The weather was awful this morning, stormy, rainy and cold. So Justin rode the less than 50 miles to El Paso. It was flat through pecan plantation and suburbs just like yesterday anyhow. I looked meanwhile at the little tourist town of Mesilla, where Billy the kid used to live and than I went to El Paso. the downtown consist of two hotels, two bank high rises, convention center, arts plaza and city hall and a lot of very trashy shops toward the border. I did not want to stay in a hotel with more than 2 stories so I backed several miles out of downtown and stopped at a motel, which was cheap and close to the U of T and a lot of restaurants. I took my bike and went along Paisano Road to the border. I had problems finding the right street for the crossing and hat to turn at the end, when a sudden wind blew a coke bottle onto my front tire and felt me. I did not hurt myself but was still pretty embarrassed. People were helpful and showed concern. I had to cross in the car lane and pay 35 cent bridge toll to enter Ciudad Juarez. There were even more people in the streets and if downtown El Paso looks already cheap and very shabby, Ciudad Juarez had definitely a touch of third world charm. It reminded me more of Africa than of the Mexico I know. But it was still much better than the town opposite of Fort Douglas Arizona. The whole town was filled with thousands of Mexican soldiers with mashine guns in their hands. El Paso and especialy Ciudad Juarez saw a lot of gun violence in the last month and after the last open street killing in which harmless bystanders have been killed as well. Both cities decided to do something against it and Mexico brought in the army. In the short time I went through to see the cathedral and all the shopping, markets etc., it seemed pretty peaceful to me.
For dinner we went in a so called Thai restaurant where the dishes on the menue were not recognizable the Thai chicken soup was white gravy, the beef curry brown gravy and the fried Banana an unripe banana wrapped in a springroll dough sheet. But what were we thinking to get Thai food in Texas. Next time I know better.
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
Monday, October 13, 2008
October 13th - Hillsboro to Las Cruces
Garmin says: 125.29 km 3930 cal 676 m elevation
Today is Columbus Day just the right day to ride to Apache country where Geronimo fought against the white settlers. This morning I went to the cafe on the other side of the street for morning coffee, When I came there I just saw a cyclist woman entering. Her bicycle was a Schwinn which was converted into a single speed and was packed with small panniers. I entered and she said, I saw your bike in Silver City and I met Justin yesterday on top of the hill. The world is so small, so now I know that her name is Gretta, she told me this much and she plays the fiddle in the Silver City string beans, found that in the internet after she told me that her band played yesterday at Gila Hot Springs. I had been told of this concert with 4 Bands already from Julia and David. And she is friends with the guy who won the Great Divide Race in 15 days.
I left Hillsboro pretty late as it was very cold in the morning, I even got a cold overnight. One of the guys in the cafe said it had 37 degree this morning on his thermometer. I wanted to go to Las Cruces and it would go mostly downhill except for some climbing in the beginning. The landscape was gorgeous and the streets were pretty empty. There are a lot of weird bugs on the streets and for days I see huge amounts of fat locusts. I think they might be in mating season as there are so many of them coupling, I mean copulating which doesn't look very exiting: a smaller one sits on top of a bigger one and they don't seem to move. I took a photo of a pair and while I was watching them, they did not move at all.
In Derry I had my first dog attack, not that I am not able to out speed them but it is still annoying and there is still the element of surprise. In the next town 4 miles down the road a second dog charged after me, now I am kind of traumatized, I didn't even think of dogs before and now I expect them everywhere. I had lunch in a redneck place which was plastered with Mc Cain/ Palin posters. Surprisingly it had Mexican owners and they did a collection for an employee who was for several weeks in a hospital - they don't seems to see a need for universal health care as you can just do a collection. Works like a charm!
Shortly past Hatch I met a Dutch cyclist who does the southern tier. He thinks there are no 15% inclines in America! Probably because there are just no mountains!
When I arrived finally in Las Cruces I was really tired and cranky. Poor Justin, he is just a born victim, he takes it all in. We stay at a Motel6 again and the kid behind the counter just left his home on Cortland St. in SF, because he could not effort to live there any longer, but he misses it so much.
