 she keeps pawing at me you know you want some more love okay I'll give you some more love so I just woke up and look who's ready to play give me the ball and I'll throw it to you give it to me yeah drop it right there thank you yep pretty psyched I'm not in Boulder today I think this was to get 12 inches of snow snow snow snow all day long no thank you and in case you were wondering yes I do try to stretch every morning especially my hips sitting on that bike all day hunched over does a number on your body is that your ball can I have it can I have your ball can I please have your ball what's the magic word with you just force give it to me yeah John I know you're a wild man and you'd rather camp out in the wild but what are the benefits to a hotel here oh shower Wi-Fi safety in this location yeah that's true this vacation we're out of sight so yeah no one's gonna mess with us yeah and packing up packing up is way faster because we don't have all of our gear out so usually when you wake up hotel room bam you're ready to go pretty quickly I'm really happy that today we get to Zac to take us because supposedly once we get to Zac to take us then we're safe and the locals have definitely warned us over and over about all the potential dangers and me personally I've dealt with a lot of this scary stuff and I don't want to deal with it again I was attacked by machete point on a volcano in Guatemala once I had a gun pulled on me and Honduras once I was pickpocketed on a bus in Guatemala once and earlier on this trip we had a guy try to you know take our cell phones so all those moments in life are extremely spooky I go into every situation with every human with trust I trust everybody and when I meet somebody who wants to hurt me or steal something from me it shakes my soul a little bit it's like wait a second you're you're not nice like me and everybody else so I'm excited to get to Zac to take us today to the safe zone and then get back on the dirt right Mira oh you're just waiting for this and we are out the door into sunny Mexico it's nice and crisp this morning 7 30 a.m. happy Thursday everybody no crashes no flatties no whammies no whammies no whammies no whammies we have some company today with my friend her ardo como estamos saludando a los amigos que andan en en la rodada hacia Zacatecas de aquí de Frenillo muy bien que les vaya muy bien su camino bueno crean que está peligroso de mí yo no pasan sin miedo no se preocupen no pasa nada con los ciclistas ánimo y usted anda por aquí todos los días en bicicleta si que estamos en la rodada haciendo ejercicio y divirtiéndonos muy bien amigo gracias por acompañarnos suerte con todo no pasa nada en Zacatecas ok gracias I'm really glad that we met her ardo there he said he saw us on the other side of the highway and came across to meet us and really fun to meet locals that are into cycling he owns a bike shop in town that's what he does he rides this road every day which makes me very grateful for living in a town like boulder where I can go up into the mountains and see nature and not be on a highway but he says he also mountain bike says there's mountain bike routes all around here and he said you know about the safety stuff he's like it's mostly bad guys killing bad guys narcos vs. narcos so he doesn't feel you know the danger himself but obviously it's out there in some form and as all these military guys are rolling by there's definitely there's definitely violence out here but not so much for already knocked out 10 miles and we saw this nice taqueria and this guy right here has some serious energy he is excited about his food which makes me excited I feed off of people's energy I could make a vegetarian dish then I like your energy I'm going to do the other side I love avocado avocado thank you look at those tacos man you're a pro in a matter of about two and a half minutes this guy gave us quite a spread of food and you know we're excited about it adios amigos gracias por la comida it's hard to ride when your belly is full that we'll figure it out did you wait patiently for us yeah you're so sweet already to be off this road my left ear is deaf my sweetie the cutest our ears can't take much more of this this is by far the loudest day the most traffic but we're getting close and we're hiding behind a circle K gas station yes they have circle K in Mexico and Mira and I are just chilling out while dad goes and gets a drink but whoo man you know most of my bike touring life the last 15 years have been on roads I've only started bike packing like the last five years and I don't know how I did it it's so obnoxious I mean a lot of the roads I was on were like scenic byways and a lot less traffic but I've certainly taken plenty of roads like this and whoo not only is it loud but it's it's just kind of dangerous and on roads like this Mira really can't be out there's not enough room for her to be safe so she just sits in the basket all day and I doubt she likes it either nope hey I need to distract myself from the chaos there's cars everywhere oh boy we're in Zacatecas Mira we're in Zacatecas yeah we're in Zacatecas and it's as beautiful as I remember feels like we just rolled into Europe on the ride home from Honduras I remember Zacatecas being one of my favorite places on the entire adventure and just rolling here on these streets these cobblestone streets again for only just a few minutes is bringing back a wave of really fun memories so I didn't think it would still be here but the hostel where I stayed in 2005 is right here and it was actually full when we got here but they said you can put your tents on the roof if you want and that's exactly what we did and we were psyched so we made it to Zacatecas a little bit uphill riding 2,500 meters we might actually be a little bit higher here where we are right now I'll show you in a second we got we're just camping out here in Zacatecas nothing you know just something it's just normal just normal camping out don't mind us we're just gonna throw our tents on top of your roof where there's the best view of the entire city oh yeah yeah oh yes look where we are we're on top of a very tall building so I came into the hostel and asked her if she would let me up to the roof and she said yes claro que si so we're going to the terraza so many memories up here eso gracias mira yes this is it this is it this is where Jeff and I had our tents we had the view of the church right here oh my gosh so many great memories here this was the best place in the whole hostel we were happy that they were full actually so we got to be up here yes because the edges right here it's like freaks me out just even go near there and I remember looking over the edge here with Jeff saying that we shouldn't get too drunk or we'd fall off when we were here there was no barrier so we were here during the dangerous times they've definitely upgraded here we are sitting on the roof enjoying the sky and the sounds of the churches on a nice Sunday morning riding our bikes back to Boulder we're loving it life is good life is beautiful lots of avocados lots of avocados well that just made my freaking day that was so fun I'm excited to tell Jeff I love this town it just has a good vibe a buena onda y estamos con los payasos de Mexico como estamos hoy saludos a colorado y colorado and I'm pretty sure but this is where we jumped into some clowns street theater and goofed around with a bunch of payasos now for a fresa strawberry palette popsicle Mexico really makes some of the best popsicles in the world they're all handmade and there's shops everywhere and I'm just sitting here just reminiscing like it's just bringing back so many vivid memories and that first adventure of my life is what set the tone for my career that ride home from Honduras really ignited my soul in a way that nothing else ever had and every single day on that ride was a new adventure and I loved it I loved pushing my body I loved exploring Mexico and learning the language and learning the culture and going to all these different towns and it is it's essentially what I still do to this day that ride is what influenced my life my career how I make money and how I explore and it's fun to be back at a very influential place on that path so cheers and I definitely remember dancing around these streets with the bands that would just lead people through the cajones the alleys and big trombone music and just big loud bouncy fun Mexican music and we've go through these alleyways right here they're all over the city my favorite things to do in Mexico is get a haircut I found this really cool a little hole in the wall place and we're gonna see what happens they're usually pretty good I like it I like it a lot that only took like 15 minutes but he just went to work