Day 7 Safford to Silver City New Mexico

Distance:  117 Miles
Elelvation gain: 8,816 feet

What a ride.  Major climbing and I am exhausted.  About 5 miles outside of Safford I ran into Neal  a retired Marine  from Indiana who is also riding from San Diego to Florida.  Another 25 miles up the road we ran into Dennis a civil engineer fromk Phoenix who spent the night camping in a place called "three way".  We had heavy and consistent 30 mile an hour winds with gusts up to 50 mph.  Luckily we had a tail wind while on the 191 and then the 78..  Once we turned onto the 180 we hit head winds and crosswinds that made staying upright a challenge.   The maps said that there were no services along the way.  The map was wrong.  In a town called Buckhorn, there is the "Last Chance " liquor store. We thought the store was closed as the lights were off, but the door was open so we escaped from the winds and went inside.  An older couple ran the place and told us that the electric had gone down due to the winds.  They made us some sandwiches and gave us some cokes.    The guy was telling us a story about how his grandmother couldnt stand living in Buckhorn.  When she died, they had to take her body on a train back to Indiana to bury her.  She said that Buckhorn was a god frsaken place and she refused to be burried there.  I think Grandmom was onto something.   But that reat stop was a perfect break for 3 ragged, wind blown and bonking riders and gave us the strength to ride the next 45 miles.

I left Safford at 5:50 and arrived at the Continental divide, just about 3 miles outside of Silver City at around 6:30. (Of course we lost an hour at the New Mexico border so it was actually 7:30.)  For those that dont know the Continental Divide is the ridge that seperates the flow of rain water.  Any water that falls on the eastern side of the divide will drain into the Gulf.  Any water that falls on the western side will drain into the Pacific.

Silver City is buzzing this week with the Tour of Gila.  This is a professional bike racing event around the mountains here.  Apparently Lance Armstrong came in 3rd today.  Tomorrow I plan on riding out in the morning with Neal and possibly going as far as Hatch.  Temps tomorrow in the mid 50s with winds coming out of the Nothwest.  The challenge tomorrow is a peak about 22 miles out of town called Emory Pass topping out at 8,228 feet.