Confuscius Goes Slowly

From Jody:

Saturday, September 15:

The longest day so far and my first true century ride in over twenty years: one hundred miles, which on the route map looked mostly uphill.

I awoke at 2:50 to prep after a fretful night.  I puttered quietly in the room and successfully avoided waking Janie.  I left a note with both my anticipated departure time, and that I would leave the car keys at the front desk. 

I tried to jury rig Nicole's more powerful front light to my handlebars so it would not rotate downward from road vibration.  On the route just before 4:30 and the first few blocks were up a steep incline through Page, AZ's main retail area.

My creaking knees did not appreciate the rude start with no warmup.  Would I be astride the bike for ten, twelve, fifteen hours?  Oh joy of anticipation.

A small reprieve of a short downhill on the outskirts of town, around a curve near a gas station, and the light picked up a meandering pedestrian, a buckaroo stumbling to town after a Friday night bender?  Back to the climb. 

The glow of hundreds of lights and the silent exhaust of three 775 foot stacks from the Navaho Generating Station were a prominent feature.  We'd seen the NGS stacks and plume from miles away in Utah on the previous day's ride.  This facility provides electricity for parts of Arizona, California, and Nevada, including power to pump Colorado River water throughout Arizona.  The route was marked by both small rock outcroppings nearby and large rock monuments, low mountain peaks, and mesas in the distance.  The road alternated from a gray & black lizard skin-like mess to fairly smooth but ripply asphalt.

Road signs announced elevation milestones at 5000 feet, then 6000 feet, and the summit of 6568, nearly 2000 feet higher than the start.  The road just never seemed to slope downward, even after the summit. 

Janie and Nicole found me about thirty eight miles into the ride, and brought still warm breakfast.  My stomach was rumbling, not from hunger, but from issues with the night before's grocery deli prepared bean salad.  Ugh.  Frequent trips to the bushes are a problem when there's nothing but an occasional weed or two for five hundred feet.

Nicole joined me on the route and we continued along the state highway as Janie hopscotched ahead.  Sometimes we stopped, sometimes we just kept cruising.  We passed one intersection which featured a roadside tent revival.  Janie & Nicole commented on goats in the wash, but I missed the first sighting.  We all saw a later herd, as well as a bunch of sheep with a protective herd dog.  Another intersection offered an open air roadside barbeque.  With about thirty miles remaining on the ride, Janie set up our own cozy roadside lunch site, complete with a pair of camp chairs in the shade provided by The Little Darkness's raised rear door.

Jody and Nicole, mostly in the shade of

The Little Darkness.

The previous night's grocery store excursion afforded us a scrumptious feast of hummus & avocado wraps.  Where are the cocktails with little umbrellas in the glasses?  It was good to kick back with seventy miles down and "only" thirty to go.  The toughest part of the route was behind us.

After lunch, we continued along the route, this part along a busier US highway with little shoulder area beyond the rumble strip.  Motor vehicles were less cordial, mre impatient to pass both other motorists and us.  A more hazardous ride, but less exhausting.  At one point, a small herd of horses bunched along the highway, on the highway side of the fence line.  I drafted more closely behind Nicole, and we proceeded into the town of Kayenta, AZ.

Nicole and Jody, rolling down the road.

I was just under 100 miles, so I tooled around until I hit 100.  It took me that long to find a caramel malt - not a shake, but a malt.

Jody with a large caramel malt.

 

Jody's first century of this trip.

From Kayenta, we drove to Farmington, NM for the night, enroute to Santa Fe for the Jewish holiday of Rosh Hashana with our friends, Gene and Gail Goldberg.


It does not matter how slowly you go, as long as you do not stop.
     ~Confucius