Riding, Riding, Riding

March 11 - Day 11: Globe to Safford - 70 miles. A strong tail wind made the day a breeze. The scenery was beautiful and on my share of the ride (32 miles) we averaged 18.7 mph. We camped the night at Lake Roper State Park and it had a hot springs hot tub which we all jumped into after the ride. The park was a bird sanctuary and I was taken with all the Yellow Headed Blackbirds.

Day 12 - Safford to Black Jack Pass. 47 miles/3000 ft climb. Russ was struggling today and bonked at 47 miles which ended the day. The climb was really steep. Dawn and I drove the motor home and we would pull over along the route and got out our lawn chairs and enjoyed the sunshine. We had to drive a ways to find a campground and ended up at Buckhorn, New Mexico.

Day 13 - I shuttled the guys back up to where they left off the day before. It took an hour to get them back to the starting place, back up over the pass. Today they had a 3000 ft climb again with 6 miles of climbing switchbacks. It was difficult driving, yet alone riding a bike. There was no way that I was doing the mountain pass. The pass was over 6500 feet and patches of snow were along the roadway. It took them almost an hour to climb the 6 mile pass. They then had to descend a good 1500 feet. Once into New Mexico, the terrain changed dramatically from desert to wooded pine forrest. Then it became scrub grassland. In many places the creeks were flooding the roadway from recent rains which made passage challenging and exciting at the same time for the bikers. You could see for miles. The good thing is that there was very little traffic. If you look on a map, we are following highway 180. Here are some more pictures.

They crossed into New Mexico before noon and ended up going 60 miles for the day.

Day 14 - We are taking a rest day in Silver City, New Mexico and are staying at a nice campground. Today we went to the Western New Mexico University Museum which has the largest collection of Mimbres pottery. The Mimbres were Native Americans who inhabited the area from 200 AD to 1200 AD. They were the first to use animals and figures on pottery in North America. They were coil built pots. Tomorrow we are going to the Gila Cliff Dwelling National Monument.