Long Days Swift Sleep

We have just finished three 70+ mile days. We climbed up to 7335 feet at the Continental Divide, plunged a thousand to Grants NM and climbed again toward Albuquerque where we arrived today. At the Continental Divide, yesterday, we declared boot camp over. We are officially broken in. Three 70+ days including climbs and cycling into 20 mph+ gusting winds from the SE have shown us that we can go a goodly distance.

At the end of our 15th day we believe we are now 800 miles into the trip. More than 1/4. This has not come without cost. Bleeding, cracked lips, somehow unstoppable tire punctures, and wind have bounced us around. So we get up, ride all day through gorgeous unending landscape and then fall into bed. Last night I fell asleep at 8:30 and woke at 6 am this morning! We are tired puppies, but we get up and keep going.

One confession, though, after an I-40 shoulder flat, Dave was offered a ride to the "tire place" by a truck load of Navajos heading home with a water tank. Dave made them stop and ask me if I wanted a ride too and at that point my frustration level with flat tires was through the roof so I took a ride too. It was only 13 miles, but we will deduct that from pledges.

Here's the interesting thing about the ride though that makes sacrificing 13 miles and total purity worth it (even more so than reducing the danger of a roadside tire change). The driver was Gilbert Brown a Navajo who lives right at the AZ, NM border. So as we are riding he tells us that he served as the Navajo traditions advisor for the film Windtalker. That's the Nicholas Cage movie about the Navajo code talkers who played a role in preserving the security of our transmissions in the Pacific theater but speaking them in Navajo.

So there we are with this guy, total unassuming, who happens, from time to time, to server as an interpretor between the Navajos and the Anglo world. We talked about the film, about the state of the Navajo Nation, about the Bureau of Indian affairs and other things in those 13 miles. In 13 miles we got a pretty complete update on how one significant Navajo thinker sees the state of his people. Wow!

Now Brick Landon has been worried about us being in Apache territory and Comanche territory, but I have to tell you that the First Americans with whom we have spoken have been nothing but gracious and generous of spirit. Mr. Brown, stopping with his son and grandson to pick up a fellow in distress was a kindness to strangers that speaks volumes. We could never have found such a resource even if we had weeks to search him out.

We continue to find people whose cur curiosity iousity ab0ut us and what we are doing get matched by our curiosity about them. So far we have had a charmed trip, save for the flats.

Now as you might suspect our legs are getting stronger and stronger. But somehow the flab around our middles is not quite getting the message that we expect flat abs as well as tight leg muscles by the end of the trip!

And today we spent lots of time on old Route 66. It mostly ran alongside the 40, but between Laguna and Mesitas it was preserved in its original glory. These were the most beautiful six miles of the trip so far as 66 wove around a very rugged butte as is wove its way to I=40.