 Hi! Well here I am downtown El Rito. Doesn't seem like the town folk have woken up yet and I feel really good and I needed that rest after a couple of tough days. The kindness of strangers will never get old. Thank you so much Ted for letting me stay there. Oh doggies, there's a lot of dogs in this state. Hey buddy, oh you look dangerous. Yeah. Anyway good thing I'm leaving. No flatties, no crashes. Why is it no crashes first, then no flatties and no whammies and how about no dog chases. Oh look at this church. My first 17 miles today are going to be on pavement which is nice. Going to a little town called Abacue and then I head out into the wilderness. No services after that. So it should be an awesome day. It's Friday. Okay I just wanted to show you this. There are family dollars all over the United States and they're always kind of junky looking but this is the nicest looking family dollar I've ever seen. It's got the nice southwestern look. I have made it to Abacue. They have a great little convenience store gas station here. Check it out. I got a big fat burrito. I'm going to need it because going up now about 8,000 feet of elevation toward a town called Cuba. I love this country of Cuba so maybe the town of Cuba is awesome. I don't know. And this is what the inside of these New Mexico burritos look like with all that good green chili. So you wouldn't believe it. I'm sitting here eating my burrito and guess who calls. It's John and Mira say hi John. I really wish you were here man. Here with Mira. She would love to be on a trip. Yeah I need some Mira love right now. Rough couple days man. How you doing? Yeah I'm equipped for it. It's just it's just hard. You know sometimes bike trips get hard. Yeah absolutely. The pinion and gates have been treating me well and you know I'm out of the snow. I don't think I'm going to hit snow anymore. So I'm I'm happier. I'm moving. I'm actually riding my bike not pushing it anymore. But I was definitely thinking of you guys up there when I was on top of the mountain pushing through snow. I was like you know what Mira wouldn't care about this. Mira would be psyched. But I might as I might as stolen her to cuddle with me in the tent. It was a little cold. Well wish me luck bud. Yeah thanks man. Here we go. Powered by Free Holes heading uphill. Very very up from what the map looks like. That's all good. Because I've got all day to do it. And all I have to do today is ride my bike. And that's pretty awesome. These small towns that I've been riding through are definitely a little rough around the edges. They kind of remind me of the village village. Be quiet dog. I'm trying to talk and make a YouTube video. They kind of remind me of the village I lived in in Honduras. You hear like chickens and roosters in the morning and cows everywhere. I'm riding past the gatekeepers now. Hey guys. Alright no more pavement. Time for dirt. A lot of people ask me if I listen to music on my bike tours and I don't. I like being in tune with my surroundings for safety's sake. But more than anything I love the sound of my tires crunching gravel. Makes me happy. And the occasional bird song or the wind blowing through the trees. Because when you're out here at least for me I really like just being out here and not escaping through music or a podcast. There's no right way to do it. This is just the way I like to do it. I like to be here. And part of that is just no distractions except for talking to this camera. Look at those curly cues. That can mean only one thing. Steep. I'm crawling up this hill. That's alright. Three miles an hour is the perfect speed for right now. And my bike is really heavy. It's full of food and it has max capacity of water. Because from here on out pretty much there's not gonna be a lot of water. Not a lot of running streams. So I'm gonna have to be very careful about my water supply. Stopping and checking out the flowers and there haven't been too many flowers the first few days covered in snow and it's just they haven't started blooming yet. But I just found my first flower right here. And I think it's called an Indian paintbrush. And I give you an idea of where I came from way out there. That's where I've been riding. And I've only just begun the uphill. The first uphill today was just a little warm-up. Now I'm really going up. Here's those rough roads everybody talks about in New Mexico. These are definitely the roughest roads on the divide that I've seen. So far they might even get rougher. Who knows. But yeah it's a lot of little what they call baby head rocks. Little rocks look like baby heads. So it's slow going and it's bouncy. And that's just the way it is. You know what I'm saying? Sometimes it's flat and smooth and you go fast. And sometimes it's like this and it's a little obstacle course and you have to pick a line through the rough stuff. Yeah buddy. It's the real deal right here. You know sometimes when you get a random song stuck in your head. Well right now yellow submarine is stuck in my head. We all live in a yellow submarine. A yellow submarine. A yellow submarine. I feel like my bike computer is messing with me. That little arrow there. That's where I am. And it's been there for like two hours it seems like. I haven't made any ground. Or maybe this is just the the biggest hill in the history of the world. Oh boy. I've already gone up 3,800 feet. And I'm at 9,000 feet. It's definitely getting cooler. And it looks like there's a bit of a storm or something brewing. I'm getting rained on ever so slightly. Let's call it a misting. And it feels great