Cold Desert Riding

Day 19, Mile 901

We took almost a whole day riding into Phoenix, and it took nearly that long to leave the city as well.  It's a big place.  But then we headed up into the mountains and through some amazing canyons.   The route from Phoenix to El Paso was totally in the desert, but we watched it slowly change its appearance.  As we gained and lost elevation, and as we moved East, we saw the variety of cacti change, and then the desert began to gain golden grasslands.  The prettiest area we rode through was the saguaro cactus canyon country around Superior, Arizona. We climbed a few thousand feet out of that defunct copper mining town as we headed through the red walled canyons.

 




Some beautiful desert riding.



And gorgeous desert camping.

The desert is stunningly beautiful, in a stark and barren desert way. We were told by the locals we chatted with this week that this is the coldest weather they've seen in 40 years, and many people and stores have had broken pipes. The highs were up to a chilly 40 degrees during the day and down to single digits to teens every night, with frozen water bottles in the morning. (Did we mention that we are camping?  Brrr!) We've actually been surprised during the day when we're riding in shorts and notice that a water fountain is frozen solid.  Then we see a thermometer and notice that it's only 37 degrees.

Great local food.



 We love to stop and get local specialties like huevos rancheros as a rare restaurant treat, but every morning we try to melt the cold out of our bones with coffee in some small cafe or convenience store after our camping breakfast of oatmeal. In Columbus, New Mexico, we stopped in the American Legion hall, which had a banner inviting people in to share coffee.  It was a great way to stop and chat with people living in a tiny town right on the Mexican border.




Rough road!



Wide open, high, grassy desert.

 MOST of our roads were nice and smooth, and almost all of New Mexico was lovely quiet riding right along the Mexico border all the way into El Paso Texas.  However, we decided to take a slightly longer route near the Calvin Coolidge Dam, on the Apache Indian Reservation.  By the time we got 11 miles in, the road (in the above picture) began to deteriorate.  Because of the amazingly bumpy asphalt, it took us nearly all day to travel the next 17 miles, but we only saw one car.  My butt aches just remembering that day.

We are currently staying with a Warm Showers host in El Paso.  If you are not familiar with this, Warm Showers is an informal group of people all over the world who volunteer to host cyclists, and to use the service, you also need to be available to host people traveling by bike.  It's really an amazing thing.  Complete strangers put their name and phone number on the internet and say "If you're coming through El Paso, give me a call.  You can stay in my house, get warm and clean, use the kitchen, clean your clothes, and take a day off."  It's one more connection that we can make with people we otherwise would not.  West, our current host, is an expert in cross border (American/Mexican) issues and runs a non-profit organization to teach mostly college age students about these problems.  We're staying one mile from Juarez, Mexico, one of the most dangerous places in the world, with a person who's insights and experiences make our world just a little bit smaller.

From here we head across the HUGE state of Texas.  We'll spend a thousand miles and about three weeks crossing the state and look forward to seeing the state change from west Texas desert, to the bayous that border Louisiana.