May 24, 2018 Edgewood, NM to Santa Rosa, NM

90.25 miles. Another milestone for this trip. It was a great day to get some big mileage, because I was coming out of the mountains with a tailwind. I looked at my blog post from April, 2015, the last time I did this ride, and it was very descriptive with lots of pictures. I climbed over 2000 ft, but descended over 4000 ft, so there was a lot of high speed bike travel! I flew downhill out of Edgewood, through Moriarity, a trip of about ten miles, then spent the next 20 miles with rolling climbers, until I got to Cline's Corner, NM. At that point I was surprised to see that I was over 7000 ft, higher even than I was as I peaked the top of the mountains east of Albuquerque yesterday. The entire trip today was on I 40, which was again a smooth ride. I'm really gonna miss New Mexico road when I go into Texas, here, in a couple of days. Pam met me at Cline's Corner for lunch at a Subway. Then it was off for the middle third of my trip, as I had planned to meet Pam at a rest area, 30 some miles down the road. As my good luck would have it, ( I mean that sarcastically, as well as for real) I had my second front tire flat of the trip. There were some sections that were pretty dirty with blowout shrapnel, so I'm not surprised I'm picking up the steel belts that are causing these flats. When I am traveling at higher speeds, it is harder to miss the crap that is lying in the shoulder. Today, I was clocking over 30 mph, at least 6-8 times as I rolled down the downslopes of I 40. The flat was only two miles before the rest area, so I changed out the tube, and proceeded to switch wheels in the rest area, where pam, my SAG wagon was waiting. I had prepared a separate front and rear wheel before I left Mesa, strictly for this reason. I didn't start the trip on new tires, so I knew their day would come, where they would be worn out, pretty early in the trip. Now, I have a new front tire and wheel rolling, but my back tire is looking pretty lean. I'll run it too the threads though, because that's what I do.
The final one third of my trip was an uneventful coast into the town of Santa Rosa. The highlight of my day was seeing eight pronghorn sheep, although not all at once. I would see one or two at a time out on the prairie, as I rode. The scenery has changed, as we are no longer in the desert Southwest. The high prairie offers pinion pines, sort of like juniper in appearance, and a cactus similar to Cholla chain cactus. There were some grazing cattle, and the rare pronghorn spotting, but not much else. As I got into Santa Rosa, I turned sort of South, and got a powerful taste of the wind that had been at my back all day. I crossed the Pecos River in town, which had water in it ( only the second river that was wet since I've started). Then there was a pretty steep climb out of Santa Rosa, to the Santa Rosa campground, where we stayed. We had a meal at the dirty, little restaurant at the campground, and chilled the evening away. I really should have been doing some work on the bike, because my handlebar grips are wearing out ( an easy fix), and I need to permanently repair the tire that isn't permanently fixed yet. Also my biking gloves are going to desentigrate ( I got zero help from my spellcheck on that one!). Ok have a few extra pair, but I'll wear the old ones till they fall off my hands, because that is what I do best.