Pueblo Pintado, New Mexico

After seven days of riding and a rest day to recuperate, we left Grants at 7am bound for Cuba. The total distance is about 125 miles, or 200 km, so we'll be camping one night along the way.

We rode along Route 66 for about 20 km, across to the other side of Grants, then headed north through arid farmland.

We were harassed by a few dogs along the way.  The temperature reached 24 degrees by 8 in the morning.

The wind began to pick up, but was generally either a tail wind or a cross wind, so it wasn't too bad.

We rode past a sign that proudly declared the area to be the heart of uranium and coal mining in New Mexico.

 The only animals we saw were horses, rabbits, cows and dogs.

 We rode past two big mining operations, and could see an enormous pit mine in the distance, with huge mountains of dumped earth all around it. Very ugly.

We stopped to rest in the front entrance of a church, where the concrete was nice and cool against our legs. We checked the map and decided to push on to a township called Pueblo Pintado, where we planned to buy food and then find somewhere to camp for the night.

The winds got stronger as we rode on. Even though it was largely a tail wind, riding for 6 hours in the heat with a loaded bike is still hard work, and I was getting tired.

We reached a place called White Horse, which is just an intersection and a few houses. Grazing in a field was a... a white horse.

We continued on, and eventually reached a large descent, where we could see a huge row of sandstone bluffs in the distance. The road went straight towards the bluffs. 

 At first, we thought the road would turn and run along the front of the bluffs, but instead it entered a canyon and went up and over the bluffs, dropping down the other side into a huge canyon.

 The canyon went on for over 10 km, and we had an easy ride as we were pushed along by the wind.

 As we left the canyon, and continued on through farmland until we finally reached Pueblo Pintado.  Just as we were getting there, we felt a few drops of rain! It was raining heavily up at the cloud level but almost all of it evaporated before it reached the ground.

The rain got heavier for a few minutes, and we pulled in to shelter under the roof that covered the community's letter boxes. An Indian guy came past and we asked him where the shop was. It was shut down, but he said there was another shop "a mile and a half down the road". Then the postman came along and we talked with him. He said that the shop was a bit further, "maybe as much as two miles".

The rain stopped after a few minutes, so we continued on. One mile, two mile, three miles, and still no sign of the shop.  At one point we passed a snake on the side of the road. I gave it a wide berth, even though it was probably dead.

We stopped to eat more food, despairing of ever finding the shop. Then finally, after about five miles, we reached the "Vapor inc. Chaco Wash Laundromat". We went inside and found it sold lots of convenience foods as well as propane gas. The laundromat section was enormous, with 23 washing machines and 20 driers! The laundromat was used constantly by the people living around here.

 By this time we had ridden 117 km, and I was dreading having to ride on. Gay asked the guy behind the counter if we could pay to camp behind the store, and in a very serious voice he said that that was impossible. But we could camp for free, so long as we didn't mind being locked in at 9 when the shop closed, and not being able to leave until 7 when the shop opened again. That suited us just fine.

We set up camp behind an old railway box car sitting at the far end of the property. The box car sheltered us from the wind and also the noise of the traffic on the road.

The only problem was that the sandy ground had lots of broken glass in it, so we decided not to use our inflatable mattresses because they would probably get cut. Instead, we'll sleep straight on the ground.

We ate some convenience foods from the shop and found they offered wifi...with a catch. It's a satellite link and the owner got annoyed with people watching YouTube while doing their washing, so he bought a device to automatically switched off the Internet router after two minutes and then started it up again! 

 This made accessing the Internet to send emails and Facebook updates rather challenging. Pete thought the two-minute limit was downright sadistic.

We set up two pallets as a makeshift table beside our tents and cooked dinner: chili beans and rice. we were visited by three dogs, who looked longingly at us as we ate and then helped us by licking our plates clean!

Pete says we have to look out for rattlesnakes, tarantulas and scorpions in our shoes if we leave them outside our tents. I think I'll put mine inside tonight...