Day 32 - Silver City, NM - Safford, AZ!

Good bye New Mexico and hello Arizona.

It was border line freezing this morning coming from the guy that wear bike shorts everyday. My phone said it was 39 outside when we left Silver City. The air was crisp and the wind was calm. We headed out through town and discovered there was more to Silver City then the few streets we saw the day before. Heading out of town meant we were climbing again, surprise! surprise! It was anything nasty just steady climbs. The view were pretty and we knocked the miles off one by one. At mile 37 or so the wind started picking up again but it doesn't get us town, we have come to expect it. at mile 48 we made a left on to NM78. The first road sign we saw had to Arizona cities on it and that excited me! We rode this rode to our lunch stop just shy of the AZ border. We ate a quick lunch and got back on the bikes! We knew that the Rally for POPs team was waiting for us at the border and we wanted to see them.



from left to right - Carl Ames, Shanon, Shane, Casey, Jake, Kyle W., Keith, Kyle C.

 First thing I did was give Carl a huge hug, and I do believe I even shed a few tears. To see all these guys was incredible. We hung out for a few minutes, took a lot of pictures. It was really great! Once we all got settled we started riding. As soon as we started riding we started climbing up the back side of a good size mountain. It was a pretty good climb, the views were really pretty up there.

Once we reached the top is when it got really fun. Coming off this mountain was extremely fast, I know Shannon said we was hitting 40mph trying to catch me. Since my computer stopped working in Comfort, TX I am not sure what my top speed was but I think I hit 45+ today. The road actually has a name in the cycling world, it is called the Devils Backbone. I am guessing because it is steep and has a lot of curves? It was fun. Once we got down to the desert floor it was fighting the wind again. It was strong and coming right at us. I spent most of the afternoon riding with Carl and we battled the wind together. It was a good combination. We finally rolled into Safford and we had a very large welcoming there! There were a group of 8-10 people there with signs and cheering! I was really cool. We got a bunch of group pictures that hopefully someone post. One of the girls there is the daughter of a good friend of mine. She goes to school out here and came by to support POPs Ride! Her name is Michaun Hancock! It was cool to see a familiar face, we all ate dinner together and I was able to chat with her for a while. I great ending to a great day!

Since we changed time zones again, I need to get some sleep, we have another day full of climbing and then one more ride into Phoenix! Now that I am in Arizona and realize how close I am to Phoenix it is making me miss my family even more. But Friday afternoon will be here before I know it and I can hug my family and spend some time with them before I head off to the Pacific Ocean!!!

Hope every ones week is going good! It is almost over, hang in there!