Extra Credit

After a sightseeing day, we rode into Albuquerque and visited a couple of Peter’s friends. We crossed the Rio Grande. Albuquerque is colorful and has artwork on the overpasses and along the freeways. Went into UNM and got invited to spend the night in Cedar Crest at Professor Dent’s house. Which meant showers!

I noticed that whenever we stopped in minimarts or diners, everyone is pretty friendly and almost goes out of his way to say hello. The weather is perfect.

Steve Dent, one of the longest tenured professors at the UNM School of Architecture, has a very interesting home. We enjoyed visiting and seeing his colorful, energy-efficient designs. Plus showers! He made coffee in the morning and we were in heaven.


So, yesterday Peter started off early and Mom, Dad and I went to hike around at an historic Anastazi sight, Tijeras Pueblo. It was sunny and we took pictures of lizards.
Then I left on MyBike while M & D went to the library.

That’s when things first went horribly wrong. I headed toward the signs for hwy 333/Route 66 and rode uphill seven miles to a fork in the road. There weren’t any turns mentioned at the Ops Briefing, so I called Peter and we figured out that I had gone The Wrong Way. I turned around. It was, of course, uphill to get back to where I started. So, I had a little 14 mile warmup. Then the wind picked up. A head wind that was snapping flags. (If there were any.)

There were dead snakes on the road. As I was getting past the town of Edgewood, the saddle BROKE OFF my bike. I picked up the pieces and found that the bolt had sheared. I called the sag wagon, since we have a spare bike that I could take the seat from, and rode back about a mile to the McDonalds. It’s always best if there is a Scottish place where you can do bike repairs.

Mommy made some lunch for me and I put the spare seat on and started again. In a downpour. More dead snakes on the road.

The last 10 miles of the day took about an hour with the wind. I was watching the trip meter on my handlebars, stopping every 2 miles to rest. I was actually counting the tenths of miles. It was so slow and tedious. But, I kept telling myself – it wasn’t cold and I wasn’t hungry and it wasn’t dark, AND I wasn’t lost!


So. I saw 5 dead snakes altogether, went 14 miles out of the way, broke my saddle, got soaked, and advanced about 30 miles for the day. We found a truck stop that had showers and promptly took one. That helped. Having a shower can fix almost anything.



Peter met a guy who is running across the country from Huntington Beach to Washington, DC to raise money for a friend with cancer. His sister and friend are driving his sag wagon, and he has a sponsor paying for hotel rooms every night. He had a very interesting conversation and the sister interviewed him for their blog.