We were packed and at the Last Chance at 8, after saying best wishes to Panama Bill. The Last Chance appears to be a favorite of the local ranchers as a group of 6 of them gathered around the adjacent table for coffee and bacon&egg biscuits as we ate and had sub sandwiches made to take with us on our 43 mile serviceless ride. Turns out that a few of the ranchers had Iowa conections, and so we had common ground for conversation.
We left the ranchers still working on issues of the day and were wished safe travel as we headed out the door and onto our bikes.
It was a morning of steady gradual climbing on US 180 for the first 9 miles, then we turned onto NM 78 for some more vigorous climbing over a series of ever higher ridges before desending into Mule Creek. We stopped briefly there so Barb could mail a package to her grandsons, and then began climb to the pass at 6295 ft.
About halfway up, we crossed into AZ and stopped to our standard Stateline photos.
A few miles further, we stopped briefly for lunch while the menacing clouds in the above photos seemed to move on or dissapate.
We continue a half hour later in brilliant sunshine, but as we approached the pass, clouds threatened, and we even had a brief rain shower less than a mile from the top.
When we finally reached the top the views were spectacular and we had just started to take photos, when a loud clap of nearby thunder stopped us an in our tracks. There's almost nothing that has my respect as much as thunder and lightning high in the mountains, so after all that climbing we litreally had our eyes on the road, while rain and small hail fell, and we hastened down the mountainside without further stops for sightseeing.
By the time we were halfwaydowe the storms had begun to move off but the landscape had changed from dramatic stone cliffs, to just more high plains scrub, so we continued our ride to the days stopping point at Threeway, AZ.
We're camped at a very pleasant area the USFS has set aside near there headquarters here. We hurried to set up as thunderstorms again threatened, but passed north of us.
There are no restaurants in Threeway, so we shopped at the local store, and came back to the campsite for a meal of chicken, cheese, and instant mashed potatoes. May not sound like much, but to hungry cyclists, it was great.
As we were finishing, another east-bound cyclist rode into camp. Julian started near Seattle, and headed down the west coast to San Diego and is now heading for Florida.
Tomorrow we'll have a fairly short ride into Safford, and will then take a day to visit Barb's friends, Jim and Ruth Graham in Wilcox AZ.
We had talked about the possibility of this visit in abstract terms for a quite a few months. It's had to believe that we're actually on the verge of it happening. We've ridden some 2400 miles, and have about 600 miles of the Adventure Cycling route left before we arrive in San Diego.
We're fine, hapay to be safely off the mountain, and ready to continue our adventure.
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