June 10. A short 37 mile ride in the morning to Joe and Lou's house. Another 17 miles over a hill on a gravel road to our cabin tomorrow and our ride will be officially over! We don't have internet access there, so here are some statistics:
Total miles pedaled: 1744
Total days: 31
Cycling days: 26
Highest point: 10531 ft.
Lowest point: the wind in eastern New Mexico.
Rainy days: 1
Close calls: 0
Flats: Carrie (1), Jerry (5)
Truck repairs: 3 (AC compressor, coolant hoses, water pump).
Motel stays: 5
RV park stays: 13
Private residence stays: 2
State or national park stays: 10
Best restaurant meal: Antonio's in Taos
Worst Meal: Blue Moon Cafe in Ponca City.

June 9. 68 miles from an RV park east of Bentonville, to a motel in Harrison. Joe and Lou continued on to their house, which is certainly a 2-day cycling trip in this heat and humidity. We did over 2500 ft in elevation gain and about the same in loss - the hills just go up and down forever. We had a nice stopover in Eureka Springs, which is a very picturesque community in the heart of the Ozarks. We were going to stop in Forest Green, AR, but the 2 motels in town were locked up and no-one answered the phone numbers listed, so we perservered another 22 miles in the sultry afternoon. The bright side is that tomorrow's trip will be shorter!

As this will be the last blog entry, we'd like to officially thank our support team, Joe and Lou Hatcher(Carrie's parents) and the team mascot (their Shih-Tzu) Lotus Blossom. They were there at the end of every long hard day for us with cold drinks and nutritious snacks (love the kettle chips Dad). They kept our clothes clean and can sniff out an RV park within 50 miles. We could not have done this without them. Love you both!

Luxuriant vegetation in the Ozarks

Enjoying an early lunch in Eureka Springs.

June 8. HAPPY BIRTHDAY AUDREY!!! Finally made it out of Oklahoma into Arkansas on a hot and humid day. Pedaled 22 miles till we came to a what looked like a decent place for breakfast in Jay, OK (it was). Joe and Lou finally caught up with us in Bentonville after they got the truck repaired, and we got trucked to a RV park with WiFi access so we can finally update this blog! We are pretty wiped out from the heat today, but only 2 more ~60 mile days to go! The recipe for our 'success' for long-distance touring: double up on the padded shorts, use plenty of chamois-butt'r, and jelly beans. We bought a 4 pound jar of jelly-bellies in california, and they are almost gone. We keep them in our Bento boxes up by the stem, within easy reach. When we have a big hill or stiff wind to contend with, we pop a few and suck the sugar coating off, then the soft interiors! 1621 miles down, a few more to go!


Finally made it to the last state on our trip. 3 more cycling days to go.




Carrie rescuing yet another turtle from certain death. The amount of roadkill in eastern OK is astonishing - all kinds of things, but mostly armadillos.

June 7. Got the tent down just in time before the thunderstorm this morning. Looks like the truck has another problem, this time a waterpump, so we packed stuff for a motel stay and got trucked into Bartlesville this morning, 12 miles to the repair place, where we were unceremoniously dumped into the rain to continue our journey. After a couple of hours of rain, it lightened up just in time for another second breakfast in Nowata OK, and remained overcast and relatively cool the rest of the day. An excellent cycling day overall, 72 miles to Langely OK, just before the crossing over the Grand Lake o'the Cherokee Dam.

A bedraggled cyclist.

Carrie in her Mickey Mouse rain poncho on the road to Vinita.



June 6. 60 miles from Ponca City to Osage Hills State Park. All of this through the Osage Res. This is really scenic country, tall grass prairie, hills and savannah, quite beautiful. In fact, the whole U.S. east of the Rockies has looked green and well-watered, and has been quite pleasant to the eye. Saw 3 new (to me) species of birds along the way today. The Osage hills state park is also quite nice oak woodland in the hills. A very pleasant ride overall.



Local cuisine advertised in Pawhuska, Oklahoma. We had a great lunch at the Midway Cafe a little farther down the road.


A far-off picture of a great bird, the Upland Sandpiper.


