Day Forty Two

Today went pretty well, similar to yesterday, but without the terrible ending. We rode 103 miles from 12 miles west of Shiprock, NM to somewhere 16 miles west of Kayenta, AZ.

We woke up to the same mud that we dealt with last night. We packed up and carried the bikes and all of our bags over to the road (at least 100 yards, probably closer to 200.) We cleaned the bikes as well as we could, and by about 2 hours after we'd woken up we were back in good working shape. We biked down the road a few miles and ate some breakfast.

We hit the Arizona border about 10 miles into our day, which is always great. Only one more left!

We had some fun hills today, but mostly it was just rolling. At the top of one of our bigger hills, there were some folks taking pictures of us. We'd seen their van go by and thought the license plate was "TEAMNBC" so we got excited, but it turns our it was "TEAMBNC" which stood for Team Ball N' Chain. They were just this couple who had gotten married after riding a tandem up a hill to their wedding ceremony, and had gotten jerseys that said the slogan. Oh well. They gave us some drinks (Muscle Milk, which I've wanted to buy all trip but have been too cheap) and some tubes. the tubes were too small, but we figureded they'd work in a bind. Awesome. I wish we got prizes at the top of every hill.

I got a flat tire today, which bring the score up to 6-2, with Jason still in a commanding lead. It turns out it was a staple that did me in. It went right throughy Kevlar tires and into my tube. Don't ever let someone at a bike shop order tires for you. Especially if they're
Panasonic Paselas.

We got to Kayenta and got dinner at Subway. We finally were able to charge our phones. We then rode a fast 16 miles out of town, trying to get as many miles in before dark as possible. We found a nice grassy and somewhat hidden spot off the road, and are calling it home. Tonight should be our last night of camping, if all goes as planned. I'm not going to miss it, at least not for a while.

Tomorrow: Waking up at 5 to do our biggest day yet. Pressing 140 miles all of the way to the Grand Canyon. CAN'T WAIT.