We got up around 11:30pm, packed up our bikes, and headed out onto the pavement in the dark. I had slept, though I won’t say it was a great sleep. I was a bit nervous about heading out onto this section through the night. I just didn’t know if I could stay awake the whole time.
It ended up not to be much of an issue. I had a few bouts of bleary eyed sleep creep in, but I head my headphones in, and as long as I could find something to keep my attention, I could stay awake.
The plan to knock out the pavement section in the night ended up to be brilliant, and I ate up the miles before the sun started rising. It was cool and calm, and I didn’t drink much water or eat much food on these miles, but didn’t feel all that hungry or thirsty until after the sun was well in the sky.
I rolled into the McDonalds in Grants as while they were still serving breakfast, which I ordered. I stuck around until they started serving lunch about 30 minutes later and got some more food, and some burgers to go. I had already ridden about 120 miles, and the sun was out now. I was starting to pay for not staying hydrated during the night’s ride.
I ended up heading out of town, then back tracking to a Walgreens to get some caffeine pills. I was starting to fall asleep while riding, and the heat wasn’t helping. After spending what was probably too much time buying and then packing my supplies I headed out onto more hot pavement.
The El Malpais area is beautiful, but the paved road was just too hot for me. I kept stopping under what little shade I could find, and checking the tracker to see where Tim and David were. Eventually they caught up with me, or I caught up with them, depending on your perspective. That gave me some more motivation to keep moving, even with the heat, and I pushed on toward Pie Town. I knew the Toaster House would at least offer a roof to sleep under and drinkable water, and that sounded pretty great to me. Though I was a bit bummed that I wouldn’t make it before the Pie shops closed.
The gravel road toward Pie Town ended up being one of the most rutted and washboarded roads to date. It was a far second to the rail trail in Idaho though. Nothing could ever be that bad.
Eventually we made it to Pie Town and the Toaster House. Jeff was already there, having continued through Cuba and sleeping for a few hours on the side of the road on the way to Grants. He had even picked up a few pies for us before the pie shop closed! We decided we were all going to try and make a huge push for the end since it was only about 300 miles away at this point. I ate a whole pie and fell asleep on a bed. It was an amazing end to a very long day.
