Silver City, NM to Columbus, NM 11-10-07 thru 11-17-07

 

We stayed in Silver City 4 days. The day we arrived was our 28th Anniversary!! We celebrated by WALKING to a wonderful Mediterranean-style restaurant. We were camped in an RV park that was right in the center of town so it was convenient to all the services we needed. The campground was mostly RV campers, some permanent and some ¨Snowbirds¨. The days were warm, around 65 degrees but nights were very long beginning at 5:30 and dropping to about 40 degrees F (luckily the campground had a nice warm shower and laundry room to hang out in that was heated)!

Bike supplies arrived from our daughter, Alicia, via general delivery. It was time to replace all tires and put in sealant for tubeless tires. Also, we now need to carry more extra bike parts, because repairs and replacement in Latin America will be hard to find. At the campground we met John, from east coast, who was just finishing a hike from Glacier Nat´l Park to the Mexican border along the Continental Divide which is approx. 2500 miles (later we met a couple, Donna and Hue, who had just finished the same hike). Camping near us, was another couple from Santa Fe, Chess and Allison who were travelling for a year while looking for a new place to call home. Congratulations to John, Donna and Hue for the completion of a very long hike (they started the same time we did in June and were able to walk about half the distance we biked in 5 months time — now that sounds very hard to us!) and good luck to Chess and Allison on finding your ideal new place!

From Silver City we rode only 52 miles to Demming, New Mexico and the next day we rode to Columbus, which is 3 miles from the Mexican border. We stayed at a very beautiful State Park, ´´Poncho Villa¨, which had awesome cactus gardens everywhere. (CHECK OUT THE NEW PICTURES POSTED AT THE BOTTOM OF OUR U.S. PICTURES TAB!) On Saturday, Nov. 17th we got up and made a great pork chop and egg breakfast, thinking we were getting ready to finally leave the U.S. Well, by the time we packed up and talked to all the friendly camping neighbors who wanted to know all about our trip, it was noon! One of our neighbors, Diane said, ¨Why don´t you leave your tent here and ride 3 miles across the border to Palomas and take this coupon for 2 free margaritas at a place called the Pink Store, then stay here tonight and start early tomorrow!?!¨ Needless to say, our arms were easily twisted and we took her suggestion. The Pink Store is a great place to buy souvenirs that are brought in from all over Mexico and to get a taste of some great authentic Mexican food!!! We biked back to Poncho Villa right at sunset (awesome in the desert with the cactus in the foreground), set up camp again, and got to bed early so we could try to get an early start the next day! We did make an early start, after a pancake breakfast the park put on for all the campers and a man named Robert sent us off with some burritos he had made!(Thank you very much, they got us thru most of the day so we were able to just keep peddling!)

See you in Mexico!!

Bikin´ On, Ralph & Pat

Truth or Consequences, NM to Silver City, NM (5,000 Miles)

We forgot to mention in our last update that “T or C” was the 5000 mile mark for our trip!!!!!  We ended taking a few extra days and really soaking up the mineral springs there.  “Riverbend Springs” in T or C, is a great little place to stay and relax, if you are going that way.  It was a pre-Mexico de-stress spot -  hammocks, pilapulas and a laid-back, slow pace!We pulled our soggy bodies away from the hot springs finally on Tuesday, Nov. 6th.  We pedalled north and west to a little town called Winston where we found a small general store and filled our tummies with some homemade BBQ beef on a bun.   We had to bike about 15 more miles to get to a forest service area to camp, which we got to right at dark (5:05 now!).  Wow, we don’t have much time to bike now and it is pretty cold as soon as the sun goes down — OH, MEXICO— we’ll be there soon!

The next day started out with a nice paved road across rolling terrain, with views of the tree-covered mountains we were heading towards.  We then turned onto a gravel road and headed south to our campsite.  After a long climb uphill and then a very steep descend down we arrived at “Upper Black Canyon” campground.  (We didn’t understand the “Upper” part in the name, because we were definitely WAY down in a canyon).  There was a running stream here and we were able to get water, which was the first stream that actually had water in it since we arrived in New Mexico!

The following day was a very hard climb out of Black Canyon and then down another canyon and out of that canyon and down another and on and on.  (You get the idea!)   As we were riding hill after hill, we were contemplating what a nice warm shower would feel like and Pat commented that she would love it if our host had chocolate-chip cookies baked for us.   We were glad to finally arrive at our host from “Warm Showers” place, who’s name was also Pat, and found out she had a really nice warm RV for us to stay in for the night and offered us pork sandwiches and, you guessed it, CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES!  (She knows what bikers like, because her family is also into biking!) She also sent a large bag along for the ride!   (Don’t think they lastest more than a day!)  Thank you to Pat for your great hospitality – we will stay in touch, and hope we had helpful tips for your son’s bike trip.