actually. I can't imagine doing some of these sections in the heat of the summer. Right now my computer says it's 54 degrees which is kind of perfect. But in July August I can only imagine that it's 85 and above. Which would make this very difficult. It's been an hour and a half since I last checked in. I'm making a little progress. Upy downy, upy downy. And I'm definitely not in the desert anymore. Back to the High Alpine. Even have Aspen trees. My favorite tree. And check it out. I found another flower. The good old dandelion. Oh no it's snow. Get out of here snow. I'm done with you. I don't think I'm gonna have to deal with snow. It's just on the sides of the road. But when I see it now I'm like what's gonna happen. Actually you know what. I'm gonna get my revenge on the snow and eat it. Look at that. Actually looks pretty good. I came riding around this corner here. And I looked up ahead and I saw this big black thing under a tree. And I was like oh my god what is that. I really thought it was a bear but nope. It's just one of these guys. Just a high altitude mookow. Hey buddy. This here is the mountain that won't quit. It keeps going up and up and up. And I usually love uphill. I mean that's my thing. But me this is getting old. It's time to go downhill. Look I did it. Top of the mountain. I think I'm at the top. I can see further on on the map that there's some more ups. But for the most part I'm at the highest point of today. And I am at 10,327 feet. Some cold rain at 10,000 feet. Whoa it's chilly. I need to get down and I need to get down fast. We got some seriously rough roads here. Wow. This is the real deal here. It's like riding through a riverbed. It's time. I'm finally gonna stop pedaling. I was in a groove there. Just put my head down and went. And you know when I got to the top of that mountain earlier? It really wasn't the top because it went down and went up. It went down and went up. And check it out. I went up. Let's see. 7,700 feet in elevation today. 75 miles. Nine hours of riding time. And I'm at 9,200 feet elevation. I'm happy with that. I'm psyched and I found a nice green spot to camp right here. And hopefully it won't rain on me. I've been in and out of rain all afternoon. But I feel pretty good about things. This was a hard day. It really was. New Mexico definitely makes you earn the miles. Nothing comes easy here. These were 75 very hard miles. But my body feels good. And my spirit does too. And that might be even more important. Alright ladies and gentlemen. This is the lineup for Friday night supreme dinner. We've got Rosarita organic refried beans. Hatch green chilies from the state of New Mexico. And tapatio hot sauce. I've been dreaming about something like this all day because I've been eating mostly sweet stuff. So it's gonna be nice to have something savory on the menu. Oh and the sun just came out for the first time in eight hours. Look at that. Okay. Oh but we're not finished. No no no. Time for tapatio. We call this Christmas with the green and the red. And that's what it looks like. Doesn't that look good? There's nothing quite like eating food out in the wild after you've earned it. It tastes so much better no matter what it is. Like if I was at home and I made this burrito I'd be like that's kind of mediocre. But here best burrito I've ever had in my life. So good. So every day on any bike tour at the end of the day after I eat I like to go on a walk. It helps loosen my muscles and stretch myself out. Because when you're sitting on a bike you know hunched over for nine hours you get a little tight. And I also use my walking time just to think about the day and reminisce and you know plan for tomorrow because there's so many things that happen. You need to keep track of you know navigation and nutrition and filming and are the batteries charged and all but you know the SD cards and blah there's just so much going on in my mind that I like to walk at the end of the day. And usually I don't film this. It's my alone time but I thought I would just take you along on tonight's walk. It's beautiful. Turns out it's not going to rain which makes me very happy. And today was good. Today I really just went internal. I reminisced a lot about life. You know we've all had such a weird year. This pandemic has been bizarre in so many ways and it feels so good to be back out here doing what I love and seeing people and hugging them. You know and I'm vaccinated now and you know I always make sure other people I hug are vaccinated but it just feels so good. I'd like to be interacting with humans. It'd been a whole year of like really not much interaction right. And that's tough for guys like Ryan. You know most humans we need human connection. So I'm very very grateful that things seem to be getting better. We're not completely out of this yet but things are getting better and it makes me happy. And it fills my heart with joy but also I'm dreaming about the future and the possibilities. You know after a dormant year of just barely any travel it's I feel charged up but like I'm ready to just rock and roll. And this is how my nightly walks usually go. I just have these thoughts and I think and they're you know scattered and but they help me calm down after a long day on the bike and I sleep easier. So thank you all for joining me once again. I hope you enjoyed today. I sure did. And yeah we'll see you in the morning. That's how it works. I'm not going anywhere. I have a long way to go like 500 more miles. I'm not really making a whole lot of distance on this trip but that's all right.