2021-03-19 Day 8

Head winds and lots more desert.

Today’s trek was the longest since we started and the 7th day in a row of riding. 78 miles through the desert with little variance in the scenery. We had head winds pretty much the entire ride.

Finding routes in this part of the country is difficult, and they are scouted in advance, but sometimes we hit a stinker. Today, we had two stretches of highway of approximately 20 miles that were very uncomfortable to ride due to the traffic. It could have been changing traffic patterns since the last time they used this route, or possibly the time of day. But this was very stressful. We all agreed at the riders meeting to avoid this situation going forward.

The scenery in some places was quite grand, but still more and more desert.

There are many RV parks (most often called resorts) through this area. Today’s destination for the overnight was a typical RV Resort – actually better than most. We just set up our tents in some open area, do our thing for the night, and move on.

Today’s Ride Statistics:

78.5 miles

1,256 Elevation Gain, Max Grade 2%

Time to Complete: 5 hours 24 minutes

Average Speed:  14.5