2,062 Total Miles ✔️
DAY 34: Marathon, Texas ➡️ Alpine, Texas (30 miles)
Left from the gage hotel and mike had to hitchhike and me and luke biked. We knew someone we met along the way who was staying with a warmshowers host so we stayed there as well this night. Had dinner with her and her friends and we were offered a ride to el paso where the closest bike shop was for mike to buy a new wheel. Tania who drove us there does work in el paso and has a house there so is always going back and forth. We decided that was the plan and we would leave the next day.
DAY 36: Alpine, Texas ➡️ El Paso, New Mexico (230 miles driving)
We planned to leave around 1:00 when tania got out of work. We borrowed elizabeths truck (warmshowers host) and drove 3 hours to the bike shop. We also passed the prada store in the middle of nowwhere. El paso was pretty shutdown due to covid and tania and her husband jason invited us over for homemade pizza at their house. We gladly accepted and met their child merrick and 3 dogs as well. We ended up sleeping in a hotel in downtown that night and were probably the only ones in the entire hotel.
DAY 36: El Paso, New Mexico ➡️ Las Cruces, New Mexico ( 50 miles)
Arrived in new mexico. We also met another biker named belay who is a tour guide for hikes and bicycle tours. Luke popped another tire but we made it to the ghosttown city of las cruces where we found out the state of new mexico was pretty much all in lockdown. You were literally not allowed to eat outside anywhere, the only place open was new mexico state university. We grabbed some food and had to walk over to their campus to find a bench to eat at. Belay stayed with us this night as we discussed if we wanted to bike over emory pass (mountain).
DAY 37: Las Cruces, New Mexico ➡️ Arrey, New Mexico (58 miles)
We decided we were going to bike over the mountain so we took off in that direction. We drove through a bunch of never ending pecan fields on our way to an rv park. Luke popped another tire about 10 miles in. We get to the rv park set up camp and they actually had a small room with a tv so we could watch some football before what we thought would be the mountain the next day.
DAY 38: Arrey, New Mexico ➡️ Hillsboro, New Mexico (40 miles)
We thought we were doing the mountain this day but it was pretty windy and extremely hilly. We stopped and grabbed some food outside of hillsboro because we found out the entire town was closed for covid. We grabbed some pb and js and biked 40 really tough miles to hillsboro and slept in the town park.
DAY 39: Hillsboro, New Mexico ➡️ Silver City, New Mexico (56 miles)
Hardest day by far- not even close. We rode straight up this mountain 3,000 ft elevation in about 16 miles. We were told that the rest of the day was straight down into silver city but that was not even remotely the case at all. We get to the top of emory pass take some pictures and enjoy the view but it was cold and very windy so we head back down to eat something. The first 7-8 miles were downhill and then we were hitting rollercoaster hills up and down. This was pretty tough after the mountain climb and we finally get to the bottom only to have to hike 4 hills in a row over a mile long each. This was the first and only day we have had to get off our bikes to walk it up because our legs were to tired and it happened 5 times. We tried hitchhiking a few times because it was getting late but noone would stop so we just kept pushing and finished the day at 5,700 ft elevation. We got chinese food and mcdonalds and were all exhausted and decided to take the next day off.
DAY 40: Silver City, New Mexico (Day Off)
We could barely walk the next day so we took it as a day off. We were in contact with a warm showers host (Dave) from a friend and they invited us over for dinner so we biked about 4 miles over there and they also had the two girls we met (anya and sophia) staying with them as well. They were a very nice family, gave us a room with beds and a shower to use and fed us and we really appreciated all of this especially after our climb the day before.
DAY 41: Silver City, New Mexico ➡️ Lordsburg, New Mexico (50 miles)
Dave and his family fed us breakfast which was very nice of them because this was thanksgiving morning and they had somewhere to be but took the time to feed us before. We went to a local grocery store and found some thanksgiving food that was hot and bought three plates to eat in our hotel later. The ride to lordsburg was not that bad but had one pretty steep hill. Once we got to the top we hit our longest decline of the trip which was about 15 miles downhill into the city. We finally got there and had a modified thanksgiving meal and watched some football.
DAY 42: Lordsburg, New Mexico ➡️ Thatcher, Arizona (80 miles)
First day riding as a group of 6 because we left after the girls we met and met up with belay who we met a few days back. We rode 80 miles because there was really no other option and it was another really windy day which held us back and had us riding in the dark for a little bit.
DAY 43: Thatcher, Arizona ➡️ Globe, Arizona (75 miles)
Left pretty early because we were headed for a casino resort and hotel and wanted to spend some time there. All 6 of us were biking together at this point. We biked about 68 miles to the casino and found out the hotel was being used a testing facility for covid. It was getting late so we decided not to gamble and had to bike 7 more miles to the next town. We grabbed food and there was a winery across the street so we went over there for some wine tasting.
40+ days in and a couple weeks to go. We should be arriving in San Diego in a little over a week. Thank you again for following along!