Days ago, we spent hours trying to find an alternative route to the one our map wanted us to take from Duncan.  The problem was the mapped route would require at least one night of camping in the desert with no campground or Water.  We were excited with our new route, as it would provide a hot shower and soft pillow, plus it would be a short ride after our grueling ride from yesterday.  But the wind Gods saw it differently; the road could not be any more directly into the wind.

 Our half mile out of town was straight east and the buildings blocked the brunt of the wind.  However, once we turned southeast, the 20-30 mph wind stood us straight up.  We struggled to go 5 mph on our slight uphill, not that we could tell if there was an uphill, the wind was so strong.  We pushed to go a mile before stopping; our only opportunity to take a picture.  Ten miles out, we came to the intersection that would put us on course and the wind at our shoulder. Tempting as it was to not face the wind any longer, it was not strong enough to pull us away from a motel room at the end of the day.  Based on our photos, it was a pretty ride, but every nerve, thread and ounce of our body was focused on staying upright and moving forward. After two hours of biking we had climbed 500 feet and only gone 13 miles; it was arduous, no, it was Brutal!  Another hour of biking only yielded an additional three miles; we were getting beat up.  We had really underestimated how much the wind was going to take out of us and by mile 20 were were starting to ration water.  The climbing and desert wind was sucking everything out of us and we questioned our finishing.  We rounded a corner at one point and saw a car pulled over on the side of the road.  Our spirits lifted slightly, thinking it may be a police car that we could beg a bottle of water from.  As we pulled into the turnoff, we realized it was someone having a roadside lunch; we asked nonetheless, but obviously no one drives around with a cooler of water.  We pushed on.  About a half an hour later, a car approaching from the other direction starts waving us down.  Our desert Angel, Diane, had stopped her lunch and driven over 30 miles to buy water for us, over a Gallon of it.  Diane, if you are watching THANK YOU, as we were pretty close to done.

 The wind was still blowing hard in our face, but fully loaded with water, we knew we could make the last 12 miles, albeit slowly.  By our fifth hour of pedaling, we had only come 31 miles.

A few miles short of town, we were gifted a downhill we could actually coast down.  The wind fought hard to push us back up, but this time, for two miles we enjoyed not pedaling.  On the outskirts of town, we stopped at the first place we saw that offered refreshments.  The sign was not promising, but it was 2:30 and other than breakfast, we had only had an apple and orange.  Lunch was unexpectedly good, plus we got a tip on a good place to stay for the night.

Don’t judge a book by it’s cover our room was huge, brand new and comfortable; apparently a far cry from what we had reserved.

Six hours biking, eight hours out and only 40 miles completed.  It had been a very tough day.