Day 44 – 05/16/2012 – Grants, NM

This was both a hard and uplifting day. We left the hotel early, and by 9:30 am we were already on our way towards Grants, NM. We entered the Old Highway 66 for the first twenty miles, but after that we entered the interstate 40’s shoulder space since there was no Service Road to follow anymore. The temperature was high for most of the day, and the sun was shining strong. The elevation was very intense, with hills that extended for more than three miles! That’s right, more than three miles going up constantly under the hot sun.

 However, difficulties were not the only thing we experienced today. The desert provided us with beautiful landscapes. Some rocky formations were very curious, and at times we also saw volcanic soil surrounding the road with the characteristic flow like aspect lava acquires once it cools down and hardens. We also saw a few trains running on railroads suspended on the side of rocky mountains, also a nice sight.

The whole path had pretty much no population, with the exception of some small cities we passed by. As a result, there were just two places to buy food. The first was too close from our starting point, so we decided to just buy biscuits and move on. However, the second was not until we reached fifty miles on the road. We were feeling weak on the last miles, but once we eat we were able to once again maintain a good speed average.

As we approached our destination once more we had many incredible sights of the surrounding mountains. We took several pictures and made a few great videos too.

 Once we arrived we went straight to a Walmart to get food, and then rode to a nearby cheap hotel. We had dinner and washed clothes, but updating the blog this day was not possible again due to the lack of a decent WiFi signal.