Day 14, Saturday, September 21

Reed enjoys a vista point along the Talimena Drive.

Today was probably harder than I expected but not back breaking like the 160-mile day with head winds into Socorro, New Mexico, or the day with 9,000 feet of climbing to get to Williams, Arizona. After two long days and one steep day, I do feel like I'm ready for a break, though. We have two short days coming up, which I'm looking forward to, followed by a 130-mile day, a 140-mile day, and another 130-mile day with 4,500' of climbing. According to the mileage/climbing stats the worst of the trip is over, although I hear we're going to be on some roads with up to twenty-percent grade by the time we're done.

Today we spent about sixty miles going up and down over these steep rollers. The route sheet said that the grades were up to thirteen-percent, but someone's altimeter measured some to be over eighteen percent. It wasn't so bad at first because I expected most of the climbing to be over by lunch, but we ended up climbing practically all the way to the hotel. There was one part where through a break in the trees I could see our road ahead, undulating on the top of a ridge line until it turned blue with distance and finally dropped into the flat lands below. I knew it meant hours more of climbing, but it was neat to be able to see that far ahead to see what was coming up.

The days out here go by fast, but some days looking back it seems like I've been doing this forever, and looking forward it seems like a long time until the end. I know we're well over half way done now, but today it seems like eleven more days is a long time to keep doing this. I think that means I really need the next two short days, where I can get in early and take extra time in the afternoons to recover.