Week 2 did not blow by quickly. Lots of torture climbs and long rides, but we never went without sunshine. Our final day began in Las Cruces, NM, a smallish (75,000) community about 60 miles north of El Paso, Tx. Our first 25 miles took us through some great little towns you can only imagine… San Miguel, La Mesa, Mesquite and Chamberino. At one point we rode through a tunnel of Pecan trees where the temperature was 10 degrees cooler. We saw lots of cyclists today, mostly from El Paso. Some groups had SAG wagons like ours but the amusing part was that they crawled behind the riders – I thought Texans were macho. Mostly a flat ride today that covered about 70 miles. We stopped for lunch outside El Paso, after crossing our 4th state line in 13 days. We opted for the roundabout route into the city based on our experience last week in Phoenix. This turned out to be great detour of 17 miles and although it was longer, we had a bike lane on the local freeway – gotta love these western states with all these bike lanes. It was like our own personal bike path, though a bit noisy.
So now we rest after a long 2 weeks of riding. To date we have covered 888 miles, climbed 31,300 feet and descended 27,800 feet leaving our elevation near 4,000 ft. We have had only 1 flat and 2 wrong turns so far. Most importantly, our MVS’s (Most Valuable Sagoneers) are leaving us after today. Bill and Holly Burgess have been alongside us every mile with supplies, food, drinks, and encouragement. They have set the bar way too high; in fact I know Dan and Curt have no interest in many of the “extras” that Holly and Bill provided. Pedro and I (Carlos), our new names for traveling through New Mexico and Texas, have been spoiled rotten and loved every minute. They are great friends and we are very appreciative of their over the top efforts.
Now we look forward to Stage 3, with Dan Fishwick joining us as our Driver and part time rider and Scott Emerson . We won't cross another state line for 3 weeks - Texas is kinda big.
Our day off is tomorrow and we will try to get some new pics up for those interested.
Our week ended Week 2 at the 2nd W on the map at this link:
http://www.mapmyride.com/route/us/ca/san%20diego/937128727666
Thanks for following us - Carl
bill and holly, many thanks for taking such splendid care of "the boys". of course you realize that now they will expect such treatment at home, too! dan, i'm counting on you to gently retrain them, and lower their expectation levels. happy third week
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