We had dinner in a weird chain that Justin knew Uno, the food was very mediocre and the service sucked.
Aber das Schlimmste war eine Gruppe Deutscher (ca. 10 Maenner, keine Frau, die ueber der Kollege, der sie morgen trifft und aehnlichen eine eher sehr zaehe Unterhaltung hatten. Ich hab sie gefragt, ob sie bei der deutschen Luftwaffe, die hier doch irgendwo stationiert sei, seien. Sie haben zwar die Praesens der Luftwaffe mit einem Kopfnicken bestaetigt aber sonst nur ein nein hervorgepresst und ansonsten mich voellig ignoriert. So obskur benehmen sich auch nur hoechst merkwuerdige Deutsche, ich schaetze mal die kamen von Siemens oder sowas.
Today is Columbus Day just the right day to ride to Apache country where Geronimo fought against the white settlers. This morning I went to the cafe on the other side of the street for morning coffee, When I came there I just saw a cyclist woman entering. Her bicycle was a Schwinn which was converted into a single speed and was packed with small panniers. I entered and she said, I saw your bike in Silver City and I met Justin yesterday on top of the hill. The world is so small, so now I know that her name is Gretta, she told me this much and she plays the fiddle in the Silver City string beans, found that in the internet after she told me that her band played yesterday at Gila Hot Springs. I had been told of this concert with 4 Bands already from Julia and David. And she is friends with the guy who won the Great Divide Race in 15 days.
I left Hillsboro pretty late as it was very cold in the morning, I even got a cold overnight. One of the guys in the cafe said it had 37 degree this morning on his thermometer. I wanted to go to Las Cruces and it would go mostly downhill except for some climbing in the beginning. The landscape was gorgeous and the streets were pretty empty. There are a lot of weird bugs on the streets and for days I see huge amounts of fat locusts. I think they might be in mating season as there are so many of them coupling, I mean copulating which doesn't look very exiting: a smaller one sits on top of a bigger one and they don't seem to move. I took a photo of a pair and while I was watching them, they did not move at all.
In Derry I had my first dog attack, not that I am not able to out speed them but it is still annoying and there is still the element of surprise. In the next town 4 miles down the road a second dog charged after me, now I am kind of traumatized, I didn't even think of dogs before and now I expect them everywhere. I had lunch in a redneck place which was plastered with Mc Cain/ Palin posters. Surprisingly it had Mexican owners and they did a collection for an employee who was for several weeks in a hospital - they don't seems to see a need for universal health care as you can just do a collection. Works like a charm!
Shortly past Hatch I met a Dutch cyclist who does the southern tier. He thinks there are no 15% inclines in America! Probably because there are just no mountains!
When I arrived finally in Las Cruces I was really tired and cranky. Poor Justin, he is just a born victim, he takes it all in. We stay at a Motel6 again and the kid behind the counter just left his home on Cortland St. in SF, because he could not effort to live there any longer, but he misses it so much.
We had dinner in a weird chain that Justin knew Uno, the food was very mediocre and the service sucked.
Aber das Schlimmste war eine Gruppe Deutscher (ca. 10 Maenner, keine Frau, die ueber der Kollege, der sie morgen trifft und aehnlichen eine eher sehr zaehe Unterhaltung hatten. Ich hab sie gefragt, ob sie bei der deutschen Luftwaffe, die hier doch irgendwo stationiert sei, seien. Sie haben zwar die Praesens der Luftwaffe mit einem Kopfnicken bestaetigt aber sonst nur ein nein hervorgepresst und ansonsten mich voellig ignoriert. So obskur benehmen sich auch nur hoechst merkwuerdige Deutsche, ich schaetze mal die kamen von Siemens oder sowas.
