Today was one of those days when it was just about getting on the bike and churning out the miles. After such a relatively long “lay off” (despite my 31 mile “training” ride on Tuesday) my muscles were jolted awake by yesterday’s ride and this morning when I woke up I was truly feeling it. I had to get up at 4:30 so I could get myself together and get the bikes out of the storage room and reloaded on the car before breakfast at 6:00.
After a largish breakfast (two bowls of oatmeal, eggs, sausage, orange juice, two cups of coffee) I headed off into a beautiful sunrise. Yesterday was cold and cloudy as I left Tusayan but today was just perfect as the sun crested over the buttes off in the horizon. I am no off of my official Adventure Cycling Association maps and we are creating this route based on Google Maps and (once we get to Colorado), the Colorado DOT maps. As such, I was nervous about elevations and my brother-in-law Per came to the rescue with his ability to create elevations for me for every single leg of our route. If you’re interested in all of the elevations, you can go here and check them out!
Because of this technology, I knew that the first part of my morning was going to be climbing - from the very beginning until right after Tuba City until about half way into it. Also, from my maps, I knew that there would be almost no place to stop for water refills as there were virtually no towns along the way. The trick was to conserve water and hope Amy and the kids caught up. After all, it was only 73 miles and they would probably catch me in not time - right?
With the long desolate stretch I can honestly say that with two exceptions not much of note happened. It was just a lot of pedaling and thinking. As I watched the miles roll by it left me open to contemplate many things within my brains, to wit;
1) The Southwest has been spoiled for my by my trip to the Grand Canyon. Don’t get me wrong, I still see the landscape as gorgeous and phenomenal, but after seeing the majesty of the GC nothing will take my breath away or fill me with complete awe as much as that experience. Leaving yesterday was so incredibly difficult as the road took me along the South rim and every time I saw a glimpse I wanted to stop and see another wonder of its hidden majesty. I’m sorry but the rest of the Arizona landscape just can’t compare.
2) If Jan Brewer wanted to balance her state’s budget or work on a way to lower taxes for the people of Arizona, I have the answer - just get people out to clean all the glass and plastic bottles from the sides of her highways! Once they collect them, turn them in for recycling! If she could get back the 5 cent deposit from just one stretch of highway she could probably fund one program in her state. Honestly, its pretty disgusting to be riding through such beautiful country and see every few feet another wine, beer, soda, or alcoholic beverage bottle - not to mention all the beer cans! If she collected and then recycled them she would have a huge cash windfall!
3) Today I thought of the kids of Sunrise and how this week they are finishing up their first full week of camp. I'm still hoping I can get the skype system set up with the camp but I've decided that I'm going to start devoting a week of my riding to different groups at the camp - from the Acorns all the way up to the CIT's. I'll try to have Deanna send me info about what they're doing and I'll start posting in this blog little messages to them. It may take a couple of weeks to implement, and I may be riding for more than one group at a time, but I just want the kids to know that I'm thinking about them.
4) As much as its about the places we're going, so much of this journey is about the people we meet - Jim, Rande, Alicia, Albert, Tom, and so many others who have given of there generosity and have been so interested that they've asked for brochures. This ride is about spreading the word about Sunrise and in so doing hopefully folks will donate just a little bit to help these amazing kids.
5) Without my family this ride would not be possible. Its not just about all the logistics that Amy has been doing. Not only is she driving the van (full of cantankerous kids) every day, providing me with water, packing and unpacking, she is spending her evenings updating the website, loading her blog, contacting media outlets, booking accomodations, and going over the next day's route and activities. Without her I would probably have keeled over in the desert long ago. And then there are the kids, who have started to take on the role of my own crew of soigneurs! When I see the van with the blue tarp covered bikes on top pull in front of me I know it will only be seconds before the doors fly open and two to three (depending on who is playing their DSi) of my helpers will come flying out to huge me, fill my water bottles and ask for the daily reports so far. More than anything seeing their belief in me and their words of encouragement help keep me going. Especially on the worse days, when I see the light in their eyes I know that I'm not just riding for the kids of Sunrise, I'm also showing my own children that a single man can make a difference. And then whenever we stop Sarah loves to tell people that her dad is riding cross country and she rushes off to find Amy so she can give the person a brochure. They are my messeurs, my cheering section and my little PR machines all rolled into one. Without my family I couldn't make it.
Also along the way I finally met my first group of cyclotouring individuals, a group from the organization Bike and Build which cycles across America to raise funds and awareness for affordable housing in this country. It was a team of 18 riders and they were heading to San Diego. They were stopped by the side of the road and we shared information about the roads ahead and shared information. One of the people I spoke to is a medical student so she was very interested in the camp and possibly helping.
Not much else happened on the way to Keyenta except that I made incredibly good time! There were sections where I was just flying along! The only problem with that was the fact that there were no places to stop for water refills and I had gotten ahead of my support which means I was dangerously close to being dehydrated. I was running out of water and I was down to the last dregs in my bladder.
I eventually hit the final down hill section of my ride and since I knew I had beaten Amy in the kids (they hadn't passed me yet) I stopped into a convenience store to get some water (and corn nuts) to munch on while I waited. I then became engaged in a conversation with a woman and her family when she came up and introduced herself and said she had seen me riding on the road. She was from the Phoenix area and we talked about riding, the weather, charity fundraising and her husband gave me the low down on the road to Cortez, which is where they had just come from the day before. Having learned my lesson about local knowledge I listened avidly and was relieved to find out that there wouldn't be any heavy climbing to do. I got myself rehydrated and sat myself down to eat my corn nuts - and then I saw Amy and the kids drive by heading for the motel so I downed my gatorade and headed off in pursuit.
Now we once again went in search of the afternon meal and while doing so we discovered there were three things to do in town that evening - a tribal pow wow, a carnival, and a rodeo! We eventually talked the kids into the rodeo since when would they ever get the chance to do that (and we felt that being out of town white people might not go over so well at the pow wow!) again as there aren't too many of them on Long Island.
We then went to a restaurant that featured authentic Navajo food and despite their whining the kids ate their entrees and wanted more - they ended up eating part of Amy's Navajo taco. We then headed over to the local Burger King which also had a memorial/educational display about the Navajo Code Talkers. I had known about them only through the Nicholas Cage movie Windtalkers;
We paid our respects to the memorial and headed back to the hotel so the kids could swim - they've become quite the water babies - then it was time for rodeo!!! We (okay, just me I guess) felt a little out of place without any cowboy hats or boots but we pressed on. Once the kids realized what they would really be seeing they started getting excited! And then the bull riding started and they lost there minds! I can't really do the rest of the evening justice so I'll just show one picture of the rodeo and one of us there;
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| (And I Thought MY Ride Was a Pain in the Perineum!) |
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| (It's Time for Some Rodeo!) |
FFR - 1 Rabbit (it was black with long ears - I think it was a rabbit), 1 Fox, 1 Dog, 2 UFO’s
RRL - 1 Cooler, 3 Cooler Lids, 1 Large Plastic Container Lid, 1 Large Fuscia Bra on the shoulder
Stay well everyone and I'll update more from the road!
For another perspective on our journey check out Amy's blog at http://www.crosscountrymama.blogspot.com//
To help us get the kids to Sunrise go to https://www.wizevents.com/register/register_add.php?sessid=1809&id=1056
Check out our website at http://www.connorsarmy.org/
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