78 Blessed Miles and head winds to Safford, AZ

How long does it take three old women to travel 78 miles with 30 mph head winds? Tell you later! The mountain ranges really changed today. We went from red rock formations yesterday, to soft peaks and flat top mountains today. We are still in desert territory, yet there is vegetation on the hills. We even saw a few "tumble weeds" blow across highway today. As we pedal past these ranges, we often say "we are sooooo lucky to be doing this! The beauty is absolutely amazing.

This is Graham Mountain...still snow covered. It was off to our right all day and we kept chasing it, but alas, never caught it. As we ate our supper outside tonight, I looked up and there is was again!

Signs of a tough day when you spot the Woman Tour Van already loaded with several bikes by maybe 10:00 a.m.! There were a few times today when I thought...."if I see that van, I'm jumping on it!". However, after 10 1/2 hours on the road, and only 4 miles left to go...I thought if that van shows up now (because we were approaching the 6:00 p.m.limit), I will REFUSE to get in it. We made it in with 10 minutes to spare.

Let me introduce you to two more of my friends, Sisters Linda (AZ) and "Two flat" Lois (PA). We may have to change Lois' name...she has now had three flats!

Where do you suppose my hands have been? After fighting the headwinds for hours, we had 6 miles to go until the ice cream store and then only 10 miles left till the hotel, I kept telling myself "you can do it"! And then ssssssss - you guessed it ...Kirby had another flat - and of course it was the back tire so we had to take off the derailleur, etc. We fixed it with only 3 people this time!

Brad...please don't say if you knew how to change a tire properly, you wouldn't get grease all over yourself!

Blessings:

• fairly wide shoulders on the highways today
• temperature was wonderful
• traffic - moderate
• most of the uphills were followed by a downhill
• hot salmon meal right off the grill waiting for us upon arrival at hotel

Lesson for the day:

The quote for today from Miss Kitty (bridge group) was: Friends in your life are like pillars on your porch: sometimes they hold you up, sometimes they lean on you, sometimes it's just enough to know they're standing by.

So this a.m. when each of my legs felt like 100 pounds of lead, my (biking) pillars held me up...as I got stronger it was just enough for me to know they were standing by just in case.

So...tomorrow is 75 miles, but we lose an hour as we enter into New Mexico....hope we make better time than today.

Love to all.....Patti