New Mexico...done & done.

We rolled into New Mexico by climbing up, up, up to Silver City. The highlight was that we crossed the continental divide a little over 6,000 feet, the lowlight was that the ride was tough and either uphill or big rolling hills. Regardless, Silver City was worth it! It is a diverse city of about 9,000 and full of interesting food, outdoor art, bike friendly folks and people who just love where they live. We lucked out with our Warmshowers hosts who were incredibly kind and didn't blink an eye to our decision to stay an extra day so that we could travel up to the Gila cliff dwellings....a plan our bike map says we could do, but after looking at the elevation gain we thought this would just be a terrible decision. Whoever wrote this part of the map is nuts. That said, we didn't miss out because Pat (our host) offered to drive us the two hours up! We enjoyed an entire day with him, seeing the ancient Mogollon dwellings and enjoying the mountains via car. The day ended with a ride in his Elf....a bike/scooter mobile of sorts. Thank you Pat and Jackie!

Leaving Silver City was a tough decision. Not only was there more to explore, but we had to decide if we were going to travel up and over the mountains (climbing up to Emory Pass at 8,228 ft) or hit the lowlands again. The decision was made when an avid biker told us that our decision was like choosing between the best and worst of New Mexico.....so clearly we chose the best and spent the day climbing up and over the mountains. The ride up, though long, wasn't as bad as we anticipated and it was stinkin beautiful! The way down was a 9 mile, 2,000 ft. drop of hairpin turns. We were like the Tour De France. Insane. And we pulled into Kingston, NM (population 22) about three hours earlier than expected.

Our host in Kingston (Catherine) runs the best, old mountain lodge and is also an expert in straw-bale architecture and building. If you're into this, you've probably read one of her books. Her lodge (the Black Range Lodge) was built in the 1800s as a mining lodge and still holds much of this character....I was swooning! We enjoyed great conversation and dinner with her and then got probably the best sleep of our entire trip thus far.

Joy of joys, from Kingston almost everything is downhill! Eighty-two miles doesn't seem so bad when you know that most of it will be smooth sailing...or so we thought. About 30 miles into the ride (in the middle of chili pepper country) we had an encounter with a dog. Oy. This wasn't our first, but it was the fastest and came right after Dot. As she tried to bail from her bike, her foot got caught in her clips and she crashed hard. We were lucky to be in a town (and that the dog really meant no harm, I guess), but Dot took a hard spill on her shoulder, so much so that biking was not an option so we caught a ride to the closest real town, Hatch, to get one of their famous chili cheeseburgers and calm down a bit. Once we got there and reassessed her injuries we realized that her collar bone was in bad shape and required us getting to an urgent care in Las Cruces, 40 miles away, that day without biking. So we posted ourselves at the local gas station and waited for a kind person in a truck.

Hitchhiking is a new part of our adventure I guess! After waiting about an hour (and realizing that Las Cruces isn't exactly a hot spot for travelers thought there), a wonderful woman named Bobbi took pity on us and reroute her trip so that she could drive us. Bobbi is a transport service for rescue animals and was on her way to pick up two dogs in Albuquerque and bring them down to Tucson....a 7 hour drive one way. She said that she has picked up animals in almost every state but the Northeast. Amazing. She was quite a character, but she was our saving grace today and for that we couldn't be more thankful as she made it possible for us to get to the Las Cruces urgent care before it closed. Our day was rounded out by a trip to Walmart for heavy narcotics and a final ride to our host family's house where we settled in with pasta, strawberries and peanut M&Ms....comfort food all around. Little did we know what an "interesting" home we had stumbled into....and we'll leave it at that.

On Sunday we turned our cycling legs into walking machines and walked to Mesilla, a small town just outside Las Cruces. Here we celebrated with delicious margaritas at La Posta, walked around their market and purchased chilis from the most eclectic "shop" I have ever seen. On our way back we stopped in a Ramada Inn to inquire about buses to El Paso and met a guy who hosts Couchsurfers with his girlfriend. Quickly realizing that staying with them would be a MUCH better situation, we headed back, packed our gear and made a speedy, yet gracious exit to their house...and boy were we joyous. Thank you Cody and Sommer!!

 

It is now Monday and we sit in a cafe in El Paso, just a few blocks from "the fence" and Ciudad Juarez. What an interesting place to be and it's hard to wrap our brains around what country we're really in at any given moment. It is clear that Dot will not be able to ride her bike for the duration of the trip (for fear of greater pain or further injury), so we're looking into other modes of transportation: Recumbent bike? Scooter? Tricycle? We're trying to think out of the box as much as possible while also being realistic about her injury, limits and the vastness of Texas still to come. Neither of us are ready for the adventure to end, especially knowing the state of the Northeast at the moment.....sorry friends!

That said, we have our work cut out for us in the next few days as we solidify Plan B and will keep you posted. You can't stop this adventure train, we just have to reroute our track a bit :)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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