Day 15: Farmington, NM

I woke up this morning in a cold, cramped motel room in Cuba. We "splurged" on a cheap motel for the night, just to keep our bikes safe, and allow for showers... oh, and wi-fi, to keep up with our blog. :)

We hesitated on getting up at 5:30 this morning, but knew that we had a 100-mile day ahead of us, and didn't want a repeat of our hot trip to Snyder. We shivered our way to the van with our belongings, and began our drive to our start point for the day.

Because we were doing a 100-mile day, we decided to run it in leap frog fashion. So, as one person was biking their 10-mile stretch toward the van, another person was taking off away from the van. Eventually, the first person would catch up to the vehicle, and the van would drive ahead to meet the second on their end, etc. etc.

Nathan took the first leg, and unfortunately caught 10 miles of straight hills. Sorry Nate. :(

As he was doing his part, I began mine. I took off and decided to play a little game called "Let's see how far I can get before the van catches up to me." Fortunately for me, I had very little hills, and was already up 15 miles when the van pulled up... I only had 5 more miles to complete my section and so I told them to catch up with me in 5. It felt good to beat my previous records. I did 15 miles in 51 minutes!!! :) Justin, as always, contributed a lot of mileage for the day. Sometimes I wonder what we'd do without him.

Looking back on the past 15 days, I have begun to see us in somewhat of a routine:

Justin- aka "Alarm Clock"; athlete/bike extraordinaire/group motivator, photographer; works on bikes, bikes a LOT, and updates the blog.

Andi- documentary director & camera-op, speed-racer (loves hills, especially going downhill), comedian; films documentary, makes a lot of messes, wanderer of the group.

Nate- head of the logistics dept., "Dad" ; talks to the Mom In Charge, keeps group together, helps organize the van, navigates and drives.

Kyle- aka "GPS"; main navigator, clean freak, Devil's Advocate (good at stimulating conversations).

Me- "Mom"; does laundry, makes sure the boys have on sunscreen (all Mom duties fall under this section), "Traveling Office", assists in filming and cleaning.

I see how all of us use our strengths to benefit the team as a whole, and even when we're struggling and arguing, we still seem to accomplish our "mission", so to speak. I am so proud of our team. We still have work to do, we're not as tight and cohesive as I would like for us to be, but hey- we just started this. We have 9 more weeks to get into the groove.

Our hosts this evening, the Zents, were AMAZING!!! Their friends came over, and- sorry Mom and Dad- I rode on the back of a motorcycle for the first time... just around the block. So fun! I think our trip has kind of been like that- fun and crazy at the same time. You don't know what to expect...




See ya'll in AZ!!!!
~Alyson