After pedaling over hill after hill, again, but only 18 miles, we arrived in Silver City the following day.  We checked into an RV park right downtown to have the conviences we needed for the next few days!  We have made many new friends here and have listened to their adventures from summer 2007 and shared our summer adventure!  Chess and Allison, John and his dog, Hue and Donna, we wish you all the best on the rest of your trips!

We take many memories of good times with the freinds we’ve met and now are feeling anxious to go on to the next leg of our trip——MEXICO!   When we get there, we’ll toast a margarita to everyone reading this and don’t know when the blog will be updated next (because of the remote northern part of Mexico we will be in until mid-December)!

Until then, Adios!  Bicicleta Sobre — Ralph & Pat 

Santa Fe, NM to Truth or Consequences, NM – Warm Weather!

We ended up staying a couple more nights in Santa Fe at a Hostel realizing we had more things to take care of before leaving the U.S. and Santa Fe was a good spot to do them.  We shipped 9 pounds of stuff home we had been carrying on the trip and never used!  We got and  ordered more gear, got immunizations including Typhoid Fever and Yellow Fevor and all the Maleria medication we will need for Central and South America and met interesting people staying at the Hostel! (Ask us sometime and we’ll tell you more!)

We finally left Santa Fe Sunday, October 28th around noon!  Just as we were leaving town, we saw a long stream of Harley Davidson motorcycles being escorted down the main Highway in a “Toys For Tots” Christmas run.  Pat saw one motorcycle with a side cart and reminded Ralph that is how she originally had wanted to travel from Alaska to the tip of S. America (Pat driving, Ralph in side car)! 

We headed mostly downhill for 10-15 miles, then through rolling hills with Utah-like rock formations, then climbed up into the cedar and sage covered hills to a campground near the small community of Cedar Crest.  It now gets dark at 6:30,  the birds chirp in the tress and the coyotes howl at night. (We sure love being back in the warm climate!)  Ralph made Chicken-Peanut Curry for dinner – yum!)

The next day we rolled along on a deserted highway south to Manzano and camped on Forest service land, under huge Ponderosas , then moved on to the town of Mountainair.  There we found a great campground east of town with laundry, showers, internet, camping and a continental breakfast all for only $10 a night!   Before leaving town Ralph had to fix 2 more holes in his tire, (he had 4 flats while riding around Santa Fe), so decided it was time to change out the Continental tire to a Schwalbe with more tread! (No flats since!) 

At the campground, we met Gene, a man with artificial legs running across America, (He had been injured in Vietnam in the 60’s)!  His wife, Alicia is driving the support vehicle.  Just when we thought we were doing something amazing – we meet someone with even more determination to do an amazing feat!  It sure gives us encouragement to keep going, keep on running Gene!

We headed west and toured some ruins of a Pueblo and Spanish Mission, then took  gravel and dirt backroads southwest from there.  As it was starting to get dark (we were biking faster and faster to find a place on BLM land to camp amoung the cactus, juniper and yucca plants), we came to a sign on a side road that read, “White Sands Missile Range, No Trespassing, Government property”.   We had visions of being watched on survelance cameras by the U.S. Military while we wandered around in the desert!  Sorta scary! – but we biked on another couple miles and found a great spot for the tent tucked behind 3 large juniper trees to block us from the wind we had at us all day!  (This was ironically Halloween night, with the wind blowing hard and the missile site as our neighbor, we prayed there would be no trick or treaters!!!!)

The next day we continued on dirt and gravel backroads through ranchland, at one point we came upon a corral and the cows were spooked by us, came running out of the corral in all directions, with one coming full-speed toward Pat.  She screamed and turned  just in time to miss a head on collision with the cow!  That night we got to Socorro and stayed at a motel, then headed south on Highway 1, putting on 80 miles to Truth or Consequences.  (Remember the radio show- it was broadcast from here on April Fools day, 1950; so this town voted to change its name from Hotsprings to “T or C”.  (Truthfully, there are consequently hotsprings bubbling up all over this town, so we are soaking it up!) 

We found a nice RV park on a hill overlooking town and camped here 3 nights so far.  We’ve met neighbors all from different parts of the U.S. that come here each winter and live in their motorhomes.  They have all shared their interesting life stories, as one guy said, “Enjoy your adventure, life is short, so live it fast!  I wish I could do what you’re doing, but I’m too old!”   We keep meeting people that go through their life and then touch our lives and add enrichment to our journey, life is full of great characters!

Next, we will head west and rejoin the Great Divide Route once again as it heads to Silver City, NM!

Bikin’ On — Ralph & Pat