October 12th - Silver City - Emory Pass - Hillsboro NM
Garmin says: 84.66 km 3104 cal 1680 m elevation
This morning I left finally, the sky was much clearer and the stormy wind was gone. It was hard climbing but I reached the Pass without problems, except for my but, as the yarn donut kept moving in the pants. But at 2100m (already the 3. time as the street went up and down) Justin passed me and I took the Styrofoam, that I found days earlier out of the car and taped it with duct tape to my saddle, from here on my butt was controlled but my cleats broke and my right foot couldn’t click in any longer. I hope my left leg got a bit more workout, it is to much slimmer than the right one anyhow. On the Pass I met a woman from Albuquerque who was catering to her husband and two other guys from Colorado. They had started two weeks earlier in Pie Town and, yes Andreas, they ate pie which was quite spectacular, were hiking to the Mexican border which they expected would take another three week to reach.
We stay over night in a charming little town where everything closes down by 3 a clock in the afternoon. Justin was lucky that he got our rooms. The rooms are very bed and breakfast laura-ashleyesque, what people seem to call quaint - yuk! Tomorrow I plan to proceed to Las Cruces and then it’s off to Texas.
This morning I left finally, the sky was much clearer and the stormy wind was gone. It was hard climbing but I reached the Pass without problems, except for my but, as the yarn donut kept moving in the pants. But at 2100m (already the 3. time as the street went up and down) Justin passed me and I took the Styrofoam, that I found days earlier out of the car and taped it with duct tape to my saddle, from here on my butt was controlled but my cleats broke and my right foot couldn’t click in any longer. I hope my left leg got a bit more workout, it is to much slimmer than the right one anyhow. On the Pass I met a woman from Albuquerque who was catering to her husband and two other guys from Colorado. They had started two weeks earlier in Pie Town and, yes Andreas, they ate pie which was quite spectacular, were hiking to the Mexican border which they expected would take another three week to reach.
We stay over night in a charming little town where everything closes down by 3 a clock in the afternoon. Justin was lucky that he got our rooms. The rooms are very bed and breakfast laura-ashleyesque, what people seem to call quaint - yuk! Tomorrow I plan to proceed to Las Cruces and then it’s off to Texas.
October 11th - Silver City
I was ready to leave when the big dark clouds which were moving fast to the north, started to rumble so I got my computer back out of the car and helped myself to another coffee at the reception and decided to wait the thunderstorm out. In the morning the reception was staffed with an old Indian, in this case better a native American woman. The owner/ manager of this motel6 was like 80% of all motel manager Asian Indian and so was the cleaning personnel, a weird couple which worked to all hours, didn’t speak English and wore both a big red chalk dot on the forehead. But I chatted in the mornings that we stayed there with the night clerk about what to expect of the cliff dwellings, the weather, wind directions etc. and she had every morning the same middle aged man there with her. The motels in Arizona and New Mexico that we have been to so far cater much less to tourist than to workers who work in the area. I do understand this, if this is for construction workers but in the days inn in Globe stayed about ten Arizona correction officers There seems to be a prison in Globe but for what does Arizona need to spend the money on all this motel rooms and I am sure they get the worst rate as the government pays.
I swerved off my original thought: By now it poured and I decided to stay another night as I was not keen to cross the highest point of the route in eventual snow.
By noon it cleared a bit and I went on a tour up the street to Gila. Silver Springs is over 1800m (6000ft) high in elevation and I felt it at once, there was just not enough oxygen in the air to breathe normally, my butt still hurt like crazy and than my chain jumped off again. I had screwed the chain thrower position several times in several different position, but without a stand it’s kind of hard to verify, if it’s good now or not. So I had an excuse to return into town and to the bike shop. The guy there adjusted the gears etc. nicely while I went through town, where I bough a big roll of loosely packed Polyester yarn which had the form of a donut (to accommodate my cyst in the middle) and had a nice lunch in a hole in a wall eatery which pretended to be Greek. The daily special was never the less German Bratwurst with Sauerkraut. I returned to the motel and spend the afternoon reading. Justin must have caught some kind of bug and was vomiting the whole evening.
I swerved off my original thought: By now it poured and I decided to stay another night as I was not keen to cross the highest point of the route in eventual snow.