June 5. We planned to go to an RV park near Ponca City today, but Joe and Lou called from ahead that all the RV parks in the region were filled up with contract workers working on a pipeline project here in oil & gas country. So, we arranged to meet them on the road, get the bare essentials to motel-cycle, and have them go on ahead and us stay at a motel at Ponca City. 76 miles today, still 100 degrees in the afternoon with a stiff south wind. We both got a pinch flat in our rear tires going over a giant expansion crack on the Chickaskia River bridge. This was Carries' first flat of the trip, almost 1500 miles! I've had 4 total. For those of you who need to know, she has Bontrager Race Lites with triple thorn protection, whereas mine are Continental Gatorskins. The accommodations and cuisine at Ponca City both rate as the low point on this trip! Deep fried foods and monster steaks seem to be the cuisine of preference for the locals.


Fixing our simultaneous flats past the river bridge. Carrie's first flat of the trip!


June 4. Needed a day off. Another 100 degree day. We relaxed, hiked the wildlife refuge and tried to stay cool. Even drove 20 miles to Cherokee to get an ice cream! I know a lot of people do this all the time but after being on a bike awhile such a thing seems unthinkable!


June 3. Pedaled 89 miles on a rare windless day to Great Salt Plains State Park. The penalty for the still air was 100 degrees! Scenery picked up some but there is a lot of nothing in northern Oklahoma. The Salt plain is where the salt fork of the Arkansas river flattens out and makes a big salty, marshy plain with a lot of waterfowl and wildlife. It's quite a wonderland for birdwatchers, but the heat was punishing.


The endless road. Most of our path has been along U.S. 64. Good shoulder in places, in others it's nonexistent. Don't know how many thousands of trucks have passed us within 2 ft on this trip, but no real close calls.

June 2. It looked too far to pedal to the next state park given the forecast, so we loaded up the panniers for a motel stay and hoped that the next reasonable sized town according to the map, Buffalo OK, had an open motel. Joe and Lou went on ahead and called back to say that the town was boarded up, like most of the towns in western Oklahoma, and suggested we look at Alva, another 50 miles to the east! Determined to perservere, mainly because we didn't want to go any farther into the NNE headwind, we got to Buffalo, asked at a gas station, and were directed to the Wooly Bison Inn, an oasis in the middle of nowhere where we had a fine nights lodging out of the 98 degree heat. 54 miles today.


The Wooly Bison Inn in Buffalo OK. Highly recommended if you are ever in this part of the country.


June 1. 74 miles from west of Guymon OK to Beaver Dunes St. Park south of Forgan. SSW wind 20-30 mph helped us most of the way. It seems like we pretty much ran out of scenery today. The countryside had not too much to attract. It started really heating up this afternoon and this could also be the reason for our general feeling that this has not been a good day. Stayed at Beaver Dunes State Park where on the Oklahoma map the Beaver River looks like the Mississippi, but in actuality has no water in it! Judging from the bird life in the trees lining the dry riverbank though, I'd say we have reached the eastern U.S. even though we aren't out of the OK panhandle.

No Kidding!

May 31, Memorial Day. The same air that raced mercilessly from the northeast yesterday turned around and came back from the southwest today, helping us do the 97 miles from Clayton NM to just outside of Guymon Oklahoma. Was foggy in the morning but turned out to be a good cycling day. After dinner we witnessed a good old-fashioned Oklahoma thunderstorm, with everything but the tornado. Sure glad we weren't out in it!

We were going to go into Texas first just to say we did, but it was a gravel road so we went straight for OK.The Rockin' A Cafe in Boise City Oklahoma, where we had second breakfast. Carrie recommends the homemade cinnamon rolls.

Somebody once told me cycling was easy on the knees....

May 30. 84 miles from Springer to Clayton NM, the last 65 miles into a 20-30 mph headwind. Cool temps and clear skies, and endless green prairie with lots of antelopes racing around, but the wind sucked a lot of the enjoyment out of the ride. Took us 91/2 hours and we were too 'winded' to take any pics.

