Data: 119.5 miles Riding time - 7:22 (16.3 mph avg)
I caused a cattle "stampede"! On today's ride, I took a detour off of Interstate 40, east of Flagstaff, to go view the Meteor Crater. It's a mile wide, in a perfect circle, 550 ft deep, and was caused by a meteor that was only 150 feet in diameter. On the way back to Interstate 40, about 150 range cows were grazing right by the road. As I rode by, most of them gave the "bovine stare", and I said in a normal voice, "Hello cows". They immediately turned and "stampeded" off in the other direction. Pretty funny.
Sedona to Flagstaff was very scenic, maybe more so than we'll have on the entire trip. It was like riding in the Grand Canyon for part of it.
Flagstaff to Winslow was on Hwy 40, but I made it more interesting by taking the detour to the Meteor Crater. We saw this on one of our family vacations in the mid 60s, but I was probably reading a comic book. The tour leader said he could have saved me from riding those extra 12 miles, as he made a little hole in the ground with his hand and said it looks just like that only bigger. Here we were approaching the offramp, and I couldn't talk anyone else into riding the extra 12 miles, so I went alone.
Prior to diverting to the crater, we had a paceline going on Hwy 40 and someone got a flat, so we all stopped. I looked down and I was completely covered with little bugs. They were all stuck to my skin because of the sun-block lotion. At least they brushed off easily, but... Here's another shot of "the road ahead" on Interstate 40.
Anyway, it was a super day. I got in pretty late because of the detour, plus a few of us rode over to the "corner in Winslow Arizona", made famous by the Eagles song "Take it Easy." They've made a particular corner into a tourist area based on that line in the song. They have Eagles songs playing into the intersection, and a statue of the hitchhiker. I had to sing the pertinent parts of the song to Kasper, my Dutch roommate, because he didn't know what all the fuss was about.
There were a lot of gripes about our motel, because the air conditioning in the entire place was out, and it was pretty hot. Plus, electronic keys didn't work, they phoned people for the wake-up calls at wrong times (one guy in room 201 got his call at 2:01 am), and in my case, their mix-up allowed me to have my own room. They hadn't put the rollaway bed in for the third person, so they said one of us could have another room, and my roommates insisted I take it. It was nice not having to keep my things organized in my corner of the room.
The weather so far has been great. No need for jackets or leg warmers, no rain, not too hot. And still no flat tires. About 8 of us have still been blessed, but our time is sure to come. This final picture shows the hilly road we climbed between Sedona and Flagstaff. Look how far down there we were.
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