August 14 – August 24, 1993. Capitol Reef NP, Utah – Santa Fe, New Mexico
The story of the next ten days and over 500 miles; days 20 to 30. Covering the ride from Capitol Reef in Utah to Santa Fe, New Mexico. This, the third leg, is the end of Chapter One of Odyssey 93; a tale being told in two parts.
(Chapter Two, wherein we continue south and into Mexico, begins with our leaving Santa Fe on September the 9th and culminates with our arrival in Cancun, Mexico on the 25th of October. ¡Ándale pues!)
Herein: Gravity – How Does It Work?, Native America, Fry Bread, Surviving Durango, Going Postal, An Harmonica, Crosby & Nash.
Day 20 – August 14 – 70 miles – 13.5 mph avg
It seems we were on a mission to cover some new ground after our fun and restive time at Capitol Reef. And I can’t stress enough how wonderful this area is; the National Park itself and in particular the Fruita Campground. In fact, my wife and I have a trip planned for next month (by RV, yes, ‘Pandemic Tour 2020’); take a week and drive out from San Diego in a loop that includes three National Parks in Utah, the Grand Canyon’s North Rim and Sedona, AZ. I am so, so, so looking forward to revisiting Fruita; the only place other than Sedona I’ve previously been.
We said our goodbyes to Bob, JoAnn and Jenelle; they saw us off right with a big ‘ol pancake breakfast. Thus it was on the late side of the morning our getting back on tour. As it turned out there was quite a bit more downhill than not on this day’s ride and you can tell that by our MPH average.
(I haven’t, and likely won’t, take the time to calculate any kind of averages of speed or distance for the trip, in whole or in part. But by this point, we are roughly 3 weeks of good riding into the tour and we’ll be in Santa Fe in another 10 days. As I mention in the “About” section of this blog, it was always our plan to arrive in Santa Fe, New Mexico by a certain date. So I expect we’ve done the math ourselves at this point and we know that we are ahead of schedule and I think that shows in the amount of days we rest and some shorter mileage days overall. There was a lot to see and do in this Third Leg.)
On this day’s ride I note that we were forced to take cover while riding south on 95. No more rain thankfully, but on account of how brutal the wind was. An so we rolled in late to what I describe as Hog Spring Rest Area (pictured left). Yes, we “boondocked” a lot on the tour. In 1993 at least, nobody seemed to care.
Day 21 – August 15 – 65 miles – 9.5 mph avg
How (s)low can you go? I showed the MPH we averaged again in the header above as I did on the day before. You can contrast what we felt was an impressive average for a day’s ride (over 13 MPH) and what was a sluggish average (under 10 MPH). It doesn’t seem like that much of a difference but I’ll bet you’re still thinking of ‘road miles’ from behind the wheel of a large automobile. The primary reason for different rates of speed would be how much climbing elevation was involved in any given day’s ride. Winds would be a close second. So on a day where we covered, say, 60 miles by bicycle (respectable, not ‘all out’) a difference in rate of only 3 MPH is the difference between pedaling four and a half hours and pedaling 6 hours. Also maybe a nonchalant day and a grueling one. Not hours all ridden at once, mind you; never that. Any day’s ride was broken up by the need for water breaks, snacks, lunch, and to stretch our legs; even to take a nap, or just to avoid the hottest part of the day. Reflect back now to Day 14 (mostly flat, not a lot of downhill to speak of) where we covered 90 miles and averaged a whopping 15 MPH. Damn, we were good.
Speaking a bit more about ‘elevation’. Every day would have it’s ‘ups and downs’. <snicker> But something else to keep in mind is, ever since Day 4, in which we crested Carson Pass in The Sierra Nevada, we’ve spent time every day at altitudes of a mile-high plus. I’m sure on most days we rode all day at high altitude. Nevada, Utah, Southern Colorado, and New Mexico are all generally considered ‘high desert’. Mountain passes would typically be in the 7,000 and 8,000 plus foot range, and there were A LOT of them. Professional athletes often train at higher altitudes as a way of starving themselves of just a little bit of oxygen so that when they perform closer to sea level everything seems a bit easier. Also, it’s summer and it’s hot; even humid and ‘monsoony’ at times; so, you know, there’s that as well. DAMN! We were GOOD!
