The Toaster house was busy with all of us getting ready to head back on the road. The Irish duo left the earliest with plans to make Silver City in two days. That was pretty ambitious given the distance (185 miles), the rough terrain, and basically no services along the way. They were young and had packed lightly, so I am sure they could do it. Hamish and Jess wanted to take more of their time to coincidence with finishing in Columbus around the 7th of September. They estimated it would take them between 4-5 days for that stretch. I had told Hamish the night before that I planned to head out separately today and try to get to Silver City in 3 days. It is always understood by us all that you should go your pace and comfort level. It had been pretty rainy lately in this part of the state, and I didn’t want to stay out there longer than needed, and risk the mud. I packed extra food and water in case I did get stuck out there.
Irish dudes
Just me and my shadow today
I left Toaster house with my heavily loaded down bike, following the tracks left in the sand by the Irish guys ahead of me. Another beautiful morning, but maybe that sounds like a broken record by now. The country side was varied throughout the day with denser pine forests, to more open plains. The roads, were rocky and dusty, which was annoying when a vehicle passed by too quick, and the wind was blowing in the wrong direction.
Getting ready to be dusted
I did arrive at midday at a remote church that had water available for cyclists. They had routed a long hose over the fence, so we didn’t need to open the gate. The problem was that that hose had been baking in the sun for the whole morning, and it was quite hot. I let it run a bit to see if the temperature would go down, but I was also conscious to not waste too much, especially in a place where water meant life. I filled my water bladders with that warm water, hoping I wouldn’t need it today, and let it cool a bit overnight.
The color of the hose should have warned me this would be hot.
It was a hotter than usual day, and I began to feel the effects. I made a number of rest stops under the shade of trees whenever I could find them. I then started to look for places to camp, even though it was still relatively early in the day. I found a place and just rested on a log in the shade. The sun was still pretty high in the sky, so I didn’t want to put up my tent in the heat yet. I had simply run out of energy, so forced myself to eat some food, even though I wasn’t that hungry. I finally decided it would be better that I try to make more mileage today, if I wanted to get to Silver City the day after tomorrow.
Funny how quickly the body can recover. It took a couple miles, but I got my energy and spirit back, and was making good progress again. Besides the early mornings, I like the late afternoon’s for riding. The sun was now closer to the horizon and the light made everything more pleasant. Even the few side-by-sides and trucks that passed me waved and slowed down to not kick up too much dust. I was feeling good.
I finally was forced to pull off the road and set up camp before it started getting too dark. What looked like a crap day, turned out all right in the end. 🙂
Beautiful sky! Nice pictures
ReplyDelete