May 29. Taos to Springer NM, 75 miles. Went through an extraordinary mix of countryside today, from sagebrush desert to high mountain meadows to steep canyons to the great plains. Got off at 6:30 AM and had no problems with traffic. We were going to stop at Cimarron Canyon st park still in the mountains, but this being Memorial Day weekend there were no sites available so we did tomorrow's trip as well since we were feeling good, even after summitting out at 9120 ft over the Sangre de Christo mountains this morning. For scenery this was one of the best legs of our trip. Great weather and a tailwind once again that fairly blew us along on the prairrie. Saw some pronghorn antelope on the high plains between Cimarron and Springer. Staying at a quaint RV park in Springer, which doesn't have much going on.

A pastoral scene in the Sangre de Christo mts east of Taos.

Heading down Cimarron Canyon towards the plains.

May 27. Biked from the campground to Taos, mostly downhill, 54 miles. Beautiful scenery and weather in the mountains in the morning, we tried to stretch this ride out as long as possible. Down on the windswept, desolate sagebrush flats between Tres Piedras and Taos, we overtook a long-haired young man walking his beat-up bicycle along the road in the same direction we were headed. Said his name was Nobody, and he was heading into Taos to get some parts for his generator somewhere up in the hills. Seems he was having mechanical problems with his shifters but politely refused our offer of assistance. Carrie noticed his water bottle was almost empty, so offered water and an energy bar. He accepted, and by way of gratitude he recited some poetry for us there on the dusty highway. I don't remember the lines, but it seemed pretty good and certainly was delivered with passion. We then parted ways and left him to trudge along to wherever he was headed. Tomorrow is a rest day seeing the Taos sights before we go up over the Sangre de Christo range. On the other side starts the great plains and the last segment of our trip. Carrie at the Rio Grande Gorge just east of Taos.

May 26. Debated extensively over whether to ride south to Espanola, spend the night and then northeast to Taos, or maybe go back to Chama, put our bikes on the train and take it to Antonito, then pedal down to Taos the next morning. Or, whether to do our original plan which was to travel east over 10,500 ft pass, stay the night at 9800 ft in a campground, and continue to Taos. Truth is we were pretty intimidated by the elevation, but in the end decided to do the original route. Turned out to be a great decision. Weather was cool, partly cloudy, and mostly a tailwind again, and we eventually made it to the top, with jelly legs but with plenty of oxygen. This was the biggest continuous climb we have ever done. The top was beautiful, with big patches of snow still on the ground and no traffic to speak of. At the campground spring had not yet fully arrived - the aspens were only starting to bud out and there were piles of snow still scattered around. We were just about the only ones there. Ever since the dust storm I have been having trouble with the rear derailleurs - couldn't get into the 2 highest gears and sometimes got stuck in the lowest. Didn't seem to matter much the last few days as we were going mostly uphill. However, today I got around to fixing them and now they're fine. We shared our dinner of macaroni and cheese, beer and pie with 3 extreme hikers who are walking the continental divide from Mexico to Canada, a trek of 4 months that they started 1 month ago. Sounds like quite an adventure to me. They were very grateful for the meal, and made for excellent dinner conversationalists. One of them dehydrated all his own food for the trip and rehydrates it during the day so he doesn't have to carry a cooking stove and pots, and another normally eats 3 Raman noodle packages (dry, not cooked) for his evening meal.

The Garmin doesn't lie.

Just after the summit (reason for smile)

Extreme hikers Sarong, Chief and Jack the Beanstalk.

May 25. Dulce to Chama, over the continental divide which on this route is only 7850 ft. Forecast was 18 degrees in Chama, don't think it was this cold, but cold enough so we bundled up. More pretty high country. Got to Chama around lunch time, had burgers and beer in a saloon. Chama is a tiny town, not too touristy but the terminus of the Cumbres & Toltec Scenic Railroad that goes from here to Antonito Co. It just started up for the season last week. From Chama we went south ~20 miles to Heron Lake State Park and met back up with the support team.

The continental divide in northern New Mexico between Dulce and Chama. Not too impressive by Colorado standards. The sign says 7250 but the garmin and my maps say 7750.

