Day 14: Friday 03/18/16, Rodeo, NM to Douglas, NM

Day 14 distance: 95 miles

Total miles:  791 miles

Elevation gain: 1951 feet

Map of today's ride:

Yesterday was another beautiful riding day with blue skies and light tail wind at the start of the day. As the day progressed, the wind speed increased, and the 95 mile ride, the longest of this C2C, flew by. It was a day for not too many pictures as the scenery varied little.

We observed several working windmills that were pumping water for livestock.

 

 

Another working windmill and the only cattle we observed the entire 95 miles.

Two buzzards flew away from a dead rabbit they were self-serve eating on the highway. I believe we saw more animal road kills and buzzards on this ride rather than anything else.

These two riders are Treus and Jan from the Netherlands. They ride much heavier bicycles than most US riders but are among the fastest riders in our group. This photo was taken at a community center in Hachita, NM. The community center is about all that is left of the town, but they are kind enough each year to let Bubba use the center for a SAG stop. Since there are no stores along the route, each coaster prepared a sandwich at breakfast and placed it in a cooler. The SAG staff then brings it and other snacks and beverages to Hachita, the half way point on today's ride. The people from the community center had also prepared a cold pasta salad for everyone. I think most everyone was generous in leaving a donation behind for the center.

 

This picture gives you an idea of how poor the area is around Hachita. I mean if you look close, you can even see there was no water connected to the toilet!

This border patrol station was located about ten miles outside of Columbus, NM. This patrol station, Hachita, and one ranch, was all I recall seeing along the road for the 95 miles until right outside Columbus. There were more border patrol vehicles on the road than any other vehicles.

 

 

If you look very close at the sky, you can see a white blimp in the upper left side.  The border control uses these blimps for aerial observation of the border between the US and Mexico.

Close to Columbus I observed the only agricultural operation for the entire ride. This appears to have been a cotton field as if you look closely at the field, you can see white tufts of cotton on the furrows.

A historical museum greets you as you enter Columbus.

The school we are spending the next two nights changed the time that we could enter from 3 pm to 4:15 pm. This is a picture of some riders and Wolf Pack members killing time waiting to get inside for showers and rest.

Tomorrow is our second day off of this C2C.

 LINK to Day 14 of my 2015 C2C blog.

Day 13: Thursday 03/17/16, Douglas, AZ to Rodeo, NM

Day 13 distance: 59 miles

Total miles:  696 miles

Elevation gain: 1254 feet

Map of today's ride:

 

NOTE: Due to a lack of WiFi and no AT&T network service, this blog and tomorrow's blog are late. This will be experienced off and on during this ride, so enjoy your time off during these wireless blackouts!

Thursday was another day of riding with blue skies and strong tailwinds for the last 25 miles of the ride. It is fun to ride along, with only minor effort, up to 26-28 mph! A bicyclist's dream! 

It was a beautiful morning as we left Douglas, Arizona heading 59 miles down Hwy 80 to the Painted Pony Resort outside of Rodeo, New Mexico.

This was a typical scene along the highway. Looks like real cowboy country!

Confirmation came that we were in real cowboy country when a little further down the road, we stopped and watched about 7 riders driving a herd of cattle to a new range.

This was a sad sight I observed from the road in a wash. Both horses looked undernourished, but the rust colored horse in the foreground looked like it was close to starvation. Fortunately, someone had thrown hay to them to eat. One wonders if the horses had been neglected or if the rust one had cancer or some other disease.

Note the one lone cow in the center of this photo.

An interesting colored old abandoned bridge along the highway. I believe at one time the structure supported the train tracks for the El Paso and Southwestern Railroad.

No major grades on today's ride and the highway was almost completely void of traffic.

 

 

 

 

Thirteen days and 686 miles after leaving San Diego, California, we entered our third state on this C2C ride, New Mexico! This was the second time I used the selfie stick. Apparently the blogger does not take any better photographs!

I stopped at this art gallery in Rodeo to look around. It is operated by a coop of 49 local artists. There was some nice artwork, but decided it was impractical to carry a 2'x3' painting on my back while bicycling.

 

That is a yucca tree in the foreground, with the Chiricahua Mountains in the background.

We rode a 3 mile dirt side road into the Painted Pony Resort, our night's stop-over.

 

 

 

This is the main house of the Painted Pony Resort. This site was developed by John McAfee, the founder of McAfee anti-virus software. It was originally built as part of an ultra light aircraft center. Please click on the link at the end of this blog for some historical background on this failed venture. BTW, for those who followed me last year, once again I was a lucky coaster and had my name drawn to stay in a bed in the house, rather on the floor of a hanger on an air mattress. However, this year I shared a room with another coaster and did not garner the McAfee's master suite. :)

 Due to it being St. Paddies Day, Anne served a delicious dinner of corned beef and cabbage.

LINK to Day 13 of my 2015 C2C blog.

Day 12: Wednesday, 03/16/16, Tombstone, AZ to Douglas, AZ

Day 12 distance: 50 miles

Total miles:  637 miles

Elevation gain: 2411 feet

Map of today's ride:

 I dislike being redundant when summarizing the day's riding conditions except when those conditions are beautiful weather like we have had for nine straight days. One slight difference today was that when we left Tombstone this morning, it was already warm enough that I only wore arm warmers for about 5 miles before taking them off and finishing the day's ride in short sleeves. It currently is a very pleasant 79 degrees in Douglas. As you can see in the map above, Douglas is very close to the Mexican border, only one mile away from the Gadsden Hotel where we are spending the night. I blogged last year about the historic Gadsden Hotel, so if you would like information about it, please click the link to last year's blog at the end of today's post.

