Day 35 of our tour
November 7, 2016
28 miles today
(1549.2 miles, cumulative)
558 feet of climbing
(58,951 feet of climbing, cumulative)
Today we reached five weeks on this cycling tour, and yesterday we reached 1500 miles under our tires. Each day remains very satisfying, and today we did not have any miles on the shoulder of the freeway, so it was especially nice.
We arrived in Tucumcari after a pleasant morning riding in warm sun, though the morning began cooler than any previous morning:
The scenery during the day was again inspiring:
Jean was able to get a good photo of a hawk in flight. We've enjoyed seeing many soaring birds along the quiet roads, and it's always fun to see one on a pole as we pass. Sometimes they just watch us, but usually they take flight:
We saw more water today than we usually do. The red soil, and even the red water, of this river and riverbed stood out for us:
This fence, which featured shoes attached atop each post, caught our eye. We wondered what the background to that might be.
At one of our first rest and snack breaks we took off some of our outer jackets as the sun was really warming us up nicely. We played with our shadow and tried to make an M for Madeleine and an R for Ross, our grandkids:
One of the roadside rest areas had a couple of explanatory plaques. We took a photo of this one because it included a reference to a Captain Marcy. Our son-in-law will recognize the surname. Maybe there's a connection:
The city of Tucumcari is larger than the small towns we've been through since Amarillo. Once again we started seeing more Route 66 memorabilia and buildings. We talked to one fellow at the laundromat who was on a motorcyle. He said he grew up here, graduated from Tucumcari high school in 1966, and had only been back once before. He said that when he was a teenager, I-40 did not exist, Route 66 was the main road and ran right through town, and it was always jammed with cars and people looking for gas stations, motels and restaurants.
Outside the Tucumcari Welcome Centre was a model motorcycle that blended John Deere technology with the open road. I'm not sure this model ever went into large scale production:
In the last year the town has restored the train station. It is not finished yet and is not open, but the exterior looks great:
A covered walkway leads to an interior museum that we could see through the windows. Here is the walkway, with a model of an early wagon on display:
Our only problem of the day occurred when I did not see a small tetrahedron-shaped stone in our path that had very sharp edges. It cut the front tire and tube as we went over it, and there was quite the small explosion. We are out of new tires, so we put into use a tire that suffered a small split several weeks ago. I first applied one of the tire patches I bought along the way. Here you can see the split in the rubber, and the white of the glue side of the interior patch:
Hopefully the split will not get any bigger and we'll be able to keep it at 90 lbs. I have one more salvageable used tire if this one fails. Our tires are unique, and few bike stores carry them in stock. They are a mail order item. I think we'll get to Albuquerque with what we have. (I put my hand on my heart today when I promised Jean we will start the next tour with four brand new spares, and two new mounted tires!)
We will be packing more than we usually do before bed tonight in order to get an early start for our long ride tomorrow.
No comments:
Post a Comment