Monday - Wednesday, September 6-8
THe half of a Platoro trailer home we slept in Sunday night was comfortable, a lot more so than braving the wind and cold in the high San Juan Mountains of southern Colorado. Started a little late at 9am but got to enjoy the conversation of a local old timer at breakfast. He fixes flats for those coming off Stunner Pass and has as much business as he can handle. Also guides for fishing and when the town shuts down for the winter drives a truck further down the valley. Sure do meet all kinds of people on a trip like this. He did warn us about the cattle in the road, which on our long pleasant descent down to Horca we ran into a calf nursing from it's momma in the middle of the road, oblivious to the traffic having to maneuver around them. Cattle do not know what to make of bicycle riders, they are very accustom to motorized vehicles, but us bikers just scare the hell out of them. We made Horca in record time, about 2 hours for 23 miles to find the one store/restaurant still closed, we were 15 minutes early, so utilized their WiFi to get some business done, still no cell coverage. Our target for the day was to enter New Mexico and get to the Lagunitas campground, about 55 miles from Platoro. John and I did that but it was a bigger effort than expected as the roads turn much rougher in New Mexico than Colorado, seems they just don't have the money or desire to keep their dirt roads in good shape. We made our target by dusk and ran into the guy from San Diego, Alex we had last seen in Del Norte. Pitching our tents quickly, we re able to get some water from bow hunters next to us who had a 50 gallon container of water, never seen anyone bring that much to go camping but sure did come in handy. Again we see the hand of God helping us through our day, really is amazing when you look for it.

Tuesday the three of us left camp for a long ride to El Rito excited about a hotel and shower and a few beers. Forty-five minutes into the ride we hit some very gravely road, Alex being male and 23 years was descending these inclines rapidly, he hit some loose gravel at the bottom of a run, lost control and went careening off the road barely missing a deep ditch. He also didn't have his helmet on, good thing he was in on the morning prayer, only came out with a nice strawberry scrap on his arm. The accident bent the plate that holds his back derailleur, luckily he had another plate having done it before and replaced the bent one, seems these crashes are not unusual for him. John administered to his wound while I got him another part for his trailer so it could attach to the bike. All fixed up we were off with more climbing and descending until lunch. Alex stuck with us until about 2pm then took off to make El Rito earlier, we were holding him back.

Ok a mea culpa, the El Rito day, 75 miles a lot of up and down, was my "wall day" just couldn't put it together, John was kicking my butt on climbs and having to wait up for me. I didn't have the juice, the vigor, the verve, the zip. We made it to El Rito but it was a lot of effort. Of course on the last summit we got rained on, a little cold but fortunately there was not enough precipitation to get the road really muddy. New Mexico is notorious for mud among the Great Divide Riders.

We entered a small community called Vallecitos, more like a third world country (as John put it), just before our last climb to get to El Rito. Heading into a close set of houses I noticed a lot of "beware of dog signs" as if there was something to protect, but have never seen so many in such a small area, everyone had one. Well the inevitable happened, two of them lit out of a driveway after John who was ahead of me. The muscular small brown one bit John on the leg, scraping the skin and drawing a little blood. The owner was already out of his house trying to get the dogs back in, luckily John didn't go down this time. His strategy of not making eye contact with the dog and riding at a moderate speed didn't work this time. It also is apparent we have more to worry about in neighborhoods than in the wild, at least wild animals don't chase after you. Also New Mexico for some reason is the dog chasing capital of the country, we have been harassed more by dogs in this state than anywhere else and we aren't even a quarter through it yet! At least the owner was nice enough to track John down with some hydrogen peroxide and indicated the dog was up to date on his shots. I suspect this is not the first time this dog has bitten someone. Too bad for John on this trip all of his blood drawing accidents have come from dog encounters.

We made our El Rito objective by 7:30pm, only to find it is a mostly abandon town with a forest ranger office and one open restaurant. Alex's bike was in front so we stopped in to see what was going on. Where were the bar and the hotel? Turns out there isn't any of that in El Rito. So we ate our Mexican food with no beer and started looking for a place to camp. The closest campsite was 4 miles back up the road, which both John and I nixed instantly. Our waiter took pity on us and let us camp in his backyard next to the restaurant, which also doubled as an aluminum can repository. John and I took him up on the offer, although I could tell that I was going to get minimal sleep time. Ends up that was the case with a lot of shouting going on until 1am and the the dogs would start barking and the howling. Finally got to sleep after 3am, John slept fine.

Wednesday was a very short ride day, only 16 miles down to Abiquiu and to the only inn in the town, the Abiquiu Inn which is the launching place for all of the studio tours and especially Georgia O'Keeffe, which as it turns out Tom Lafleur our friend from San Diego met many years ago. We took a mostly rest day which I needed and John went to have his dog bite checked. The inn is nice with a veranda that had WiFi, so I spent most of my time out there. We are resting up for the big, rocky climb tomorrow and the last steep one of the trip (at least I am hoping so).