All this to say that we began our twenty-first day on tour needing a few more miles to descend in to the Lake Powell Reservoir area between Glen Canyon and Canyon Lands National Parks which has a mean elevation of about 3,600 feet. Meaning, we would be climbing up and out of that valley and back into the high desert plateaus, basins, and ranges for most of the rest of the day. I note in my diary there was a stretch of 10% grade. Ouch!
Adding insult to injury, there was a ‘gravity hill’ somewhere near the end of this day’s ride. I checked and could not find it on any list of known ‘gravity hills’ but what this means is a stretch of road that, coming from our direction, only looked like we were heading into a downhill section. But in reality, we were going uphill. Might have been more humorous had it occurred at the beginning of a tiring day. From the diary: “What up, gravity!?”
Day 22 – August 16 – 66 miles – devlish detail
From the diary: “Verrry cold out there at 6 am.” After that I describe travelling a beautiful section of highway with a drop into a small valley, a huge shield wall on one side, and passing through what appears as a crack at the top of the other side. This sparked a very clear memory of that day; getting up earlier than norm (probably to get in some miles before the winds kicked in) and while the sun had risen there were many long sections of highway still shaded by the cliffs and such. Visually it made for a striking contrast, here in bright sunlight, there in shadowed darkness. But what I’m most reminded of is that every time we came out of the sun and in to the shade it was like hitting a wall of ice; the difference in temperature was so great that, coupled with the wind chill pedaling our bikes created, it was actually kind of painful.
We made the town of Blanding, Utah, in good time then hit up a market and took our ‘brunch’ to a park to sit and eat it. Here we met two Utes. Simmer down, ‘Joe Pesci’; they were young AND they were Native Americans from The Ute Nation. These guys were just doing what so many people did during our tour and were curious about what we were up to; how we got here, maybe WHY we were here, where were we going, and so on. In retrospect, it feels like we didn’t personally interact with too many indigenous folks along our tour through The Southwest so this was a welcome exception. From the diary: “Nice guys. Shared their beer with us and some smokes.”
In the diary I note that we rolled out of Blanding heading north on Route 191 toward the town of Monticello. On a tip from the Utes we stopped where, on the map, you can see where the highway intersects with the solid green of the Canyonlands National Park which is where Devil’s Canyon Campground is. Here we made our lunch and took in some excellent views.
The name of that campground probably has something to do with the next section of highway we are about to meet. What you see on the map today is that from Monticello and heading east you’re on the innocently named US Route 491. But did you know that until 2003 this stretch of highway had been known as US Route 666? Yep, ‘The Devil’s Highway’. Anyhoo, my last diary entry for this day notes that we flew up Route 191 with the wind at our back. And, after eating our dinner in Monticello, that we continued riding east on Route 666 about a dozen miles. Finally, when it was getting late, we picked a spot to make camp amid a stand of oak and cedar and enjoyed a gorgeous sunset. (Would have been funnier if I’d noted that we rode east on Route 666 for ‘thirteen’ miles but I’m sticking to the script. As you know, the devil is in the details.)
Day 23 – August 17 – 63 miles – Cortez and a killer grade
In my diary I write that we got another early start and it was notably cold again. We pedaled past 50 miles of pretty, rolling farmland and reached Cortez, Colorado by noon; a respectable effort if I do say so myself. Over 3 weeks in to the tour, our bodies and our minds are well acclimated and we are tuned in to the many nuances of day-to-day travelling in this way. It’s a peaceful, easy feeling; it becomes a kind of ‘second nature’ I suppose. By now it takes a lot to feel beaten down by the road or the weather.
If, as I describe in an earlier entry, Carson City, Nevada; pop. 20,000; was the largest city we passed through until we reached Santa Fe, New Mexico; pop. 60,000 and 1500 miles later; then Cortez at around 8,000 was the second largest. (Edit to note that Fallon, Nevada, was around 8,000 too, but we saw it on the same day out of Carson City.) I don’t know why that seems so preposterous to me upon reflection. And I’d spent my entire life out west; albeit mainly in the Los Angeles and the San Diego ‘burbs. As remarkable as the ’emptiness’ described in sections of the tour pertaining to the 500 mile stretch of “The Loneliest Road in America”, it seems worthy of further remark just how unpopulated The Southwest is overall.