The ride today was definitely split in two half's as far as difficulty. The first half included a grade about 10 miles long with the lower part only in the 2-3% range, but the last five miles were a steady 5-7%. At the summit of the climb, we reached the highest elevation of this C2C, 5,982 feet. We rode through a tunnel just after the summit on our descent into Bisbee, Arizona. After leaving Bisbee, the 25 mile ride to Douglas had a slight downhill grade most all the way, making for a speedy ride. An excellent way to conclude the ride!

After leaving the motel this morning, we rode through the main street of Tombstone, Arizona.

The famous Tombstone Bird Cage Theater operated as a saloon, gambling hall, theater, and brothel from 1881 -1889 during the height of the silver boom.

I happened upon a man who called himself Johnny Bones as I was leaving Tombstone. Turns out Mr. Bones is a Tombstone entertainer. I should have guessed by his outfit! However, he was happy to pose for a picture at no charge.

 I just checked and this same scene is in last year's blog, taken a few miles outside of Tombstone on Highway 80. However, last year the sky was not nearly as nice and blue as today.

I snapped this picture just as we were starting the last steep ascent of our climb up the grade before Bisbee today. The contrast of the green shades caught my eye.

There were a lot of rocky outcroppings as we approached the top of today's climb.

This picture was taken of the entrance to the tunnel we rode through, a couple hundred yards beyond the summit elevation of almost 6000 feet. If not for the tunnel, we would have had to do more climbing to get over the mountain.

This is The Inn at Castle Rock in Bisbee. There are a lot of interesting structures in Bisbee. Bisbee is an old copper mining town that is built right into the hillside of a mountain. It is now a tourist destination and is full of what I would call artsy and eclectic type shops.

Space to build is at a premium in Bisbee.

The Bisbee Bicycle Brothel is a well know vintage bicycle shop in Bisbee that just reopened in a new location after being closed for a couple years. A lot of this year's coasters stopped in to browse.

Inside The Bicycle Brothel.

Copper mining led to the growth of the town of Bisbee. This is a view of one of the open pit mines. Check out the link about the Copper Queen Mine for more information about the history of Bisbee and mining.

A view of a cattle ranch a few miles outside Douglas, Arizona.

Our rider meeting was held tonight before dinner in the lobby of the Gadsden Hotel.

Tonight's dinner was provided by the Gadsden Hotel. Two days ago we all chose between butterfly shrimp, ribs, beef fajitas, or tilapia. The food was very good.

LINK to Day 12 of my 2015 C2C blog.

Day 11: Tuesday 03/15/16, East Tucson, AZ to Tombstone, AZ

Day 11 distance: 73 miles

Total miles:  587 miles

Elevation Gain:  3813 feet

Map of today's ride: 

Today's ride took us 73 miles from our East Tucson campground to Tombstone, Arizona. We are staying at a Tombstone motel tonight. The weather was very good for bicycling today with the sun out and the temperature reaching 75 degrees when we arrived in Tombstone. There was a light wind forecast at 8 mph from the SSE, but throughout the ride it felt like at times we had wind from all directions. Regardless of that, it was light enough to not really bother today's ride. We had our second most challenging day of climbing, with over 3800 feet gained. However, I would rate this day the most difficult to-date as we rode 73 miles whereas the day we climbed slightly more than 4400 feet, we only rode for 32 miles.

This photo was taken early in today's ride on E. Sahuarita Drive, about 8 miles south from our campsite in East Tucson . The cactus in the foreground are Prickly Pear. The Prickly Pear fruit is used in many cactus jellies (and milk shakes) and it is also the state cactus of Texas.

 

A Prickly Pear cactus growing on an abandoned bridge along AZ-82 E.

There was a gradual but steady 20 mile climb on AZ-82 E that increased to a grade of over 7% for the last few miles. This picture was taken as I was approaching the high point which was 5200 feet high. The elevation at last night's campground was a little over 3000 feet. The over 3800 feet of climbing along with the 73 mile ride made today's ride the most taxing to date.

Your blogger as he approaches the top of the 20 mile climb.

I must like this spot as I see I took the same shot last year!

This picture was taken a few miles west of Sonoita. Beautiful high country! We remained at over 4100 feet of elevation all the way to Tombstone.

This is a closer view of part of the mountain? seen in the distance of the previous picture.

The vegetation changed dramatically after passing through the mountains seen in the previous two pictures. There is a lot more "scrub" type brush. This area will be very pretty when the shrubs turns green.

The San Pedro River. This crossing was about 8 miles before reaching Tombstone.

That is Tombstone on the hill ahead. The last 8 miles, starting at the San Pedro River, consists of several rolling hills similar to the one seen in this picture. It was a difficult way to end the 73 mile ride.

This is the view tonight from our room at tonight's motel.

Dinner tonight was delicious and would have been even without riding all day!

LINK to Day 10 of my 2015 C2C blog.