WHAT HAVE WE LEARNED SO FAR?

March 21, Globe to Geronimo 54 miles

Well, we have made it over the mountain and the ride has leveled off for a while. On one of those downhills we got speed up to 40 plus mph. (Turns out to be the fasted downhill of the entire ride)We feel quite a sense of accomplishment as we ponder what we have learned so far.
1. Rusty: I can go longer and farther than I thought I could
2. R & G: 7% grade with our load is too much to ride.
3. Georgia: How to lick pudding out of the container with my tongue.
4. Rusty: If the sign says "6% down grade next 12 miles (or 6, or whatever miles) Don't believe it!
5. R: Memorized the Bike Friday phone number on the water bottle in the rack just below him.

Since we had changed our schedule the day before we had an adjustment to make for today's ride. Where were we going to camp? One can camp on the reservation with a permit so we stopped to check on that. It was $10/person and we thought that was too much so we didn't buy one and rode on. It turned out to be a good long ride because we had to get off the reservation before we could camp for the night. We usually TRY to get to our destination by 4-4:30 to set up camp and make dinner before dark. Rusty had been riding strong all day but had "bonked" about a half hour up the road. When we crossed the line out of the reservation we were ready to stop anywhere and it was about 5:30. We rode up to a nice looking trailer on some farm land and asked the farmer if we could camp somewhere on his land. He was so kind and gracious about it. Gave us directions down by the river by a pump with fresh water. John Hitton on Lonesome Dove Lane, Geronimo AZ (9400N 20570W). He was having his family gather for Easter weekend and had turned off the electric fence, so not to worry.
We rode on down the path and picked out what we thought was a great spot. The tent was up and Georgia was starting dinner when here comes John in his pickup to tell us we had set up camp by the cattle watering hole and the cattle were wanting to come in. We look out in the field and there were a half a dozen head of cattle looking at us like we were definitely intruding. We gathered up our stuff and relocated down a ways and the cattle headed straight for the watering hole. We finished dinner and settled down into our tent as the sunset glow was sinking behind the mountain. We could see the moon and the mountain from the door of our tent as we fell off to sleep. The next morning as we were breaking camp Mrs. Hitton and her blind son, Lynn, who looked like he was about 20-ish came by on their morning walk. We had a nice chat and Lynn said again how welcome we were and that they "didn't get enough guests."

Another thing we are learning:
6. There are a lot of wonderful, kind generous people in this world.