Eating and Resting in Grants, New Mexico

After a big breakfast, we walked over to Walmart to buy supplies. Pete had to buy a belt because his pants kept falling down!  Gay and I rode into town, where we checked out the local museum. We saw dinosaur bones, uranium mining relics, lots of different types of rocks, and even a fossilized shark's tooth that looks a lot like Anneke's!

 

Ruth had told me to try New Mexican Frybread, but so far on the journey, we hadn't been able to find any place that sold it.  The lady at the museum pointed us to a cafe where we could get frybread. It was the sort of place only the locals would go to.

Frybread is a New Mexico speciality, normally only available at fairs and galas, but Marywho runs the cafe, makes it the main part of her menu so that people could enjoy it all the time.  Mary, says that it's hard to make good frybread, and that you need a special sort of flour, which she orders from a particular flour mill in Colorado. It doesn't taste as good if you don't use the right flour.

I ordered a "small appetite" sandwich made with frybread, brisket, lettuce, tomato and pickles, and a second piece of frybread with honey.

The frybread was delicious, with a taste and texture like doughnuts, but without the sweetness. Each piece was the size of a dinner plate!

I was feeling very full afterwards, but knew I'd easily burn it all off the next day.

We went back to the hotel to rest, and then I went back to Walmart to buy new reading glasses to replace the lightweight ones had had broken, and also some antiseptic cream for the saddle sore I had developed after riding for seven days straight. Then I went back to the hotel to rest up, do some laundry and prepare for tomorrow.

We had dinner at the hotel, an Asian buffet. As we were ordering, a couple walked in carrying a stuffed armadillo! They said it was their surrogate pet. Weird

It was a very cruisy day, a rest day so we could gather our energies for the journey to come. We spent quite of time examining the map and deciding which route to take. The main route is off-road, hilly and with lots of opportunities to get lost. The official alternate route follows sealed roads, but has fewer opportunities to camp or get water. Most riders take the alternate route, apparently, and after a lot of discussion that's what we've decided to do, too.

We expect to camp out one night and make it to Cuba late the next day. Two hard days riding, but at least we're rested and raring to go.