Now entering the megalopolis of Cortez, Brian (of New Jersey descent) found us a pizza joint worthy of the title and we washed a large one down with a few pitchers. We are on our way to famed Mesa Verde National Park. As the name implies, both the archaeological sites and the camping sites are high atop a steep mesa and it was a killer climb by bicycle to the top. I note in the diary that the folks in cars driving up and down waved to us a lot. We spark joy! Apparently we’ve decided to try and find friendly folks in the campground who will permit us to stay with them in order to save the $8 per night on top of the $3 each park entrance fee we’ve just paid. It may be dawning on us that we’re burning through our cash reserves too quickly but damned if we’re going to cut costs on beer.
Day 24 – August 18 – REST in Mesa Verde National Park
Another day of rest for us as we spend the entire day roaming the park with our new friends (more on that in a moment) trying to see all the major sites. I’m no scholar on the subject, but this continent’s history, especially the pre-European contact history of Native Americans, is a subject I find fascinating. Being from The Southwest, I suppose I find this region’s indigenous peoples of greatest interest. Being here then, being able to immerse one’s self into the picture and to soak up both the history and the myth first-hand, it is a kind of dream-come-true. And I’d say learning about history in this way allows one a more personal and deeply human connection with the past. In general, if more people would spend more time ‘walking in someone else’s shoes’, I believe the world would be a better place. I could go on to say how I believe that more people should spend more effort in sympathy with the First People who remain today; but that is a long and tragic story which I cannot do justice to here.
To come back now to the story of the two cyclists who hope to share someone else’s hard earned campsite. We meet Liberty and Nancy; two second generation Filipina sisters down from Chicago on a vacation of their own. While everything worked out just fine, things began with a funny mix-up. Somehow they were not staying in the correct campsite to begin with, also there was a nearby campsite which appeared to be vacant, too good to be true, and did not have a ‘receipt’ attached to it. Brian and I have parked our bikes in that one as a sort of ‘fall back’ position. When the true site-holders of the one the ladies were in returned, we just moved their marker and their gear to ‘our’ site and played the gracious host to them. In the end it was roundly agreed that ‘our’ campsite was the better of the two anyhow. And nobody ever did come to move us out of that one. I have no idea what we would have done if they did. But I’m sure it would have worked out just fine.
The four of us teamed up for the next two days exploring this amazing preserve with its archaeological sites, and famed ruins; the cliff-dwellings of the mysterious Anasazi or “Ancient Ones”, which Mesa Verde is most famous for. Because they had a car, no doubt we covered a lot more ground of the sprawling park than we otherwise might have. We hiked the trails, we shared our meals, we gazed at the stars; we had a lot of fun. I make a remark in my diary about how at first Libby and Nancy thought this way of travel, by bicycle, was “weird”, but that in the end Brian, ‘Svengali’ that he is, had probably convinced Nancy to accompany him on the next adventure.
Day 25 – August 19 – NON-CYCLING Travel From Mesa Verde to Durango
We began the day by eating at an All-You-Can-Eat Pancake Breakfast in Mesa Verde. We were in picturesque Durango, Colorado by the end of it. Thus it was our first day of “travel” that did not include pedaling. A distance of about 20 miles and 40 minutes by car. (By the way, “all you can eat” is music to the touring cyclists’ ears; we can clean up.)
Still hanging with Libby and Nancy, we spent the first half of the day taking in a few more of the sites at Mesa Verde. In my diary I note that we “had lunch again on the Ute Reservation within the National Park. The ‘Fry Bread’ there is great!” Apparently we could not get enough of the stuff and I go into ‘Forrest Gump-esque’ detail about how they are prepared. Mexican style fixings like a taco; ham and other sandwich styles; and the honey and cinnamon-sugar laden desert Fry Bread concoction which was the bomb.
As it happened, Libby and Nancy were on their way next to Santa Fe, New Mexico in their rental car. I write that Brian and I let them take us from Mesa Verde and drop us off in Durango. Careful readers of this blog may recall that we met a wild bunch of dudes from Durango while we were travelling through Nevada. They were into our adventure and practically insisted that we drop by for a ‘day of fun’ in Durango as it would be on our route. So we did.
Now I’m not saying that Brian and I didn’t have a good time in league with the Durango Bunch. But these guys were in another world out there. It was like stepping into a living, breathing Mountain Dew commercial. Straight from the diary: “These guys are sick. Every day is a quest for women, beer, and how to have just enough money without working.” At one point they boasted that Durango has more DUIs per capita than any other city in the country, and we’d have been hard pressed to dispute it.
