Day 6, Friday, September 13

More random dionsaurs along the route

Dinosaurs at the Petrified Forest

Today could have been a lot worse. It wasn't really a recovery day like yesterday, but it wasn't really a hard day either. There wasn't too much climbing all together but most of it was after lunch, so I felt pretty tired in the afternoon but in the morning I was okay. Actually, until the second rest stop I was working a little too hard keeping up with the two tandems on the ride but once I decided to stop bothering to hang on and ride by myself I started enjoying myself. Also, there were giant fake dinosaurs at the second rest stop, which was at the entrance to the Petrified Forest National Park, and that perked me up some, as did the home-made brownies that Bob from Davis, California, had been kind enough to leave out.

One of the coolest things about the entire trip was just how much nothing we rode through. West of Oklahoma, we could ride for fifty or sixty miles at time without passing a pay phone, drinking water, or any of the amenities that humans normally depend on. Note how the Springerville city-limit sign doesn't list the population, not surprising considering that no buildings or other constructions that normally indicate a "city" are in sight.

Brown Eyed Susans

If yesterday -- in Navajo County -- was mesa country, with wide open plateaus of red earth, today -- in Apache County -- was prairie land, with wide open spaces covered with grass, flowers, and chaparral. I took a couple of photos of the many Brown Eyed Susans by the side of the road, but I don't think I did them justice. With the morning sun shining through their yellow petals they looked like they were glowing. There were also areas where mounds of exposed earth had multi-colored stripes of red, brown, grey, black, and white, just like in Georgia O'Keefe paintings. I think I found the scenery today to be the prettiest so far.

In the evening we rode in to the Rode Inn. They had a big scrolling sign that said, "Welcome PAC Tour. Say 'Hello' to America for us!" It was nice of them to acknowledge us and it helped me feel inspired. The sign reminded me of the enormity of what we're trying to accomplish.

Richard from Baltimore going up a hill

Par for the course. Reed and John, both from California, lend Phil from Florida moral support while he changes a flat.

Tomorrow we enter New Mexico, our third state. We will also lose an hour, which is a little bit harsh. I guess we'll do that a couple more times on the trip. Tomorrow is the longest ride of the trip, at 157 mi, but has less climbing than today so it might be okay. (The original schedule I had is a little different than our route sheets -- today was supposed to by 3,500' of climbing and tomorrow 4,000, but today ended up being 4,350' and tomorrow is now supposed to be something like 3,500.) We will have a net elevation loss tomorrow, however -- with more descending than climbing -- and those are my favorite kind of PAC Tour days.

Now with several days under my belt I'm starting to look ahead at the trip as a whole instead of thinking just about the next day. We'll have several flat days in the middle of the trip, in Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Mississippi, and will climb again in Tennessee, Georgia, and South Carolina. It all seems overwhelming when I look far ahead. Before leaving on the trip, I would have considered a day with 4,000 or 5,000' of climbing to be a moderately easy day, but now after riding for several days, anything over 2,000' of climbing seems steep! I guess I have to remember, though, that we've already come nearly 700 miles in six days, which is far more consecutive riding than I've ever done in my life. If I just focus on each day and realize that the days are actually going by pretty quickly, then I think I'll be able to get through this. My super brother David and his super girlfriend Felicia just sent me a new stash of my sports drink powders, which I had run out of about three times faster than I thought I would. I think that will help a lot. I had bought some maltodextrin as a substitute, but that didn't seem to be working for me, so hopefully having the energy source I need will help me make it through tomorrow.