Day 9- Holbrook, AZ > Gallup, NM (94 miles)

 May 14-

Yep, we are in a new state now...New Mexico! Route view (added an extra one to give more perspective on progress made!) We are also one hour closer to East Coast time.

One more photo that I should have posted yesterday that was taken at one of the SAGS outside of Winslow, AZ. I sent this to Gina and the kids and apologized for a momentary lapse of judgement:

Yep, Raff and I were having a large time...sigh.

We are working our way into the flatlands - even if just briefly...Today was the first very difficult day. We started off great and cruised to the first SAG at 36 miles. We had zero issues, great weather, slight tail wind....what could go wrong? Well, we started having flat tires after the SAG stop and had 12 flats over the last 58 miles along I-40. This is 12 flats between Stuart, Raff, and Bill; I have been lucky and have not had a flat yet (touch wood, sacrifice a goat, whatever it takes). I am the only one running tubeless tires, and I am convinced that they are the ticket for riding on an interstate (which is a terrible idea). I am picking up the wires, but the sealant in the tubeless is doing it's job. As I have mentioned before, we are getting great at changing flats and finding the wires that cause them. We are constantly checking our tires because these wires will sit on the tire after you run over them and work their way into the tire and eventually puncture the tube. There was a good bit more traffic on I-40 today, so we began changing tires on the other side of the guardrails...see Raff supervising Stuart below:

Here is a view of one of the wires, and you might be impressed with some of the cursing that takes place when we encounter this:

Here is a view of us as we are getting back onto The 40 (as the locals refer to it). We refer to it like the  AC/DC song Highway to Hell:

You can see that we are finally getting cloudier skies. We expected a tail wind as we were heading NE to Gallup, but there was a large storm to the north that we could see, and it created it's own wind, which became a headwind/crosswind for our last 30 miles. Two days over 90 miles in a row will wear you down, and being on The 40 for both of the days is hard, plus changing flats on an interstate is generally a bad idea. We all kept our wits and our senses of humor, but the ride got pretty quiet over the last 20 miles. This made me think of a great quote from the best American author of the modern era (according to Will, and I agree): Cormac McCarthy. The quote comes from Blood Meridian, which is an amazing book even if horribly violent: "They spoke less and less between them until at last they were silent altogether as is often the way with travellers approaching the end of a journey."

Petrified forest remnants since we were near here today:

A couple of you have asked about the electronics that we have on our bike for safety, navigation, etc. Photos below will show items and how we keep them charged. We have a headlight on the handlebars, and we have blinking red lights that are on our seat post and our helmet. We also have a GPS device that gives us statistics on the ride like speed, avg pace, mileage, feet of ascent, heart rate, cadence, etc. This GPS device is also connected to a Garmin radar that sits on our seat post to tell you that a car is behind you; the GPS screen is on your handlebars, so it is easy to see and will show how far back the cars are. This technology is relatively new and is not perfect, but it is pretty good. The GPS also allows us to download our route for the day and get turn by turn directions; not perfect but pretty darn close. I also ride with Jawbone earphones for books or music - these work well because you can still hear cars/dogs/jokes.View below is the stuff plus a unit that allows you to plug it all into one device:

We got to the hotel right before we were supposed to be at dinner at the lovely Cracker Barrel next door. We showered quickly and went to feeding trough. I ordered the fried chicken special, which was 4 pieces of chicken, green beans, and macaroni and cheese; Raff ordered the same; we ate all of the corn bread and muffins, all of our meal, and topped it off with peach cobbler and ice cream - we have become garbage disposals.

Tomorrow should not be a tough day unless we find more wires on The 40, which we probably will. We head mostly east and a little south as we are approaching Albuquerque and Santa Fe at the end of the week. Talk tomorrow.