20 miles north of Pie Town, NM to Gila National Forest, NM
Mileage: 220.8 km (137.2 mi)
Riding Time: 18 h 52 m
Standing: 14th place
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| Day 19 Map |
I woke up in good spirits and looking forward to breakfast
in Pie Town. I willed my creaky, sore
legs down the road. I was getting
stiffer and stiffer first thing in the morning.
I got to the intersection to Pie Town and wondered which way to go. I discovered the restaurants are to the left
up the hill. I headed to the Pie-O-Neer
Café because Kristin said they would open at 6am. Nope – closed.
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| Closed - sad morning |
I rode up and down the road looking for an open restaurant,
but to no avail. I saw that the
Gatherin’ Place opened in about an hour so I decided to wait outside. The owner showed up early and let me in early
to have some coffee while they got the kitchen ready. I took the time to get the bike ready to go
so I could dash off after breakfast. As
I was waiting some northbounders showed up.
They were going at a touring pace and looked really clean. One German rider skyped with someone from
back home and got really worked up. I
think it had to do with work. Angry,
harsh German language for breakfast ambience. I ordered a couple of breakfasts
and they were awesome! Best food I had
in a long time. I dilly dallied too long
at the restaurant, but was having a great time.
I got my pie cap out when I learned they were good at any restaurant in
town. I picked up an apricot pie for
supper and was on my way out. I stopped
at the toaster house to take a look around, but didn’t stay too long.
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| Outside the Toaster House |
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| Inside the Toaster House |
I took a look around inside, exchanged greetings with a
surly guy and was on my way down the road.
I passed farms and ranches and enjoyed the morning. The jagged peaks of the Rocky Mountains were
a memory and I marvelled at the way the terrain had changed. The hills out here were so smooth and covered
with what I think was sage brush.
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| Smooth sage brush covered hills |
I passed one farm (or ranch) that had a cooler on the side of the road offering drinks to riders. I was topped up with supplies and didn’t want to stop… so I didn’t. What nice people offering to help. I am sure it would be take advantage by other riders.
Later on in the day, I came upon a pond. It was a welcome sight. Pretty much all of the little blue lines on
the map that were supposed to indicate a stream or creek were dry, dusty depressions
in the ground. I debated stopping to
filter some water, but I saw a cow skull sitting nearby. I thought maybe that was a sign so decided to
refrain. I kept riding past more wide
open spaces and desert cows.
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| Desert cows |
I remembered one of the northbound riders said there was
water at a church on highway 12. I got
to the highway and saw the place, but nobody was there. I looked around and marvelled at how wide
open this area was. There were just
these few buildings consisting of a church and farmhouse in the huge expanse of
open space. I knocked on the doors of
the church and no one answered. I took
some water and left a note on a $5 bill thanking them for the water and was on
my way. I hoped stopping and helping myself
to the garden hose was okay.
I rode off into the wide open space and met another touring north
bound cyclist. We chatted a bit about
the weather and parted ways. The weather
was good and I rode along. There were
some stretches I could see dried tire tracks in the hardened dirt. When this gets wet, it looked like it turned
into the sticky mud I heard about. Thunderstorm-like
clouds started to form in the distance all around me and I started to get
worried. I rode fast along the dried mud
hoping the rain would not fall. I was
blessed again as I made it through the dried mud without getting rained on.
The terrain started to get more rocky and hilly. I saw some cool rock formations with the
desert cows staring at me as I rode by.
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| Rocks and desert cows |
As I rode I looked at the two things my kids Evan and Mia
gave me before the trip. Mia made a tire
out of Rainbow Loom rubber bands and Evan made a Lego heart and drew an ‘E’ on
it. I put them on my aerobars by my
light and they were a constant companion the whole trip.
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| More cool rocks with the rubber band wheel and Lego heart |
I rounded a corner and saw another new sight. Wild pigs!
How awesome is that! They were
some of the ugliest creatures I had ever seen.
As I rode by they scattered and ran off into the trees. I kept riding looking forward to the
Beaverhead Work Station. The road
meandered into the forest. I approached
a Beaverhead Ranch and I thought that was the place. As I started up the driveway I realized I was
mistaken. It was a ranch, not the work
station. I kept going down the road and
there it was. There was no mistaking
it. I thought it was a forestry work
camp, but it was actually a military outfit.
I am not sure what they do there, but there were lots of soldiers. I saw a couple of young tourers and sat with
them while I had my pie. I didn’t have
quarters for the pop machine and they said I could ask one of the military guys
for change. They had some change so I
got a couple of pops. I don’t drink pop
very often, but these tasted great! The
tourers had made their way up from the border with a lot of gear. They were filming their whole experience and
had all their camera gear with them. Over
the last few days, the heat was pretty bad and one of them got sick. They were taking it easy so he could recover.
I finished my pie for supper and was on my way into the Gila
as it was starting to get dark. The
tourers thought I was a bit crazy for heading out in the middle of the
night. The climbing was steep outside of
the work station so I walked for quite a while.
As I was walking I started to see some more interesting bugs. There were big millipedes the size of felt
pens, big beetles, and jumping spiders.
The spiders were about the size of a nickel and would jump about 8
inches at a time. I considered pushing
through the night to go all the way to the border, but decided a few hours of
sleep would be faster than stumbling along slowly the next day. I stopped under a big tree at the top of a
climb and made camp at about 12:30am. I
wanted to get up at about 4 so that would give me about 3.5 hours of
sleep. Good enough for the last
push. Tomorrow would be my last long day
on the divide. Finishing in less than 20
days was a goal within reach.
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