More Slogging than Zooming - Holbrook to Gallup

I guess my body payed for the effort it put out yesterday.  Today it was not responding in such fine fashion.  Instead of sailing down the road, it would be classified more as slogging.  I decided I was not having enough fun to complete the 94 miles so took a bump between SAGs and completed 60 miles.  Since we rode on the interstate all day long and this was a particularly uninteresting section, taking a bump was not a bad idea at all.  It also gave me more time to wander around in the Navajo owned trading post.

As I said, we rode on the interstate all day.  This means there are lots of little wires that embed themselves in your tires, and lots of big tire pieces to slalom through.  The burms are wide so that is helpful.  However, during the first half of the day, the surface was rough.  And you sure don't want to challenge the big trucks for a lane on the freeway.  That would not be very smart.  There were lots and lots of flats.  Flats are actually the great equalizer.  They tend to keep us slower riders (Jeanne and I) passing some of the faster riders who are fixing their flats.  If a group riding together is unlucky and has more than their share of flats, we see them a few times during the day.  We did not make it through the mine field uninjured however.  Two miles from the hotel, Jeanne got a flat (in the rear).  I changed the flat for her and luckily Rik, the mechanic, came along just as I was attempting to put the back wheel back on the bike.  Her bike is particularly hard to get the wheel on, so I was very happy.  As you can see from Tracy's attire, there were lots of flats today.

We crossed into New Mexico today and the country side started to change.  There was some very pretty scenery along the way.  This truly is Indian country as you see Native Americans in the stores and restaurants.  Tomorrow we ride to Grants NM and will cross the Continental Divide.  And only 10 miles on the Interstate and then we will be on Route 66.  Yeah.

 

 

Again apologies for having lie on your side to view the pictures.  I have no idea why they do that nor how to fix it.  And I am too tired at night to experiment very much.  Oh yeah, being a low country resident is causing problems in this altitude.  We have been at 6000 ft for a couple of days.  Walking down the street can be a chore, let alone riding a bike.  And a low-grain headache continually haunts me.  But we have several more days, so I am going to try to drink even more water.