Descending from Carlsbad Caverns

Gotta love campsites with internets! Shot this earlier this afternoon, edited and uploaded it from a picnic table! We’re contemplating getting a Verizon broadband modem so we can have more reliable internet connection so we can do more broadcasts from our tent and campsites. If you’re interested in helping us out with it let us know!

On to the movie.

Some (cold) snaps!

Some photos and captions of the last few days…

We say goodbye to our hosts Rob and Betsy in Mayhill, where they are building their off the grid ranch house!

A photo of the wedding cake decorations on Rob and Betsy’s cake. They’re finally living the dream of moving to the country for real!

We gear up for the freezing weather! Fortunately we’re armed with chemical toe warmers and heavy duty mittens (thanks Mike!).

It is beautiful but cold riding for days!

Soon we find ourselves riding in hail and snow.

We camped at a roadside park in Hope, NM – literally right next to their city hall.

Inside the city hall where we tried to stay warm for a few hours. They let us use their kitchen and WiFi.

It has been nearly unbearably cold but we try to keep our spirits up!

Thanks for following along everyone. Your comments and kind words keep us pedaling.

In every tour, a little hail must fall!

We {heart} State and National Parks

After a lot of varied camping experiences in five states, we can honestly say that we love State (and National) Parks.

This is not to say that we have anything against free camping – we’ve just found that we’re often quite anxious and unable to sleep well. Something about claiming a random patch of ground leaves me feeling as though I never really know what I’m going to come across or what’s going to come across us. Even if it’s perfectly legit National Forest or BLM land, there seems to be this a nagging feeling that we should be up at first light and back on the road before anyone has the opportunity to find us.

Does that sound totally irrational (especially since I grew up backpacking and free camping in the wilderness in Oregon – and considering that we’re always watching our pennies)? Yeah, probably. But, there’s something to be said for having a few comforts in this otherwise totally unconventional and always changing lifestyle.

So, let’s talk State Parks… For starters, there’s something about their legitimacy that makes them feel safer and more inviting. They usually have potable water to drink, bathroom and shower facilities, picnic tables so that we’re not sitting on the ground, and fire pits so that we can expand our dinner possibilities. Plus, we’ve met some really great people and had wonderful conversations with other campers at State Parks. For us, the structured campgrounds of State and National Parks lead to a more restful and sociable evening, and it enriches the experience of this journey. In other words, it’s money well spent.

When we rolled into Tucson, we told everyone about our wonderful stay at Picacho Peak State Park. Only 40-some miles north of Tucson, it’s an easy trip from the city. The park is beautiful, set up the hill and away from the freeway noise, with shade pavilions, fire rings and the cleanest bathrooms we’ve seen so far. Our urgings that Tucsonans visit Picacho Peak were met with comments about how we were lucky that it was still open when we got there, and that it’s slated to be closed in June with most of the other Arizona State Parks.

As Californians, we’re all too aware of the ways in which state governments are struggling right now, and how state parks seem to be easy targets for saving a few bucks. But we’ve always thought it was very illogical to close state parks in an effort to balance a budget, because, really, how expensive can they be to maintain? Especially when you consider that they’re also making money.

At Pancho Villa State Park, we discovered that New Mexico had chosen a handful of furlough days for state employees – and that state parks would be closed during these dates. As it turned out, we wound up heading straight for a state park on exactly the days it was going to be closed. Ugh. And then… a stroke of luck… I checked the New Mexico state parks website to be sure I had the correct dates, and I learned that the Governor just issued an order that state parks remain open during the furlough days. All because New Mexico citizens complained enough.

In California, an organization (Save Our State Parks) was founded last year to keep the state parks open, after the state government decided to close them to balance the budget. Thousands of Californians came out in support of keeping the parks open – and stopped the planned drastic closures.

For us, keeping State and National Parks open isn’t so much a political issue. It’s about maintaining access to the natural world around us in a way that’s not scary or overly difficult. The more we travel, the more we learn – about ourselves and the world around us. And it’s sad for us both to think that people around the country might have to miss out on these same opportunities. More and more, we’ve been realizing just how much we appreciate and support State and National Parks. And we hope to see them continue to flourish.

So, we thought we’d put this out there… If you enjoy spending time in your State Parks (especially if your State Parks are struggling), consider voicing your support like folks did in New Mexico. Sometimes it’s amazing what a letter can do – and it seems a shame to lose these beautiful resources.

Crossing Southern New Mexico

Over the past few weeks, we have been zipping across Southern New Mexico. There is a lot of vast nothingness – wide open land, small towns, high desert landscape – in between a few larger cities, and it’s really easy to just pedal, pedal, pedal to get to the next camping spot or homestay, because there’s really not a whole lot to stop and explore (unless we were to go hiking, which is kinda tough with the bikes). We’re also getting bombarded with some serious winter out here, supposedly the coldest and wettest winter ever (or so we keep hearing from locals again and again), so we’re eager to get down to some lower elevations and (hopefully) warmer temperatures. But, don’t get me wrong… it’s beautiful country out here!

