Big Push to Durango

After spending the night at Pipe Spring National Monument, AZ, I hit the road for a jaunt back into Utah before dipping back down to Page, AZ. There was a stretch in the middle of the day that was about 70 miles with no services. I knew that Page was right by the dam that created Lake Powell, so I thought the day was almost over when I started to see water. I didn't know Lake Powell was HUGE, and I only saw a tiny fraction of the thing. It stretches on forever. After crossing the dam to get to Page, I had to climb back out of the canyon to get into town and to the campground. I've got mixed feelings about the tent sites at this campground. They're sand. It wasn't bad for sleeping on, but it sure made for a mess in the morning. I think I'm still shaking sand out of my tent, sleeping bag, and everything else, but some of that sand probably came from the next day of riding.

The following morning I got up and hit the road earlier than usual, because I was going to be meeting my friend John at Navajo National Monument. From Page, AZ, to Navajo National Monument I was going to gain almost 3,000 feet in elevation. Despite the climbing, I was making pretty good time all morning. When I got close to the town of Shonto, NV, I had a little conversation with Martha (GPS) to decide the best route to get to the monument. After some deliberating, we decided to take a "short cut" that would save 17 miles off the trip for the day. I looked at a map that I purchased a few days ago for a second opinion, and it showed the road I planned to take. I started down the road, on which the pavement quickly ended. Now, I grew up in Nebraska and lived in Kansas for a while after that, and our roads that are not paved are generally still navigable by bicycle. Out here, they don't really have dirt. Anywhere. It's all sand. Have any of my readers ever tried to ride a bicycle on the beach? Of course not. It's a horrible idea. I, however, am a bit stubborn and was maybe a little overconfident in my cycling abilities. I pressed on down the sandy road. A few grueling miles down the road I came across a pickup on the side of the road with two teenage men in it. I asked them if the road got any better up ahead, or if it was sandy the whole way. They assured me that it wasn't so bad further up, and that they had seen the road maintenance guy working to make it better further up.

I continued down the sandy road, which turned to pavement for a short stretch where it descended into a canyon. At the bottom of the canyon, there was a little convenience store to the right, and a very narrow, very steep road going up to the left. The sign said the monument was up and to the left. I watched a couple vehicles crawl up and down the hill, taking turns because there was only room for one at a time. At this point, I stopped and held out my thumb. The next vehicle headed up the hill was a man with a pickup full of children. I asked if he had room for my bicycle and I, and his short response was, "Yep." I loaded up in back of his truck, where I found two more children riding under the topper. As I climbed in with them, they said nothing, but laughed a little at me. When we got to the top of the hill, the man pulled over to let me off before making his turn to his destination. I thanked him for the ride, and he responded with, "Yep." I hopped back on the bike and tried to continue down the sandy road. Now, I'm riding a bicycle that weighs more than 100 lbs and has tires about an inch or an inch and a half wide. When I say that I continued to "ride" down the road, that's a pretty loose definition. About every 15 feet my bike would slide out from under me, and each time I would barely catch myself. For the first time on my whole trip, I got off of my bike and pushed it for some stretches. I don't remember being this frustrated in my life, and all because I thought I could handle the "short cut" to the monument.

I found the man in the road maintainer up ahead, and he looked at me like I was a bit crazy. He was actually making the road much nicer to drive on, but much worse to bike on. Some places the sand had become packed into washboard, and he was tearing that up and returning it to about 6" of sand. After a while he passed me with the blade up, finished for the day. About 30 minutes later, the same man came down the road in his pickup and offered me a ride. He told me that at the rate I was moving, I'd be wrestling with my bike in that sand for another 3 hours before I would get to the monument. As he drove me down the road, I saw what would have been to come if I had kept riding. He said that every year people see this road on their maps and try to drive their RVs on it and almost always get stuck.

He dropped me off at the monument, and I thanked him several more times before heading to the campground to set up the tent. My friend John that was meeting me at the monument hadn't arrived yet, so I went about picking out a site on my own. As I pulled into the campground, I stopped to ask some people how I was supposed to register and pay for a site. Newell and Katherine told me that there was no fee for camping, and that I should just pick a site and set up. I stood and talked with them for a while, and also met Sam and Anne, neighboring campers.

After I was all set up for the evening, and John still wasn't there, Newell and Katherine invited me to join them for supper. It ended up that the three of us also ate with Sam and Anne over at their site. We ate a great meal as the sun set in the distance, still without John. As we sat and chatted over some hot chocolate, we heard a motorcycle approach. I ran out to meet John. He had ridden up from Phoenix to camp with me for the night. As it turns out, he had a similarly frustrating experience getting to the monument, wrestling with his motorcycle on a nasty sandy road. We commiserated for a while about our experiences trying to ride two wheeled vehicles through that sandy mess as our new friends reheated some leftovers from our meal to feed John.

When John and I got up in the morning, we were on our way out when we were stopped by our fellow campers who offered us coffee and a little something to eat for breakfast. We ended up sitting and chatting for a while again and posing for some pictures. This caused a bit of a late start for the day, but I wasn't too concerned, as much of the morning was going to be down hill. I rode the 9 miles from the monument to the highway where I stopped to get a few more calories in me from the gas station. When I left the gas station, it was after 11:00am already. I knew that if I was to cover the miles I wanted to, I needed to really step on it. I kept looking at my watch and looking at mile markers to try to decide how far I could get before the sun went down. Martha didn't have any campgrounds for me, and I hadn't seen any on the internet the last time I checked, so I wasn't sure where I was going to be sleeping that night. I figured that if I could make it to Peec Nos Pos, AZ, that there would at least be a gas station where I could fill with water for the night. I got to the little town about 30 minutes before the sun was scheduled to sink below the horizon, and sure enough there was a little service station called the Peec Nos Pos Trading Post. Apparently they've had a couple of cyclists stop through and they've allowed them to camp in a little fenced in area beside the gas station.

