Rodeo NM to Columbus NM

 Friday March 25th

Yesterday we had to change our clocks one hour forward when we crossed into NM, since AZ doesn't participate in daylight savings time. It was dark and 36 degrees at 5:30 wakeup time.  Its kinda pleasant being in a warm sleeping bag, but torture when you have to get up and prepare your stuff for the days ride in the dark. I have a handy rechargeable light that I hang in my tent and it has a remote control to operate from the safety of your sleeping bag or when you are searching for your own tent among 45+ other tents that are just like yours in a dark field. We were supposed to make a sandwich for todays lunch stop, occurring truly in the middle of no where.  Put it in a cooler and grab it at the second Sag stop.  But I was so focused on preparing my riding stuff, putting charged blinkers back on bike, eating breakfast, packing up gear, putting it outside tent, etc, that I forgot all about making my lunch.  Oh well it's only 90+ miles, and it didn't dawn on me that I forgot to make the sandwich until we were 10 miles along the way. There was a minimal roadside gas station about 25 miles into the ride so I purchased some healthy snacks, beef jerky, M n M’s, snack bars which I hoped would help me survive.  

Typical scenery, always some mountains in the background.  Dry and very dry.  No sign of living critters except for the occasional cows/steers, and the cool ones with big horns. 

This was what I felt like today.  Hot and Dry, this water-tower stood out nicely. We were on the same road all day, sometimes perfectly straight as far as you could see, mostly level or slightly up or downhill. The enemy was the head wind that started about 20 miles into the ride and became very gusty making for a tough day on the bike. Traffic was light, but the occasional 18 wheelers generally politely pulled over completely into the other lane. 

This was the real Continental Divide today.  One of the riders poured a water bottle on the ground to observe if it flowed both ways. Instead it just soaked into the ground.  Interesting test though. 

After our lunch stop we passed the second of these roadside Customs & Border Patrol setups. I stopped to take a picture and an Army guy got out of the truck and approached me.  I expected to get yelled at for photographing top secret military equipment. Instead, I think he was happy to talk to someone. This was a very hi-def video camera.  We were 3 miles from the border wall and he was looking for “Bad Hombres”trying to sneak into the US.  He claimed to be able to spot a person up to 7-9 miles away.  The camera could also do this automatically by detecting movement.  It would give the exact coordinates and the Army guy would relay them to a patrol vehicle which would then go pick em up. I asked why they would be operating this camera when there was a complete section of wall in front of us and he said that the wall isn’t the perfect answer.  Asked how often he spots people and his response was - all day long every day. The most observed vehicles on the road yesterday were probably the CBP trucks and vans.  My parting question to him was could he beam me and my bike directly to Columbus to save me from biking the last 25 miles.  He replied that the technology wasn't quite there yet. 

Dinner tonight. Teriyaki Pork, Fried Rice, Lemon Chicken and Asian slaw. Yes, I had a second plate plus chocolate cake and an Eskimo bar something.  And maybe 2 beers as tomorrow is a rest day. We are staying in an old school building in Columbus that is now being run by the local community.  Not the best of facilities, but its not a tent. 

The total miles were 92.1, with 1,695 feet of elevation and an average speed of 12.6 mph.  Ride (pedaling) time was 7 hr 19 minutes. I drank 6 water bottles plus countless fluids at the rest stops. Calories burned were only 3,358, probably due to the fact that not much climbing and my slow average overall speed.  Too bad the Garmin didn't give me credit for the gusty headwinds all day long. I finished eighth out of 35 riders remaining on this trip. Good enough for me!  This was the hardest one day ride in my life to date. Tomorrow is a rest day, it couldn't come soon enough.