Our favorite part of our stay was how all the town’s youth and miscreants gather at the swimming hole. The Animus River flows through town and at a wide spot there is an overhanging tree limb with a long rope swing. By this point in the summer, the river is at low flow so it took real effort to safely swing out and over deep enough water. The preferred method for the bigguns was to have two or more other dudes ‘underduck’ you through two or three passes for added momentum. Our bunch were younger than us but ‘adult’ and around college aged probably. But there were many others at the swimming hole and coolest was how the junior high crowd who were small and light enough could get shot out of there like a cannon and fly a long ways.
Durango is a very charming ‘ski town’ by winter and the center for a myriad of outdoors-minded activities all year round. It regularly tops lists for tourist recommendations in these categories. And if you’re a railroad buff like I am, you’ll want to take in their famously preserved Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad. All aboard!
Day 26 – August 20 – 25 miles – “half day”
Some of what I included in the post for August 19 would have happened on this day. We stayed overnight with our Durango Bunch hosts but I don’t recall the details. The reader can judge the reasons why that might be. Anyhoo… We appear to have ridden out from Durango in the afternoon and we stopped about 5 miles past Bayfield on the way to Pagosa Springs, a distance of only some 25 short miles.
In my diary from the next day I note this day and that one featured wonderful scenery and roads that were relatively level. We are now more in the Colorado countryside that comes to your mind with the evergreens and such. We are ‘in the mountains’ (in the San Juan National Forest to be precise) but not gaining and losing much altitude on this stretch between Durango and Pagosa Springs where we end up tomorrow.
Day 27 – August 21 – 44 miles – Support Your Local Post Office
Having traveled for the better part of a month now through The Southwest, we have become accustomed to the biomes most specific to the region. Nevada with it’s Basin and Range topography. Utah and southwest Colorado displaying all the colorful forces of erosion. Now in the deep, green forests of The Rockies we are riding through a kind of fairy-tale kingdom filled with evergreens and cloud-kissed mountain tops in the distances.
I go into great detail in my diary how, hot on the heels of two full days at Mesa Verde, we spent a few hours at Chimney Rock National Monument and quickly toured the archaeological site here. Among other things, our guide just happened to have spent a quarter at my alma mater, UCSD, on exchange from Dartmouth. The so-called Anasazi ruins here are on a smaller scale than at Mesa Verde but it is believed they were highly significant to The Ancient Ones; being used for astronomical observations, and the site as a whole completes an equilateral triangle with two other far flung sites.
Something I learned just now that I don’t think we would have been aware of at the time is that this specific region around Chimney Rock provides protected nesting spots for the Peregrine Falcon. The Peregrine would have sort have been our totem animal; the specific model of the bicycles which Brian had chosen for us a year before we set out on the trip is the Bianchi Peregrine. The word, ‘peregrine’, means to wander (this much we knew) and this falcon species can be found in practically every corner of the planet. The Peregrine Falcon’s hunting dives have been clocked at 200 MPH (!!!) making it not only the fastest bird, but the fastest member of all the animal kingdom. Yay Peregrines!
Re-reading my diary sparked the recollection of one of the most vivid memories that I have of the entire odyssey. This was the afternoon that Brian and I got blown uphill by a storm, and I mean we got BLASTED. We’ve just left Chimney Rock and are heading toward Pagosa Springs when the leading edge of it hits us from behind. Back in Nevada and Utah we’d dealt with several ‘monsoon’ storms and strong winds but this was on another scale. We’ve begun to feel the first drops and I think a bit of hail mixed in and suddenly it felt like we were being lifted up the highway by it; carried along by straight-line winds of practically hurricane strength. I swear that we could have ‘coasted’ and still been flown by it over long stretches of highway.
Coming to a lonely Bar/Restaurant/Motel we dashed for a protected porch area, carrying our bikes up some stairs, and finally the full force of the storm showed itself. It simply poured buckets and blew even more fiercely if that was possible. It could have been a real and dangerous mess were we still exposed out on the highway on our bikes. And so we waited out the worst of the weather in the dry comfort of their bar, continuing on to Pagosa Springs after the storm had spent most of its fury. When we got to town it was still a bit rainy and everywhere was soaked; camping roadside did not appear to be an option tonight. We looked for a motel but it appeared they were all full; at least the ones in range of our budget. But we did spy a good looking Post Office with several huge bays of postboxes behind doors that remained open 24 hours a day for customer convenience. Hmm. I wonder… From the diary, “Wish us luck!”