The next morning I got up and waited for the store to open. As I waited, a truck pulled up and told me that if I was wanting breakfast, that a man around the corner sold breakfast burritos out of his truck, and that they were pretty good and I could get on the road a little quicker that way. I found the man selling burritos, and I was surprised at his English accent. He was from England, met a Navajo woman online, came to the U.S. and married her, and eventually became a U.S. citizen, though not without a whole series of headaches and being revoked the first time around. His wife made the burritos and he worked the early shift selling them out of the back of his truck. Many of the locals preferred the Spam and egg burrito, so I decided to try one. I don't think I've ever had Spam before. It wasn't as gross as I had imagined, but I wouldn't call it my favorite or probably order it ever again.

After breakfast, I headed down the road 5 miles towards Four Corners Monument. It cost me $3, but I went in and got my picture of me standing on the giant X on the ground representing the Four Corners border. I marked that point on my GPS. I've heard so many people talk about how it's not actually in the right spot, but my GPS said that it's only off by about 30 feet. The lines are just made up by people in the first place, so I don't think it matters so much that it's not in the exact right place. The other tourists there were a bit curious about seeing a cyclist in the middle of nowhere. They really thought I was crazy when I told them where I was coming from and going to.

Again, it was going to be a long day with a bit of a climb in the middle, so I hit the road again. When I was about 10 miles from Cortez I got a flat. I really wanted to make it to Durango that day, so I changed the tire as quick as I ever have and got back on the road. When I got to Cortez, I got a phone call from their newspaper. They asked a few questions and then said an article would probably run on Saturday. Between Cortez and Durango was where the climb was. There wasn't an elevation sign at the top, but I know it was over 8,000 feet. On my way up I got another flat. Again, a very quick change on the side of the road and I was back at it, climbing a mountain and racing the sunset. I made it to the top in plenty of time, and as I coasted down into Durango, my friend Mark rode out to meet me and led me to his place. Upon arriving at Mark's house, I have completed my longest mileage week of my life, with 651.6 miles in 7 days, averaging more than 93 miles a day from Ely, Nevada, to Durango, Colorado, all on a loaded touring bike. I needed this break.

Mark works for the train that goes from Durango to Silverton, so he got me a ride on it for the following day. I took a TON of pictures on the train. They're really repetitive, so if you go look at my pictures, you can skip through a bunch of those. You should look at some of them, because the view was amazing. It was also neat to go back to Silverton. I was out there a little over 4 years ago for History of the Southwest, a class through Goshen College. It's beautiful out there, and it's really tempting to come back with my bike (probably carrying a little less gear) to tour the area.

On Saturday morning I pedaled out to the car rental place about 6 miles out of town to get a car. Part of my rush to get to Durango as quickly as I did was so I could rent a car and drive to my friend Brent's wedding in La Junta, Colorado. After a brief scare where the employee of the car rental place showed up almost half an hour late, I got in a fancy little SUV, bike and gear loaded in back, and headed off towards La Junta. This gave me a chance to preview the terrain that I may end up cycling, depending on what the weather does. Wolf Creek Pass is going to be a bit of a hike.

I'm very glad I was able to make it to Brent's wedding. Brent is a Resident Director at Hesston College, so he and I worked together for three years before I started this trip. I can't say that I know his new wife, Angie, very well at all. I met her through Brent, but my interactions with her have been very limited. This social gathering was also the first time that I was that engulfed in familiar faces in a very long time. After spending 4-1/2 months out on my bike, mostly by myself with occasional interactions with one or two people at a time that I know, it was a bit overwhelming. I didn't have anything to talk about except the bike trip, which may seem like a great conversation piece, but I don't know how to talk about it yet. If you've been keeping up with the blog, you'll know that I've got a bunch of stories, but I don't think I've figured out a unifying theme throughout the whole narrative yet, making it not much more than a bunch of mildly entertaining stories without a point. I'm ok with that for now, as I'm kind of looking at this trip as living out a story. I've still got 18% of the story left to live, so of course I don't know the ending yet, but with my almost complete detachment from current events and the "real world" I felt a bit socially debilitated. I'm looking forward to these last 1,800 miles, but I'm also looking forward to being a functional part of society and a social circle when I'm done. I know that this trip has had an impression on me, but until I reintegrate into society, I can't really say how.

Also, I don't like traveling by car. It felt like cheating, and the scenery went by way too fast. I'm glad that I turned in the keys to that SUV this morning and I'm back to just my bicycle.

Tomorrow I intend to ride my bicycle towards Pagosa Springs, at which point I will decide whether to try Wolf Creek Pass, or to turn south into New Mexico. If I ride Wolf Creek Pass, that will definitely be the highest elevation I've ridden both on this trip and in my life. It is 10,857 feet elevation. After that, I would cruise across a high plain for a while before climbing back up to La Veta Pass at around 9,400 feet. After La Veta Pass, it's all down hill. Seriously, I'll be going down hill until I get to Louisiana. And hopefully I'll get an occasional tail wind.

5 more weeks?