From Deming, we headed East to Las Cruces. For the first 15 or so miles, we followed Highway 549. This is a great small highway with low traffic volumes and wide open landscapes. It’s also where we met Patrick, who is running across the US! We had stopped for a snack and were surprised to see someone coming toward us on a bicycle. It turned out to be Patrick’s grandfather, who told us about his grandson’s project and that he was following him to Texas in an RV. We caught up with Patrick a few miles up the road and had a chance to hear more about his run. He’s headed straight out to Georgia over the next couple months, so keep an eye out if you’re on his route. Good luck Patrick!

We left Patrick and his grandfather and continued on to Las Cruces. Highway 549 ends and we were forced to hop on I-10. Not particularly pleasant, but not terrible either. We put on some music and just kept pedaling. In Las Cruces, we spent two days with our hosts, Lisa & Jacob. We swapped lots of stories (Lisa used to ride in a lot of 24- and 48-hour mountain bike races!), got a tour of town, and rested up.

From Las Cruces, we headed up and over San Augustine Pass toward White Sands. The climb itself is fairly easy, as you slog 10 or so miles at 1-2% (along a frontage road) and tip upward at 6% for just 3 miles. Lisa and Jacob had told us that it was wonderfully flat on the other side of the climb, but had neglected to mention that you get to go down first! (Considering that we still haven’t gone down after crossing the Continental Divide, Russ and I just assumed we were climbing up to another plateau.) It’s a screaming downhill, straight and fast, for several miles. And then you continue on for another several more miles to get to White Sands.

After our crazy White Sands camping experience, we were up and out quite early in the morning. We roamed around the park, continually forgetting that the white stuff is sand and not dirty snow (the cold that morning wasn’t helping!). We met our next homestay host, Michael, as he rolled through the park on a training ride. And then we set out for a leisurely ride into Alamogordo.

We ended up staying in Alamogordo for several days (thank you Michael!!). Yet another storm blew through and dumped rain and snow, and we were delighted to wait it out indoors. We spent that time swapping stories with Michael and discussing everything from the allure of the day-job to our society’s food habits to the effect of the economic slump on Boomers to tips from ultra-distance racing that we can apply to our travels to how we can make this trip self-sustaining.

From Alamogordo, we psyched ourselves up for a long, hard climb and headed up Highway 82 to Cloudcroft. The road to Cloudcroft climbs for approximately 14 miles, gaining approximately 4500 feet of elevation. In other words, it’s a heck of a lot of work! There isn’t much of a shoulder on the road and, unfortunately, we rode up on Saturday, so there was a lot of traffic, but most drivers were nice enough to just go around. Somewhere around 6500 feet, we started feeling the effects of the elevation. Neither of us was expecting it, especially so early, but we’re not anywhere close to used to that kind of elevation (our apartment in Long Beach, after all, was at about 100 feet above sea level). Sleepiness, headaches, not able to focus particularly well – it made those last few miles quite interesting to climb. And by the time we got to the top, not only was it the highest point we’ve ever been on our bikes, it was the longest continual climb we’ve done! Whew.

We rolled into the little town of Cloudcroft, got some coffee and hot chocolate, and sat down for awhile to rest, enjoying the fact that we were surrounded by snow. An hour later, warmed up, hydrated, fed, and not nearly as exhausted, we pushed off again toward Mayhill, a small community where our next homestay is located. From Cloudcroft, we took Highway 130, a smaller road with much less traffic. And, wow, what an incredibly beautiful ride! This road absolutely made up for the difficulty of the climb. Highway 130 climbs a few more hundred feet from Cloudcroft, then sends you downhill for 18 or so miles. You wind along small ranches and farms, following a small river. The snow from the last round of storms was thick on the ground, blanketing the trees and houses and cars. Cows and horses grazed in the snowy fields, while ducks and wild turkeys drank from the river. It was an absolute winter wonderland, and astonishingly beautiful.

Our plan was to capture the downhill on video to share with you all. And when we met some cows in the road and had turkeys fly right in front of us, we were delighted that we could share all of that too. Until we tried to download the footage and realized the camera had malfunctioned and didn’t actually record. (Boo!) But, trust us that it was incredible, and plan to come out here for yourself the next time it snows hard.

In Mayhill, we have had the opportunity to stay with Betsy and Rob, a couple from Phoenix who had moved out to the country a little over a year ago. Outdoors people for their entire lives, this 86-acre chunk of ranchland is a dream come true, and they’re finishing building a new house that is completely off-the-grid. Powered by solar panels, our simple living and tiny house friends would be enthralled by this small, simple house with amazing views and actual tree branches holding up the edge of the second floor.

We took full advantage of the opportunity of our stay with Betsy and Rob and traipsed around their snow-covered orchard, cow pasture, and tree-dotted hills.