Day 28 – August 22 – 50 miles – Southbound and Divided
Our plan to spend the night on the floor of an all-night Post Office, quote, “worked out fine”. I noted that at one point after midnight, the Pagosa Parking Lot Skate Squad Thrashers noticed what we were doing and actually came over to apologize for making a racket. We told them to thrash on.
I describe the morning as being very surreal with a misty mountain top vibe. As we climbed out of Pagosa Springs, about 7000 feet, we crossed the Continental Divide and ended the day in Chama, New Mexico, elevation 7,800 feet. So a bit of a climbing day. Wild turkeys were seen along the route.
Speaking of Wild Turkey, turns out we spent the better part of the afternoon in a bar doing, of all things, watching football. In looking up who played who on that Sunday in 1993, I discovered that it must have been a pre-season affair between the Washington Redskins and the Pittsburgh Steelers. I must admit, I’m puzzled by that entry and have no recollection of this.
In my diary I did note that we ‘staggered out of the bar’ which is probably why we didn’t go far after that. As is our custom by now, we spied a likely stand of trees along the river which runs through Chama and made camp. Hey everybody! Get ready to wish Brian a happy birthday; he turns 30 tomorrow!
Day 29 – August 23 – 60 miles – An Harmonica
We have Santa Fe firmly in our sights now; we’ll be there tomorrow. It’s been arranged to briefly stay with and then leave our bikes at a friend’s house outside Santa Fe. After which we will go our separate ways for a couple weeks, returning to Santa Fe and resuming the tour and rolling on into Mexico.
Seems we’ve gotten out of the weather by now; in the diary I wrote about a ‘gloriously warm and sunny morning’. The ride was quite scenic and featured a lot of downhill as evidenced by our 15 MPH average on this day.
As referenced in the previous post, Brian turns 30 today. To celebrate, Brian treats us to a real sit-down dinner at an Indian restaurant in Abiquiu; lamb curry and a hummus and tabouli sampler. (What’s that you say? Tabbouleh? I’ve heard it both ways.) For my part, I purchased a fifth of Jack Daniels and, somewhere on the outskirts of town, we played harmonica and watched the stars. Good times. Happy birthday, my man.
(Edit to add: An harmonica? That’s so random. I admit to not having closely read all of the future entries so we’ll have to see if it comes up again.)
[Edited to add to the edit: Are you like me; a fan of M*A*S*H? Can you read or hear “an harmonica” and not think of Hawkeye pretending to be Winchester and barking in that accent at an officer over the phone trying to procure ‘an harmonica’ for a wounded Korean child? Well, I could not find a link to the bit or the episode (S9E14, Oh How We Danced) on YouTube in which it appears, but I did find it on Facebook video. Unable to send you to a timestamp but the scene starts at around the 16th minute and the setup is specifically 16m and 19s. Enjoy! https://www.facebook.com/21CFMASHTV/videos/293922324723732?=t16m19s]
Day 30 – August 24 – 50 miles – End of the First Leg
On our thirtieth day on the tour, and after some 1500 miles, we arrived at our first destination, Santa Fe, New Mexico. There isn’t much in this diary entry other than we ate some wonderful chili, and from where we were staying on the outskirts of town we could hear music from a Crosby & Nash concert in the distance. We are about to go on hiatus for a couple of weeks and I expect my mind was on other things.
When we get back we will continue southward and reach the Mexican border in a few days and keep going until we basically run out of money. And I know we are looking forward to that very much. The ‘keep going’ part, not the ‘out of money’ part. In a sense, these first 30 days are like training for the ‘real’ adventure which begins when rubber meets the road of a foreign land.
I regret that there do not appear to be any photos from our trip or of us which survived to the present day. We both look so lean and tan at this point with those chiseled cycling calves. For myself, I have not shaved the whole time and am sporting a lush, full beard. If I recall correctly, the beard had quite a bit of rusty red in it. I was already leading a pretty active life at this point. Plenty of surfing and basketball along with recreational mountain biking. But I was never in better physical condition that I was on this tour.
While I may putter around the site and spruce it up a bit, I don’t intend to write in it again until September 9th when the tour gets back on the road. Regardless of who or how many read this ‘blog’, I have to say that I’m very much enjoying writing it all down. And I’m very much enjoying the memories this has dredged up. I hope you’ll stay tuned. – Paul
End of the Third and Final Leg of the Southwest Chapter. Mexico Chapter begins September 9.
Odyssey 93 