From Phoenix, AZ to Silver City, NM

We left the Phoenix area last Tuesday, well rested and totally ready to be back on the road. OK, I'll admit it was a bit hard to leave the comforts of a shower every day, TV, free laundry and a well-equipped kitchen, but in reality once we were safely away from civilisation again, we were glad to be on the road. The weather was beautiful, perfect conditions for the big climbs that we had into Globe, AZ. We climbed up about 1000ft over ~35 miles and stopped for lunch at a rest area in Superior, before tackling the real climb of the day to Globe. The second half of the day consisted of winding up and up rocky and desert-y yet beautiful roads, with hairpin corners and no shoulder. The scariest part of the ride was through a tunnel, also up hill, with no bike lane or shoulder. We peddled so hard to get through before any big trucks plowed us over (we did have lights on however), that I almost threw up lunch on the other side. After a few more hours of this kind of climbing, we reached Globe, around 3pm. The only 'adventure' on the way in was Matt getting stung by a bee on his face while flying down a hill. An ice cream at a service station on the edge of town seemed to make it all better! Apparently Globe is a place you go 'to feel better about yourself' (the words of my unnamed 2nd cousin, haha), but in reality it's an old mining town, with a historic downtown that has definitely seen better days. By no means was it the worst place we've been yet! We camped at a primitive RV park on the train tracks, and managed to get through the night when the temps dropped to about 31F. We awoke to our tent engulfed in frosty ice, but warmed up quickly once the sun was up.

The next day's ride was to Safford, and was mostly flat and a comparatively easy 75 miles. Arriving in town we stopped at the visitor's information center and had our first taste of genuine hospitality. The woman working at the desk was reluctant to send us out to camp at the 'sketchy' RV park in town, and thought it would be too cold to camp anyways, so she offered the floor of a spare room off the back of her house. We were totally appreciative and happy to have a night out of the cold. We slept well and left early, for another big climb the next day. Our next destination was Buckhorn, NM. To get there, we had to climb almost 5000ft over 78 miles. It was a long day with a LOT of climbing. We went up 1500ft over 40 miles, stopped for lunch at a roadside store aptly named Three Way, as it's the convergence of 3 highways, and then in the next 14 miles we climbed 2500ft. The climb was beautiful, on a road with almost no traffic (I think 4 cars went past the entire time we were going up, and I can assure you that we weren't setting any land-speed records on that climb!). It took us about 2.5 hours to reach the top. We did get a few pity honks from the cars that did pass, which is actually a bit inspiring to keep pushing on! The top of the pass was at 6,300 ft, our highest yet, and then we proceeded over the border into New Mexico (wahoo, state #3!) and over rolling hills another 28 miles to our destination for the night. The highlight (for me) was stopping at a general store next to the RV park and finding Girl Scout cookies for sale, which we wolfed down in about 10 minutes, as a pre-dinner snack. :) That night was our coldest yet, dropping to around 20F, freezing our water bottles solid.

We had an easy ride the next day into Silver City (40 miles), and over the Continental Divide. That meant going back up to 6300ft again however, but we met some local cyclists on the way into town who made the ride go a lot faster, but definitely pushed us along at a quick pace, as they were riding without any load. Once arriving in town, we stopped at the library to use the internet and have a picnic lunch on the lawn, when a cyclist rode up and asked us if we needed a place to stay. Again, we were totally blown away by the generosity of people towards cyclists. We are now staying for 3 nights in Silver City, waiting for a snow storm to move through tomorrow, in a local cyclist's guest house and enjoying checking out town on foot, rather than bikes!