By noon it cleared a bit and I went on a tour up the street to Gila. Silver Springs is over 1800m (6000ft) high in elevation and I felt it at once, there was just not enough oxygen in the air to breathe normally, my butt still hurt like crazy and than my chain jumped off again. I had screwed the chain thrower position several times in several different position, but without a stand it’s kind of hard to verify, if it’s good now or not. So I had an excuse to return into town and to the bike shop. The guy there adjusted the gears etc. nicely while I went through town, where I bough a big roll of loosely packed Polyester yarn which had the form of a donut (to accommodate my cyst in the middle) and had a nice lunch in a hole in a wall eatery which pretended to be Greek. The daily special was never the less German Bratwurst with Sauerkraut. I returned to the motel and spend the afternoon reading. Justin must have caught some kind of bug and was vomiting the whole evening.
Saturday, October 11, 2008
!0th of October Gila Cliff Dwellings
In order to heal a bit more I decided not to ride another day. Instead I went by car to the Gila cliffs
national monument. The road out to there was the best cycling road I have seen yet on this trip. I was really upset that I couldn't ride. On the road I saw the first cyclist since Phoenix exept for two old men on mountain bikes at the whitewater catwalk. Going down I saw a couple on touring bikes loaded with many panniers. They are Julia and David going from Louisiana to Seattle. Checkout their blog at http://common-milkweed.blogspot.com/ . I arrived at the National Park shortly before noon so I could get in on the daily guided tour.
Afterwards I hiked for an hour and went back to Silver City, where I had dinner with Julia, David and Justin.
Die zwei anderen Radler lassen mich wirklich daran zweifeln, dass ich was abnehmen werde. Ich hab sie an einer wirklich steilen bergigen Strecke getroffen. Sie haben schwere vollgepackte Fahrraeder und sind beide ziemlich mollig. Die fahren auf die typische Art. Sie versuchen immer bei entfernten Bekannten oder im Zelt zu uebernachten, obwohl sie sich als zu dekadent bezeichnet, womit sie ihre Tendenz zu Hoteluebernachtungen und Restaurantbesuchen meint. Fuer so etwas bin ich zu alt, war ich wohl immer zu alt, ich hasse es bei Fremden zu schlafen.
Finally the sun comes out, I might leave now...
national monument. The road out to there was the best cycling road I have seen yet on this trip. I was really upset that I couldn't ride. On the road I saw the first cyclist since Phoenix exept for two old men on mountain bikes at the whitewater catwalk. Going down I saw a couple on touring bikes loaded with many panniers. They are Julia and David going from Louisiana to Seattle. Checkout their blog at http://common-milkweed.blogspot.com/ . I arrived at the National Park shortly before noon so I could get in on the daily guided tour.
Afterwards I hiked for an hour and went back to Silver City, where I had dinner with Julia, David and Justin.
Die zwei anderen Radler lassen mich wirklich daran zweifeln, dass ich was abnehmen werde. Ich hab sie an einer wirklich steilen bergigen Strecke getroffen. Sie haben schwere vollgepackte Fahrraeder und sind beide ziemlich mollig. Die fahren auf die typische Art. Sie versuchen immer bei entfernten Bekannten oder im Zelt zu uebernachten, obwohl sie sich als zu dekadent bezeichnet, womit sie ihre Tendenz zu Hoteluebernachtungen und Restaurantbesuchen meint. Fuer so etwas bin ich zu alt, war ich wohl immer zu alt, ich hasse es bei Fremden zu schlafen.
Finally the sun comes out, I might leave now...
Friday, October 10, 2008
9th of October - Safford, AZ to Silver City, NM
Garmin says: 177.71km 9675 cal 3872 m ascent Wow, bravo, Justin!
As my weird growth doesn't let me ride without too much pain, I let Justin do the biggest section of the trip yet. I planned not to ride all of it and let the last 30 miles go, but Justin went for it all and gave up only less than 10 miles before Silver City, I am sure he never did more in his life. Meanwhile I went a scenic parallel road which dated from the 20s and was rough, unpaved and totally empty. I didn't meet one person in the 3 hours traveling there. But I took 100 beautiful pictures from my whole trip. I met a herd of wild horses which had some mules with them. I saw a rattle snake, but was to startled to take a picture and got pictures of the biggest copper mine of the northern hemisphere. This is really off, the biggest of any hemisphere is a well used expression which works only with southern! Something is not kosher with this copper mine I tell you!
