Day 20 Sat. Oct. 4, 2008

From Vaughn to Mountainair—66 miles. Last night we had supper at Penny’s Diner. We brought home some milk so I could prepare breakfast in the room and make some minor adjustments to the bicycle.

I got it into my head that the cold wave sweeping down from the Pacific, to this part of the country, would lessen the volume of high pressure winds I’m about to face today. It worked for the 23 miles I rode.

I got past Encino and turned left on Hwy 60, traveling south to Willard. Here the shoulders disappeared completely. The roads began to assume a roller coaster effect. I put my head down, changed into the lowest gear and kept my eyes just past my front wheels.

The winds pushed hard and I said, “Sequoia! Take me home.” As I climbed out of those bike hills moving at the rate of 8 mph, I saw a rattle snake in my path, jaws open, curled up with a beautiful color design of diamond shapes decorating his back (gold and black diamonds).

I said, “Excuse me!” and found the extra surge to climb a bit faster. The surge really did work for me. Don’t tell that to Obama!

The road was a beautiful pattern of red, blue, black and white pebbles, which continued for miles, but sometimes changed with blue and gray becoming the dominant colors.

It wasn’t too difficult to maintain my focus on the highway because it was all I could see for miles and miles. Occasionally I looked up at my surroundings: in the distance were the mountains, along the highway were wide sections of cut grass, sometimes not cut, and between the mountains and the highway, huge sections of fenced properties, ranches, I presume, occupying my visual space for hours upon hours.

And yes, those mile long trains drawn by 3 or more engines transporting large bins, or containers with various initials and insignia identifying their owner and/or country. Some of the containers were refrigerated and some flatbeds carried large agricultural equipment.

More and more, my journey took on the feeling that I was traveling through a huge basin. The mountains were the perimeters, the not too grassy slopes, now brown, as fall has begun, and spotted areas of black and brown cattle feeding in that vast space. It was a basin swirling with winds with a collection of feeding cows, shrubs and miles of fences.

Along with the evidence of a strong wind is my slower speed and my thin jacket whistling a happy tune, and my numb fingers moving every so often on my handle bars searching for some relief.

I was 39 miles away from Mountainair when I heard my name called. It was Pam. I did not even hear the vehicle behind me. Very rarely does that occur. Ranchers in these parts always travel in Pick-up Trucks. You can hear the rubber of those wheels from way off.

We decided that I should stop riding and we should get into Mountainair as soon as possible. There were no shoulders for me to ride on, we could see that rain was coming, and we didn’t have a reservation. We drove slowly through the town and saw a neat, attractive little motel called “The Rock.” We stopped and they had one room left! It was about 1:30, so I showered and took a short nap. When I got up we went to a newly renovated, very old (1923) hotel for dinner. The current owners are a couple who were very friendly and the food was great. There were several pictures of Renee Zellweger on the wall. She was there about 8 months ago filming a movie that has not been released yet. Mountainair was one of the more successful appearing towns we have passed through.