It is time to remember the HEROES who have committed the ULTIMATE SACRIFICE: getting out of their comfort zone to help total strangers.
- Ronny and Freddy have been running the only tire shop in Moriarty for the last 50 years "because people need it";
- Phillip was nice and offered us good advice;
- John prepared an omelet for us that morning and said he wanted us to feel good about being in America. And we did!;
- Ruth let us camp on her backyard for free;
- The owner of Oak Plantation RV Park provided us shelter from the thunderstorm for free;
- Robert let us place our bikes inside the store and was very friendly;
- Sargent Cartright who helped us with our tires and sent a police car to find us and give us safety glasses on the road;
- Doni fixed my uncle's breaks for free;
- Raphael helped us with his air compressor;
- Daniel and Dorothy in Whitesboro, OK with who we spent a good two hours chatting;
- The Indians in McLoud which helped us with our tires;
- The police officer who offered water when ours had ended;
- Barbara from the Natural Bridge who was so nice and supportive;
- And so, so many countless people who whished good luck, told us to be careful and offered words of support when we needed most.
You might not be Military Veterans, but you are certainly Veterans in life and in the art of having a big, good heart.
For serving this planet and, most importantly, it's people and for being the peaceful heros we need the most, THANK YOU!!!
If the previous day had been hard and uplifting, this one was just plain hard. The word of the day was endurance. I guess this is the kind of thing you have to go through when going through this kind of journey so you can be proud of yourself when finishing.
As soon as we went out of the hotel room we noticed our tires needed some more pressure. While we were there pumping air into the tires we saw the manager of the hotel getting into our room and making the beds, replacing the plastic cups, folding the used towels and closing the door. I guess the room was all set to the next customer… no sheets or pillowcases washed, no towels exchanged. We then spent almost thirty minutes with our pump but no luck: our pump is just not strong tough to put the 95 psi our tires require. We then rode to a nearby tire shop and adjusted the pressure. As soon as we finished we were on our way out of the hotel. We then returned back about a mile to get a Subway sandwich for lunch since we knew there was pretty much nothing on our path.
By 10:30 am we finally were on the road. The first five miles were fine; the wind was blowing against us but was not too strong. We kept moving forward as the winds started to pick up strength. Then the suffering started.
We started to move very slowly. Each mile was painful and took many minutes to cover. We had to stop every couple of miles to drink water since the effort to move against the wind was huge, and also the hot sun was not making it any better.
We spent about three hours to find a shade. During those three hours we had covered just twenty miles. On a small city we found a church with a tree on its side. The church was closed, so we just parked our bikes and decided to eat there. The lunch was good and we recovered the energies somewhat.
As we left that spot the suffering resumed, but there was nothing could do to help the situation: the next hotel was on our destination and we would not return after having covered twenty miles.
The day passed slowly as we inched forward under the hot sun. We drunk about a gallon of water each that day, and what was planned to be a seven hours ride ended up being a torture session eleven hours long.
By 8:00 pm we arrived on the Gallup city limits. We were planning on riding to a Walmart, but we found a cheap hotel which had a supermarket across the street. We were so tired that we decided to stay on that hotel without analyzing the situation very well. It turns out the room was awful: smelly, old and with most furniture broken. But we were just too tired to go somewhere else, so we decided to stay.
We bought our food on that supermarket and came back to the room. There we eat, washed clothes and prepared to sleep, but of course this day would not end so easily.
As I opened the bed covers I saw many yellow marks on the sheets. There was also lots of hair below the covers, lipstick and some other marks I could not identify. My uncle’s bed was better, but still not clean. I then decided to sleep on my sleeping bag. I opened it up over the covers and slept on it, touching the sheets and covers as little as possible.
With that I was able to rest very well for the long day that was ahead of us.
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.
We stopped at a gas station and had some nice coffe.
The cashier let us use his sink in the back of the building so we could wash our faces and brush our teeth and now we're all set to ride towards Kingman, AZ.
PLast night we arrived in Peach Springs, but there were no vacant rooms in the only hotel in that city. We tried to find a place to camp but there were no campgrounds and, because that was an Indian reserve, any type of camping by non-tribal members was prohibited.
We decided to keep riding with all groceries hanging on the bicycles. After 7 miles we arrivrd to a small district called Truxton.
Here the only hotel was also full, but the owner let us camp in his backyard. So there we spent the night, with no restroom or showers available.
Noe we are disassembling our campsite and will ride towards Kingman, AZ. There, we will check into a hotel and have a proper shower!
