Day 9, Monday, September 16

This morning I dreamt that I was on a fast club ride at home. I was back from my trip and strong, finally reaping the benefits of nearly a month of daily riding. When the alarm woke me up and I found myself still in New Mexico with nearly two-thirds of the trip left to ride, there was nothing to do but get my day started to get down the road and keeping ticking off those miles.

For the first few days, Doreen and Josh taped signs under Doreen's saddle. The first day the sign said something like, "Housekeeping Requested" and the second said, "Sanitary Napkin." Today it said "Express" so I refer to them as the express tandem since they help get me down the road so quickly.

Today was fast. We had a tail wind but I still hung on to the wheel of Josh and Doreen's "Express" tandem for as much of the day as I could just to save energy. It really helped. I got into the hotel a little after them, at around 1:00, versus 5:00 and 6:30 the last two days. I almost felt guilty about having a short day, until I looked ahead at the schedule and realized that after two more easy days (provided the wind stays friendly), we'll have two long days -- 140 and 150 miles -- followed by at steep day -- 7,300' of climbing getting into Mena, Arkansas, before we have any more easy days again. (The numbers for both the miles and the climbing at the top of each page and on the home page are a little off. I may change them when I get back but for now the cities are at least accurate.)

Lon rationalizes to crew member Larry from Texas why it wouldn't have been so bad to take us on ten miles of unpaved road on Route 66 instead of this section of I-40.

The scenery was a little more interesting today than yesterday; there were at least some plateaus in the distance. To be honest, I didn't really care about the visuals, I just wanted to have an easy day and have plenty of catch-up recovery time in the evening. I did get one photo of Lon when I was drafting behind him and crew member Larry from Texas for a while. Lon knows all about the history of Route 66 and was explaining to Larry that we were riding on Interstate 40 at that point because the parallel section of Route 66 had about ten miles of gravel. I'm glad we avoided the gravel but Lon seemed a little disappointed that we weren't giving it a shot. He was pointing out the benefits to Larry, like the fact that it was traffic-free. At one point we passed by a bunch of old planks of wood that looked like they used to be a building once and Lon -- the master of understatement -- said, "There used to be a business there. That's really gone down hill," as if the building were just a little bit unkept rather than a pile of boards.

Landon and Richard from Iowa behind Josh and Doreen on the tandem, a few miles before we hit a strech of original Route 66 pavement that was so bumpy it made me drop from the pace line.

There was one section of Route 66 we went on a few days ago that was so chewed up it was worse than some mountain biking trails I've been on. It was so bumpy I could barely see what I was riding over because my head was bouncing up and down so hard. John from Placerville, who was warning me last night at dinner about the hillbillies in Alabama, also mentioned that that section of road was original 1933 asphalt, laid down and unrepaired for almost seventy years. Great nostalgia value, but not much fun to ride over.

Stoker Extrodinaire Doreen

After today's ride, Doreen said that she had been having a hard time yesterday but felt much better today. I couldn't tell from watching her and Josh ride that she was having a hard time, they always look like they're doing great. She said that she felt like she just wasn't strong enough to do this ride. That's exactly how I had been feeling, too. About two-thirds of the riders have done at least one transcontinental PAC Tour before, and some have done even harder rides. I'm very impressed by all of the collective experience here. I told Doreen that the two tandems were the only thing that was keeping me on the road, so she had to hang in there so I can hang in there. I hope the hard days are over for both of us.

Tonight we're staying the the historic Blue Swallow Hotel. Or, at least half of the riders are. The other half of us are in the Safari Motel across the street. I didn't really realize there was a difference in quality when I first walked into my room. I thought everything looked a little chintzy but just thought that maybe kitsch is what people are into. Apparently some of the other riders' Safari rooms are pretty bad, though. When I was walking across the parking lot to get ice cream, Reed from California called out, "Looks like they put Sarah in 'El Dumpo', too." I guess his room wasn't even clean. Someone else has a queen-sized bunk bed in his room and none of the air conditioners work. Across the street half of the crew and riders are sleeping in gorgeous rooms with perfectly restored 1950s decor. That's almost as good a story as me missing my own birthday cake.

For dinner tonight I got a turkey sandwich at a deli, a bottle of grape juice, and a pint of Ben and Jerry's New York Super Fudge Chunk ice cream for dessert. If I can finish the whole pint, it will be eighty grams of fat, twenty grams of protein, and forty percent of the USRDA of calcium. The fat should get me down the road for the next couple of days. I wanted to order a chocolate milk shake at the box-car diner we ate in last night, but some early-bird riders at the booth behind us got the last of the chocolate. Ben and Jerry's is a pretty good substitute.

Another side note, as much as I'm trying to be vigilant about applying sun screen, I'm still getting a little burned each day. Mostly on my right side, so I guess we've been heading a little north. Or, maybe because it's getting later in the year the sun stays closer to the horizon, toward the equator, rather than passing directly over head. Something like that.

Also, I finally saw two tarantulas today. People said they had been seeing them on the road for days. Seeing them was kind of cozy because it reminded me of home. For a couple of weeks during September I always see them on hiking or mountain bike trails and then they disappear again. I think it's their mating season. At the second rest stop Doreen laid down in the dirt beside one to have her picture taken with it but I guess they move faster than she thought because a few seconds later I heard a scream. Apparently it crawled on her foot, but I think it was crew member Nancy who screamed because she screamed loudly a few days ago when an extremely large winged insect was harassing a lunch stop and finally landed on Bob's head. As it flew away I think Susan made some crack about how you could still see it's tail numbers from 500 yards away.

After a couple more easy days I might just be able to handle the several hard days that follow. I haven't been saddle sore, my knees are well, and as long as I can keep eating enough and we stay at lower altitudes I should be able to keep my energy up. We're over a third of the way finished, now, in both days and mi, having finished about 1,100 out of 3,000 miles total. I'm sure when this whole thing is over, in retrospect it will seem like the time went by quickly.