We started today where we left off yesterday--9 more miles of downhill from the pass, followed by some beautiful rollers, the kind where you can get up enough speed on the downhill to carry you up or almost up the next hill. And, we had a tailwind as we headed east. But then we turned south and the strong tailwind became a strong crosswind or headwind depending on the turn of the road. At this point we were back in irrigated agricultural territory between 2 mountain ranges and the wind had a clean sweep across miles of flat land. I'm riding along at 7-10 miles an hour and figuring that the 62 miles remaining would take 6-8 hours more of riding. Not good! Occasionally, the road would turn and I again had a tailwind, and I would think "Oh, this is not so bad," until the road turned again. Finally, at a little over 60 miles, I called it a day and sagged in for the last 20+ miles. However, Greta (with whom I was riding) and I had a bit of a wait for the sag wagon because the sag had a flat tire.
Redbud trees in bloom here. We passed lots of chile processing and packing plants and grove after grove of pecan trees. Who knew that they grow pecans in New Mexico.
Did you know they grow peanuts in NM too? Glad you are enjoying the state I spent a lot of my growing up years in.
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