Hi Folks!
I'm writing from Williams, AZ!
Yesterday was quite a day. We camped in the Grand Canyon, then spent the day visiting places over there. After the sunset, we then rode 60 miles to the city of Williams. We thought the way would be easy and take at most 6 hours to complete, but it turns out we were *very* wrong. We ended up arriving 6:00am with a freezing cold temperature.
After being awake for 29 hours straight and gone through an insanely hard-to-ride road we finally checked in a hotel and had some rest. I slept the whole afternoon. My uncle went out to cut his hair and buy some things he needed.
Tonight we went for a short walk on the city's main street and are now preparing the videos of previous days and writing the pending summaries.
Tomorrow our plan is to wake up early and ride to Seligman, still in Arizona.
That's it for now folks! Stay tuned for more updates tonight!
quinta-feira, 24 de maio de 2012
Day 40 – 05/12/2012 – Santa Rosa, NM
Due to our easy ride on the previous day and the forecast for East winds, we thought this would be an easy day. We went out of the hotel and looked for a place to properly inflate our tires. After fixing that, we headed to the Tucumcari dinosaur museum.
The museum was nice, with many complete fossils of a number of large dinosaurs. The clerk let us put of bicycles inside, so we could enjoy it with peace of mind. We spent a whole hour there, took pictures and had a great time. Then we left and started our ride towards Santa Rosa, just 60 miles away.
We rode about 10 miles and saw several stones surrounding the road that resembled the ones with fossils at the museum. Yeah, you guessed right. We parked our bicycles and started looking around in the hope to find a fossil ourselves. We spent about fifty minutes there and my uncles found a stone with a leaf carved in it. I found no fossils but took a few small stones that were very unusual.
We moved on and progressed the next 20 miles relatively fast. We stopped at a place called Newrick where we found an old gas station. We eat the bananas, bread and juice we had, and kept riding.
A few miles later, though, we saw a big thunderstorm on the horizon. We made several stops to film and photograph the powerful clouds and strong rain. As moved forward, the lightening intensified and the gusts increased their speeds. We then moved far enough to be side by side with the giant storm, and it was pouring right ahead where we needed to pass by. As we moved forward the rain drops stared to fall on us. We stopped to put out rain coats.
Three minutes, that’s all it took. As soon as we finished, the gusts increased tremendously making hard to hold the bicycles up straight. The sky was totally dark, so we decided to protect ourselves behind a bush. We waited for about five minutes and it didn’t get any better… it was actually getting worst as the core of the storm blew through the road. We couldn’t even see the end of it, so we decided to move on and try to escape before night.
As we rode under those conditions the rain intensified and so did the winds. We were moving slowly trying to stay in the shoulder space. With the temperature dropping quickly our hands were freeing cold making it harder to hold the bicycles on track.
We moved forward this way for about forty five minutes, and it was practically night already. Then I saw a small step in the shoulder and shouted “be careful!” to my uncle, but it was too late. As soon as I finished speaking I heard the noise… he had fallen down. I turned around and helped him up. His knee was bleeding and he had bruises on both hands and on one shoulder. His bicycle’s fork was twisted and his front panniers on the floor. I clicked them back on the front racks and forced the fork back into straight position, and we kept moving forward.
We had still ten miles before arriving in Santa Rosa. The rain diminished but the temperatures remained down. We rode those miles slowly until we finally reached the city. There was a Subway open, so we decided to go eat there. My uncle parked his bicycle outside the store and placed some bandages on his knee to stop the bleeding. We then entered the store, eat and prepared to go to a hotel. That’s when I saw my front tire was flat.
We had no choice but to walk the bicycle up to a hotel. Thankfully, there was one close by so we decided to stay there. I fixed my tire with a patched tube I had in my backpack while my uncle took shower and arranged for a better bandage on his knee.
We ended up sleeping midnight thirty and due to the long stretch we had to cover in the next day we put the alarm for seven hours later. Besides all the hardships nature had reserved us that day we knew that was a day we would never forget, and that’s what we came here for... so I guess we can say this day was a success!
The museum was nice, with many complete fossils of a number of large dinosaurs. The clerk let us put of bicycles inside, so we could enjoy it with peace of mind. We spent a whole hour there, took pictures and had a great time. Then we left and started our ride towards Santa Rosa, just 60 miles away.
We rode about 10 miles and saw several stones surrounding the road that resembled the ones with fossils at the museum. Yeah, you guessed right. We parked our bicycles and started looking around in the hope to find a fossil ourselves. We spent about fifty minutes there and my uncles found a stone with a leaf carved in it. I found no fossils but took a few small stones that were very unusual.
We moved on and progressed the next 20 miles relatively fast. We stopped at a place called Newrick where we found an old gas station. We eat the bananas, bread and juice we had, and kept riding.
A few miles later, though, we saw a big thunderstorm on the horizon. We made several stops to film and photograph the powerful clouds and strong rain. As moved forward, the lightening intensified and the gusts increased their speeds. We then moved far enough to be side by side with the giant storm, and it was pouring right ahead where we needed to pass by. As we moved forward the rain drops stared to fall on us. We stopped to put out rain coats.
Three minutes, that’s all it took. As soon as we finished, the gusts increased tremendously making hard to hold the bicycles up straight. The sky was totally dark, so we decided to protect ourselves behind a bush. We waited for about five minutes and it didn’t get any better… it was actually getting worst as the core of the storm blew through the road. We couldn’t even see the end of it, so we decided to move on and try to escape before night.
We moved forward this way for about forty five minutes, and it was practically night already. Then I saw a small step in the shoulder and shouted “be careful!” to my uncle, but it was too late. As soon as I finished speaking I heard the noise… he had fallen down. I turned around and helped him up. His knee was bleeding and he had bruises on both hands and on one shoulder. His bicycle’s fork was twisted and his front panniers on the floor. I clicked them back on the front racks and forced the fork back into straight position, and we kept moving forward.
We had still ten miles before arriving in Santa Rosa. The rain diminished but the temperatures remained down. We rode those miles slowly until we finally reached the city. There was a Subway open, so we decided to go eat there. My uncle parked his bicycle outside the store and placed some bandages on his knee to stop the bleeding. We then entered the store, eat and prepared to go to a hotel. That’s when I saw my front tire was flat.
We had no choice but to walk the bicycle up to a hotel. Thankfully, there was one close by so we decided to stay there. I fixed my tire with a patched tube I had in my backpack while my uncle took shower and arranged for a better bandage on his knee.
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