day 3

Stars

Up a little slow, the morning was crisp & cool.  got packed and said goodbye to madelaine, she's the only one left in the campground.  el moro is closed on mon & tue.  she apologized for being so upset last night.  i told her she shouldn't apologize for anything.

the ride out of el moro is downhill, 10 mi. to ramah . on my way, i saw a pack of 5 elk in front of me jump the fencing, cross the highway, then leap the fencing on the other side.  my first elk in the wild, antlers were just coming up, maybe 12 fuzzy inches. 

in ramah there's a little place, the only one for miles, called the stagecoach cafe. a mom & pop kind of place where you can always find a few locals hanging out.  only one table occupied, a couple of men discussing a job replacing a pump.  grandma and grandpa came in with 3 young kids.  they were taking one to the ENT, the others to a home school.  grandpa immediately goes over and sits with the two men.  they talked about trucks, hauling horses and roping.  gramps won $3,400 last weekend at the rodeo on one of his bays.  meanwhile, i ate my favorite road breakfast, two huge pancakes and two eggs over easy.  couldn't finish the pancakes.

then another 20 mi. down the road to zuni.  the standard bike route cuts up to gallup and I-40 prior to zuni.  i wasnt sure what the road would be like, but i wanted to go into zuni.  there's not much to zuni, as it turns out.  some impressive mesas right there, but the town, like many native american villages, is very disappointing.  poor.  even the original pueblo, which i didn't tour but skirted around, was run down.  from the perimeter it looked like a tightly packed, single story, housing project.  i did stop in the small visitor center and had a good conversation with one of the volunteers.

15 miles later, i was at the arizona border and everything turned to shit.  the road was crap, cracked. it was like riding on an alligator's back.  and garbage all along the road.  hadn't really noticed that in new mexico.  and the wind started to pickup, to boot.  this was the first time i took my helmet off and put a hat on instead.  as a warning, the wind blew my hat off 5 min. later, took me 10 minutes to find it.  i put the helmet back on.

the only saving grace was that the staff at the zuni center told me about a road i should take that was a short cut, cutting the corner.  freshly paved, no traffic, it was as wonderful as a road could be for 8 miles.  saved 7-8 miles of riding.

in nm and arizona, seems like most intersections have cattle grates.  you dont see many cattle or horses.  and there's very few spots, guardrails, trres, posts, etc. to lean a bike against.

coming into sanders, i had no idea where i would sleep.  it was early still, around 4, and i was up on the ridge above the valley.  i was doing my thing where i'm looking at the side of the road for places to camp.  along most the roads there is barbed wire, range fencing.  no one living there, acres and acres of range fenced from the road.  hard to find a way to camp. but starting down into the valley suddenly the fence dissappeared and i figured i should take advantage of the opportunity, since i didn't have any idea what i could find down in the valley along I-40.

as i sat and waited for nightfall, i watched a storm in the distance to the north and another to the south, both moving slowly east.  but nothing overhead.  it was another dry, windy, slightly chilly night.