I walked then over a catwalk in whitewater canyon, that was absolutely beautiful. I took so many pictures and most of them turned out well and when I tried to load them on the computer, I deleted all of them except for the last one, which is my car in the parking lot of whitewater canyon.
As my weird growth doesn't let me ride without too much pain, I let Justin do the biggest section of the trip yet. I planned not to ride all of it and let the last 30 miles go, but Justin went for it all and gave up only less than 10 miles before Silver City, I am sure he never did more in his life. Meanwhile I went a scenic parallel road which dated from the 20s and was rough, unpaved and totally empty. I didn't meet one person in the 3 hours traveling there. But I took 100 beautiful pictures from my whole trip. I met a herd of wild horses which had some mules with them. I saw a rattle snake, but was to startled to take a picture and got pictures of the biggest copper mine of the northern hemisphere. This is really off, the biggest of any hemisphere is a well used expression which works only with southern! Something is not kosher with this copper mine I tell you!
I walked then over a catwalk in whitewater canyon, that was absolutely beautiful. I took so many pictures and most of them turned out well and when I tried to load them on the computer, I deleted all of them except for the last one, which is my car in the parking lot of whitewater canyon.
Thursday, October 9, 2008
8th of October - Globe to Safford
Garmin says: 125 km 4030 cal 1236 m ascent
When I started really late (It took for ever to figure out how to connect pictures to albums in the blog, when I was finally done, it was long past midnight.) I had not yet cured the worst out of my growth, which has the size of an XXL chicken egg. It hurt so much that I went into the first hardware store to get some foam to upholster me a bit. they didn't have any, so I went into a gas station and got diapers which worked better than nothing. The wind was still blowing with considerable force from the east straight into my face. I am getting really tired of this. Yesterday I lost my camera again at a rest stop and had to go back a bit uphill even but with tailwind that went like a charm.
Soon I entered in the San Carlos Apache Reservation where they had a big Casino and a very fancy Safeway like Basha supermarket. I got a Coffee and a sandwich and chatted with people outside. Nearly everybody asked me where I was going to.
I went back in the saddle again and struggled over the mountains. Again: too much traffic, heat, wind and pain in the butt. I stopped on the other side in the second supermarket of the reservation. Here it looked like I knew indian reservation Supermarket to look. Not everything had bilingual sign, but for that the people spoke to each other something which I took for Apache or whatever their language is called. about 60% of the shelves were empty and the choices were very limited, a bit like east German Supermarkets used to look.
Das waere doch mal was fuer Ostalgiker!
I asked the woman working the cash register about the difference between the two market and she told me: "We call them the Cs." I guess the Casino money doesn't get distributed evenly. I wanted to buy a yoghurt or something like that, but they had nothing I would have loved to eat, so I just bought fruit juices and went to the covered hwy rest areas some steps from there. I pushed me bike over 3 meters of greenery and sat down. there was a group of motorbikers (I have not seen a bicycle rolling since Phoenix.) from Westchestercounty, NY. A woman came over and we talked a bit. She thought we do the same thing as they have a support car as well for their tour of the southwest. One of the guys asked me how much my bike weights and that was when I saw that I had a flat. This happens always after I push my bike somewhere of the road, I just should stop doing this. Before stopping here I found on the side of the roed a piece of foam padding which I picked up and put on my saddle. But by now nothing seemed to help any longer and I ran out of ibuprofen as well. I could not go full speed because each pedal stroke nearly killed me. Finally I reached close to tears Pima where I got some ibuprofen. By now it was close to 6 o'clock and the sun had set behind the mountains and I had another 8 miles to go. I did not like to ride on a crowded highway without lights so I called Justin to Pick me up and I rode out of the saddle pretty fast until he met me.
