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I had a scare this morning when, 11 miles into the ride, I looked at my GPS to see that the route split off about 10 miles back. It took me a few panicked minutes to realize that my GPS track showed the alternate paved route. I’ve been relying heavily on GPS for navigation and felt a little nervous the rest of the day as I followed some other bike tracks. The tracks looked a little different from Queen Bee’s (Jenny) and Josh ‘it’s all downhill‘ ‘s which made me more nervous. To add, the wind was strong and quickly erasing any evidence of earlier passers.

Today was a day of arroyos. And a day not to get rained on, one because of flash flooding and two because of the adhesive-like New Mexico mud. Fortunately, wind and sand were all I had to contend with, and that was plenty. I also suffered my first flat tire of the trip, which set me back a bit. I didn’t get into camp until after dark. I tried to ride by headlamp, but it was scary, with deep gullies eroded across and alongside the road. I had a flashback and a scare when I fell on one of them and rolled my ankle. All was good, but I decided I was being an idiot trying to ride this terrain in the dark. I would have stopped and camped, but I could see a light in the distance that drew me like a moth to a light (or perhaps to a bug zapper). It wasn’t until I was only a few feet from the light that I confirmed I had found home for the night and not a bug zapper.