Day 12- Albuquerque, NM > Santa Fe, NM ( 67 miles)

 May 17

Route view (shout out to Jemez Springs and Gabby/Dan!):

A couple of photos from the ride:

Quote that I thought about on the ride today is from CS Lewis: "All that we call human history - money, poverty, ambition, prostitution, classes, empires, slavery - is the long, terrible story of man trying to find something other than God which will make him happy." Ambition and 'striver's curse' are the ones that haunt me. Ok, let's talk about biking!

This was one of the days that I circled on the schedule as what could be a hard day (I circled 9 such days, and 3 were in wk 1, and 2 are in the last week, which means the middle of the country is a piece of cake!) 5,000 ft of climb and 67 miles probably warranted the attention. The ride is in my top 3 rides for this trip as far as scenery; absolutely beautiful climbing up into the mountains and riding a cool valley with rollers before we climbed into Santa Fe. The weather was perfect, and we had one flat...what a day!

Bonus quote comes to me from Lisa R, and she brought it from Griffin: "I don't say 'whoop' much, but when I do, there it is." A little silly, but it makes me giggle.

Stats through week 2: we have ridden 925 miles, which means we are 27% of the way there. This was a much lighter week than wk 1 as we rode 7 days last week and only 5 this week. We have now climbed a total of 33,820 ft. Next week is a bunch of miles...550+, but a lighter week of climbing - funny how that works when you get in the middle of the country! We will leave NM, cross the panhandle of Texas, go through a small part of Oklahoma, and then, we will enter Kansas and be there for almost a week!

So glad to have Gina and Lisa here for the rest day...Special thanks to Ashley for the drugs! Talk to you again on Sunday!