Abends waren wir direkt neben dem Hotel in einem Riesen Restaurant/Bar/ Andenkenladen, wo ein Maedchen mich nach meinem Akzent fragte und mir erzaehlte, dass sie zuhause eine deutsche Gastschuelerin fuer ein Jahr beherbergen. Das Maedel kommt aus Berlin. Ich hab mir gedacht: Oh mein Gott, wie kann die das bloss aushalten und kein Wunder, dass die Deutschen ein verqueres Bild von den USA haben, wenn Austauschueler an merkwuerdige Orte wie diesen hier geschickt werden. Der durchschnittliche IQ hier schein ca 30 Punkte niedriger zu liegen, als in den Orten, an denen die Mehrheit der Leute wohnen. Man vergisst immer wieder wie leer es hier ist.
When I started really late (It took for ever to figure out how to connect pictures to albums in the blog, when I was finally done, it was long past midnight.) I had not yet cured the worst out of my growth, which has the size of an XXL chicken egg. It hurt so much that I went into the first hardware store to get some foam to upholster me a bit. they didn't have any, so I went into a gas station and got diapers which worked better than nothing. The wind was still blowing with considerable force from the east straight into my face. I am getting really tired of this. Yesterday I lost my camera again at a rest stop and had to go back a bit uphill even but with tailwind that went like a charm.
Soon I entered in the San Carlos Apache Reservation where they had a big Casino and a very fancy Safeway like Basha supermarket. I got a Coffee and a sandwich and chatted with people outside. Nearly everybody asked me where I was going to.
I went back in the saddle again and struggled over the mountains. Again: too much traffic, heat, wind and pain in the butt. I stopped on the other side in the second supermarket of the reservation. Here it looked like I knew indian reservation Supermarket to look. Not everything had bilingual sign, but for that the people spoke to each other something which I took for Apache or whatever their language is called. about 60% of the shelves were empty and the choices were very limited, a bit like east German Supermarkets used to look.
Das waere doch mal was fuer Ostalgiker!
I asked the woman working the cash register about the difference between the two market and she told me: "We call them the Cs." I guess the Casino money doesn't get distributed evenly. I wanted to buy a yoghurt or something like that, but they had nothing I would have loved to eat, so I just bought fruit juices and went to the covered hwy rest areas some steps from there. I pushed me bike over 3 meters of greenery and sat down. there was a group of motorbikers (I have not seen a bicycle rolling since Phoenix.) from Westchestercounty, NY. A woman came over and we talked a bit. She thought we do the same thing as they have a support car as well for their tour of the southwest. One of the guys asked me how much my bike weights and that was when I saw that I had a flat. This happens always after I push my bike somewhere of the road, I just should stop doing this. Before stopping here I found on the side of the roed a piece of foam padding which I picked up and put on my saddle. But by now nothing seemed to help any longer and I ran out of ibuprofen as well. I could not go full speed because each pedal stroke nearly killed me. Finally I reached close to tears Pima where I got some ibuprofen. By now it was close to 6 o'clock and the sun had set behind the mountains and I had another 8 miles to go. I did not like to ride on a crowded highway without lights so I called Justin to Pick me up and I rode out of the saddle pretty fast until he met me.
Abends waren wir direkt neben dem Hotel in einem Riesen Restaurant/Bar/ Andenkenladen, wo ein Maedchen mich nach meinem Akzent fragte und mir erzaehlte, dass sie zuhause eine deutsche Gastschuelerin fuer ein Jahr beherbergen. Das Maedel kommt aus Berlin. Ich hab mir gedacht: Oh mein Gott, wie kann die das bloss aushalten und kein Wunder, dass die Deutschen ein verqueres Bild von den USA haben, wenn Austauschueler an merkwuerdige Orte wie diesen hier geschickt werden. Der durchschnittliche IQ hier schein ca 30 Punkte niedriger zu liegen, als in den Orten, an denen die Mehrheit der Leute wohnen. Man vergisst immer wieder wie leer es hier ist.
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