The Brazos cliffs south of Chama.

May 24. Packed bare essentials for motel cycling and headed to Dulce, 70 miles. Pretty road, not much car/RV traffic but a lot of gas rig service trucks, since the Farmington gas fields are south and east of Farmington along this route. Stiff tailwind, pretty country through the Jicarilla Apache reservation. Stayed the night at the Jicarilla Best Western Inn and Casino. Don't know how they stay in business, but the rooms and food were OK. Had a good night's sleep in a real bed for the first time on the trip. Turned out Joe and Lou's truck just needed some hoses replaced that were leaking coolant onto the exhaust manifold. Didn't take too long so they drove over to Heron Lake State Park south of Chama where we were to meet up with them the next day.

Somewhere along the road to Dulce

May 23. Spent the last couple days in the car. On Saturday drove from Monument Valley to Canyon de Chelly in a blasting sandstorm, blew a fender off the RV. Saw some dramatic canyon scenery but through a haze of sand and dust. On Sunday drove to Farmington NM through more 50 mph winds. Looks like the truck blew a gasket going up over the Chucksa mts. was overheating and boiling coolant through the exhaust headers. Joe and Lou will have to stay in Farmington for a couple of days to repair it. We are going to press on with the bare minimum in my panniers and bike from motel to motel for a couple of days. Trouble is, there aren't too many through this part of the country. Will say at Dulce NM tomorrow nite, probably stay at Abiquiu NM the next. Hopefully Joe and Lou will catch up to us on the way to Taos on the 3rd day. No new posts for the next few days since we won't be hauling any computers on the bikes. Bye for now.

May 21,
670 bike miles so far. We're staying in Monument Valley after a 58 mile ride mostly downhill and with the wind from Navajo National Monument to here. We got here in record time, almost beat our support team again! We rode our alternate bikes because in sections the shoulder on U.S. 160 east from Tuba City to Kayenta is pretty rough, with gravel, ruts and bad rumble strips that seem to compress your spine when you have to go over them. Just like yesterday, the roads were far from the remote Wild West of my imagination. Now it's the Winnebago West. There are caravans of Dutch tourists each with their mini RV's following each other around. It's the European's dream vacation. But I shouldn't talk, we're in an RV too. The road into Monument Valley doesn't have a shoulder and we were riding the white line with 75 mph traffic whizzing by - not a lot of fun. Took a 2 hr tour of Monument Valley with a local in an open-air pickup-wish those pics could load! It is a spectacular place. Towards the end of our ride and during our tour the wind picked up from the southwest and now it's a veritable sandstorm, we can't venture outside this evening. Tomorrow we are taking a break and driving to Canyon de Chelly for some more tourism. Probably no internet for a couple days.

Entering Monument Valley

One of many scenes from Monument Valley, too numerous to upload 'em all!

The dreaded rumble strips

May 20. 72 mile ride from Page AZ to somewhere on U.S. route 160 to the southeast. The plan was for our support team to pass us with water refills, travel ahead to Navajo National Monument, set up camp then come back to get us at the junction. This would have been 78 miles for us. We almost beat them to the junction - so got in where they passed us. Good thing we weren't perishing from thirst. I carry a little over 4 liters in my bottle holder and panniers, and Carrie carries a little over 3. Just as well they picked us up, 160 is a lousy road for cycling with bad shoulders and heavy traffic. In fact, the whole route today on a map looks to be through the middle of nowhere, but had a lot of traffic and a lot of big trucks. We climbed almost 4000 ft today summitting out twice at 6800 ft. Really another great day for cycling, in the mid 70's in the high desert with a brisk tailwind. Some good scenery, but mostly high desert sagebrush. Our camp at Navajo National Monument is a remote, beautiful, primitive camping area in the pinyon/juniper forest at 7400 ft -great views of rugged canyons, the best place we've stayed at all trip, and it's free! We had to rig up a shower by hanging a water bag from a juniper and using a tarp for a privacy screen, but it worked out just fine.

At camp in Navajo National Monument

A well deserved cold one after the toughest ride of the trip, from Page to Navajo National Monument.