From Mayhill (where we are at this moment), we’re headed down the hill toward Artesia and Carlsbad, where we anticipate getting socked by yet another storm. Then it’s south to Texas!

The Fire in the Sky

After a lovely homestay with some readers in Las Cruces (thanks Lisa for the checmical toe warmers!), we hoofed it over Saint Augustine Pass and headed towards White Sands National Monument. When we reached the top there was a large Nike Missile marking the summit and the start of a long, straight and fast downhill. We tucked in, took the lane and bolted down the highway going as fast as our nerves would allow. After the thrilling descent it was many flat miles to White Sands (63 total for the day!) into a variable headwind.

I had never heard of White Sands before until one of our Facebook fans mentioned it. The sand there is a blinding white in the day light and is made of gypsum. Its texture is interesting more like packed snow than fine sea sand. The park encompasses several large constantly moving dunes of the sand and is in close proximity to an air force base and missile test site. Occasionally, I had read online, an errant missile would land in the national park area.

Of course, we decided to camp there.

After checking in at the Visitors center where we had to get back country camping permits and checking in at the kiosk to get our bicycle permits we headed towards the heart of the white sand dunes. The woman at the visitors center gave us two pamphlets, one about leave no trace ethics and another about certain unexploded military hardware that we shouldn’t touch. “Nothing has happened in a while,” she said with a smile. The area, we were told by the family we stayed with in Las Cruces, was prone to occasional road closures due to military exercises but the woman behind the desk assured told us that “there doesn’t look like there’s anything scheduled for tonight.”

We pushed on and made our way to the trailhead where we could find the “well marked trail” that would lead us to the camping. Well, we found a small brown post with an arrow that pointed toward somewhere in the general vicinity of all the sand. The trail was relatively hardpacked at first but then gave way to slushy sand that made pushing our 140lb loaded bikes a lot more work.

We quickly figured out that the trail was routed over the tops of the dunes and probably wasn’t designed with a loaded bike tourist in mind. We tried for about half an hour to follow the trail, finding low spots in the dunes to trudge through but it became clear that we weren’t going to get close to any of the marked campsites before it got dark. We had a decision to make. Do we keep trying to push toward these campsites many dunes away or face the potential ire of a ranger who might discover us free camping (you sign a contract at the visitors center and the woman behind the counter was very insistent that someone would come around at night and check on us)? I reasoned that the rangers would probably think it a lesser inconvenience to stumble upon two campers in an undesignated site than to stumble upon two lost dead campers.

We made camp.

It was a hurried affair because it was getting dark and it was getting cold. While the predicted temperature was 30 degrees it felt much much colder because the sand didn’t retain heat and just reflected the cold. It was like camping on concrete. When we were all set up we hopped in our sleeping bags and bided our time. At around 6pm, we heard a ranger over the dunes on a loudspeaker announcing that they were closing the gate at 6:30 and you had to vacate by then (standard operational procedure in the park).

It was deathly quiet. No wind and the freezing layers of sand made a perfect sounding board. You could hear everything. Just about when we were going to fall asleep I saw light hit the tent. I thought it was a flashlight and that we were found out. I woke up Laura and slowly lined up my justifications to the ranger that I thought was outside the tent.

Just then we heard a spectacular explosion! It sounded like a shotgun was being fired overhead or a missile in the distance. Laura, finally awake turned to me and asked in the most matter of fact voice for the situation, “Russ, are we going to die?”

I quickly fumbled with my sleeping bag zipper, the tent mesh zipper and finally the exterior tent zipper. I looked out and was horrified when I saw what looked like rocket trails racing up the sky. Then there was the sound of two more large explosions. I did a quick mental assessment. It was dark when we were setting up camp but there didn’t seem to be any shrapnel or unexploded material around us. The person at the visitor’s center told us there were no scheduled launches tonight (but what did she know, she also told us the trail was “well marked”).

What was there for us to do if it was a missile launch? Scampering in the freezing night could not have been any better than laying in our sleeping bag. For a second, I felt that our fate was sealed and at the very least we had a good run of it. I wondered if I would have been happier if I had lived the last six months behind a desk under the protective glow of fluorescent lights rather than facing annihilation by conventional missile fire. I thought about what strange creatures we human beings are that we have to create such terrible terrible weapons. I felt empathy and a great sadness for every person who has been on the receiving end of these weapons.

What do we do? What do we do? What do we do? I don’t know. This was much worse than an angry ranger. This was much worse than a dozen angry rangers. We sat there in the tent and watched the sky and listened for a long time. Nothing.

About an hour later we heard talking and laughing. Suddenly, Laura remembered the woman behind the desk mentioning something about some students camping out. Maybe they brought some fireworks with them. Maybe they were launching model rockets for a class. We never found out for sure, but we were relieved nonetheless and decided to break camp at first light.

After a while I fell asleep. I slept as well as any person could that has seen the fire in the sky and felt a moment from annihilation.