Goin' To Grants

We are now on Mountain Standard Time so we "lost" an hour yesterday.  Oh well. easy come, easy go.

I forgot to mention in yesterday's blog that the coyote blood didn't quite work.  At our last rest stop, I was doing my routine tire check and actually removed a piece of wire that had penetrated my rear tire but had not yet entered the tube.  Got my trusty tweezers out and surgically removed the offending debris (as I have done already on several other occasions).  Then I checked the front tire only to find that it was very low on air.  Since it wasn't flat, I opted to pump it back up and see what happens.  The tire held for the last 25 miles but by evening it was low again, so I changed the tube.  Total flat count for the group yesterday was 19.

The SW wind was blowing quite strongly today at 30-35 mph, gusting to 60 mph in Gallup.  It had a beneficial effect at the outset but, as the ride wore on, a dangerous crosswind was developing.  On a couple of occasions, riders had to disengage from their pedals in anticipation of being blown over.  Exciting.

Early in the ride we began paralleling the Red Rock State Park.  The Mess of Mesas (my term) to the north were with us for most of the day.

Another feature of today's ride was crossing the Continental Divide.  We climbed to an elevation of 7275 ft. but it was long and continuous and not the steep type of grade that we had encountered in the Arizona mountains.  The geographical significance of the Continental Divide is that it is the north-south line from which rivers flow east toward the Atlantic Ocean or west toward the Pacific.

Today was our first opportunity to spend a significant amount of time (50 miles) on Route 66.   Since Interstate 40 literally parallels Route 66, only locals traveling short distances use the historic highway.  For we cyclists, it was riding Nirvana.  We had the road to ourselves.

Note the highway on the right, I-40.  Also note the angle of our safety flags which is the result of the powerful crosswinds.

Grants, NM has a significance in our family history dating back to 1946.  At that time, my future parents were driving from Michigan to Long Beach, CA, along with my mother's younger sister, Eileen.  Hey, it was 1946 and my parents weren't married yet so we had to have some sense of propriety.  Anyway, my father's 1936 Ford experienced one of its more serious mechanical failures (of many), so they spent a good deal of time scrounging up money and waiting for the necessary repairs to be made.  To this day, my mother can recount this story in detail and with (now) fond memories.

Modern day Grants has fared better than most of the other walking-dead towns along Route 66.  There appears to be more vitality in their business section although the mines (uranium and gold) closed up in the 1980's.

The following photos were taken as we approached Grants.

Total Miles:   70              Total Vertical Climb:   1800 ft.