowns, toast and four pancakes, coffee, oj and water. I'd need it over the course of the day. I take off, more tailwind, a few hills but glorious tailwinds. I make my way through Miami, Arizona then up the treacherous pass. I have shoulder at times, I have a "slower traffic keep right" lane at other times with no shoulder. Here's what I can't figure out. When I have a huge wide shoulder to ride on, cars go really, really out of their way to pass me widely, going clear into the oncoming lanes. When I've got no shoulder at all but there are two lanes going in the same direction, cars won't even bother to budge over an inch but rather they'll just dust my socks off as close as they can. I flip off about five or six cars while admittedly swearing at them during the long ride up. I just don't get it and it makes me a dash mad that people simply can't steer a steering wheel over just a dash when they've got two lanes to use. It's utterly ridiculous. People can be jerks but luckily, the nice people always more than make up for it.

I begin to descend amid amazing rock cliffs until I reach Superior, Az. Wow, what a ride down. I had to stop at points in small turn outs, listen intently for any sound of cars, then dash out and pedal like a madman downhill until the next turn out where I'd slam on the brakes and pull out. Then cars would invariably come flying down behind me. I notice that they come in "sets" like waves on the ocean so I just keep timing the sets down the hill where the shoulder is missing and there isn't even a passing lane...it's just me and death waiting around each curve as cars are flying down at 70 mph or so through the s-curves behind me. I'm so dang lucky to make it through this and I can't figure out how little old ladies supposedly do this part of the ride...I wouldn't send my worst enemy through this part. I'm just glad to be done with it. Now I'm on a wide, wide, wide shoulder and flying through the desert as suguaro cactii hold their arms up as if their being held up at gunpoint. I love these cactii...it's as if they have a sense of humor or something. Okay...maybe I'm a bit insane after almost 50 days out here or so...but if you've ever driven by miles and miles of them, you'll know what I'm talking about.

I eventually arrive at Florence Junction and notice on max speed that I've hit 35.4 mph WOW! a huge new speed record at some point during the day. It was probably right before I burned the crap out of my leg on my front rim while stopped and waiting for cars because it was so hot from the brakes during the descent earlier. (Great frantic sentence, huh?)

I get out my cell phone and call an old buddy from college named Brian Marshall. I also call Jeff and Meg, the biking couple who gave me the orange back in Texas. I ride into Apache Junction, then Mesa, then Tempe in glorious 75 degree weather (I'M WARM!!!!!) an amazing sunset burns the sky and then I reach the Arizona State U. Stadium just as the Fiesta Bowl is kicking off and fireworks explode in the air. Man...I loooove my life and the how the timing just works out so great. I spend the evening watching the game on tv and catching up with Brian after not seeing him for 11 years. We meet up with friends of his, as well as Jeff, Meg and their friend Scott. We all have a good time, call it an early evening and I crash on Brian's couch. He gets up early to go hiking and I pack up my now clean laundry to head back about 15 miles to where I met hiim the night before to get a ride to his place. Right before I'm about to leave, mind you this is after he warned me about 10 times not to let the white dog out the front door since it's his parents and he's dog sitting and it might run off, well...I have the front door open, my bike is outside, the trailer is outside, I'm about to step out and I think...shoot...I should say goodbye to the dogs! I walk into the other room where they are on the couch. "Sam" the white dog freaks out because I'm now wearing a cowboy hat and sunglasses...pazzzzzing!!!! out the door she goes...and the more I call her, the faster she runs...GRRRReattttttt!

I try to walk gently after her but she just keeps going and going and going...dang...I go back to my bike, grab my cell phone to call animal control for help. I go in the house, get a leash, some dog treats and Max, the dog who actually knows to stay home. I put Max on the leash, pull my biking shoes off and I head around the block to find Sam. There she is, about a block away, I call, she runs faster still...geeez....here I am, stocking feet, Brian is out hiking his merry way and I'm losing his parents dog for him...I turn the cell phone on and then get a bright idea...I deide to think "dog" and instead of walking after her, I just yell out..."Bye Sam! Max and I are going for a walk over this way...we'll catch you later!" I head off away from her across the street. She stops cold and stares with a "hey! wait a minute! where are you going????" look on her face. "Bye, Sammy!!!!" I yell again....She turns and starts running toward me and Max as we walk away from her even further...Ha.....all too easy....as she comes up, I give her a treat and put the leash on her then we walk back to the house. I give out more treats and bail...

I ride back toward where I met Brian last night thinking how nice it is to be outside in such warm weather. I go about 12 miles and find a perfect coffee shop which is actually a huge biking stop off place. I meet Scott and his wife. Scott works for Specialized. I'm stoked as I love their Armadillo tires and now I can tell someone at his company just how much I love them. I drink two mochas, answer some email, call a few friends I've not talked to in a month and update this page. It's now 4:39 p.m. and I've spent the whole day here, but I've got just 435 miles to go and gorgeous warm weather. I hope to make it to San Diego in under five days from this point, possibly just four days depending on headwinds, of course. This will be my last update before I hit the finish, I believe as I'm heading into a few hundred miles of nothing yet again. I'm saving my next entry as the announcement that I've finally, finally, FINALLY ARRIVED! Estimated date of arrival is Jan 8, 9 or 10th but most likely the 9th. Wow...I believe I might actually make it..but I'm saving all satisfaction for the moment I actually land my tires in the sand and race for the water to dive in no matter how cold it is...until then...I hope you all keep your fingers crossed that I can cover these last puny, tiny, miniscule 435 miles without incident. Time to go "kick that mule!"