Final Numbers

According to my GPS I rode a total of 2,824 miles, had an average speed of 8.1 mph, climbed a total of 221,454 feet, spent 347 hours on my bike, and crossed the Continental Divide approximately 29 times. I saw a lot of beautiful country, met people of all different walks of life, made a lot of memories, got some serious tan lines, and had a great time. I would like to do some more bike touring, but probably a route with a little less climbing. I'm tired of climbing. Maybe the Pacific Coast or around the Great Lakes might provide some interesting scenery without copious amounts of climbing. Thanks for reading and now I'm going to catch a plane and head back to the real world. Tootles.

Day 63 MEXICO!!

I met up with another rider that I met in Pie Town. Bruce had taken the gravel that I didn't want to take because of potential mud. He said the road was fine, no mud, but he did have to go around some road closed signs because part of the road was washed out. So Bruce and I headed down to Antelope Wells together. It felt a little like the final stage of the Tour de France only I wasn't riding The Champs-Elysees and seeing the Arc de Triomphe. I was riding down to the Mexico border where 4 out of 5 cars were Border Patrol. As a side note I never felt unsafe. There were several people that I ran into on my trip that told me that Mexico was the devil and I was putting myself in danger. I felt no such thing. It was just another ride.

When Bruce and I got to the border the border patrol were really nice and chatted with us and gave us some Schwans pop's. We got our passports stamped and rode a couple hundred feet into Mexico. There were even some kids that came running out of their house to see us. That was kinda fun. Instead of riding back we caught a ride with a lady that was dropping off her relative to go back to Mexico. She was super nice and got me refreshed on my Spanish. The weather really wasn't too bad. It was in the high 80's low 90's when we were coming back.

Day 62

I rode out of Silver City and headed down to Hachita. I had my last taste of a gravel road. The sand/gravel road took me back into the desert away from civilization. After being on pavement for 250+ miles it felt kinda cool to be out in the boonies again. I rode to a little stop in Separ that turned out to be nothing more than a convenience store/fireworks place. It was stuffed to the rafters with knick/knacky junk. They were doing their part to support the Chinese economy. Then I continued on to Hachita. I saw my first Antelope Wells sign and border patrol. Not much else though. I stopped at Sam Hughe's place. My map had pointed him out and he turned out to have everything I needed. A place to camp, water, and even SportsCenter.