Mountain biking

Shew! So the last couple of days have been pretty tough. We biked about 170 miles through some tall ass mountains. 

We started off Sunday leaving Phoenix around 6:30 or so in the morning. It took us a pretty long time to get out of city/suburbs. I think we ended up riding 35 miles or something before we got out of there. Regardless, suburban riding is some of the most boring shit. The only thing I could do to keep myself entertained was to ride around in my new sun glasses telling all the bystanders that I was a cop. Before we left town we picked up some groceries and stopped in apache junction for brunch before we entered desolation again. 

The next part of the ride was pretty boring as well. Just same old desert shit. We were banking on stopping at Florence junction to have a nice lunch break, but as we pulled up to it we saw that it was merely a meeting of freeways and there was no city at all. Fortunately, there was an overpass for us to hang outnunder for a couple hours to escape the heat. 

We ate some food and chatted for a while and Zach informed us that he was completely out of water. This definitely sucked becaue we were like 20 miles to the next town. None of us thought he was going to die or anything, but we had some hills to tackle. 

After climbing a few hills we made it to superior where for the first time in a while all of our climbing paid off with some nice mountainous scenery. We then stopped in supperior to fill up on water and what not before climbing the worst hill of the day to get to our camp site at the top of the mountain. We had to pick up 3 gallons of extra water before making the climb as there was no water at the camp site. 

This climb to the camp site was probaby the scariest part of the trip so far. We were going about 4 mph the entire time up a steep ass hill on a busy ass freeway with no shoulder and cars speeding past us. We also had to cross a bridge and go through a tunnel which were both pretty damn scary. On top of the general conditions of the ride being scary, the sun was also going down which made our visibility to drivers quite lower. 

All in all, we killed that mountain and made it almost to the top to where our camp site was. The views were ridiculous and even though the camp site was pretty rugged with no water or electricity and shit, it was one of the coolest camp sites we have stayed at based on location alone. It was also free as all get out.

We arrived pretty late and imediately got to putting tents and cooking dinner. We had a feast of coos coos and lentil soup and finished it off by dipping pita in to bakes beans! However, about a quarter in to my pita i realized that it tasted kind of like soap. Zach and Lenora assured me it was just the way these pita tasted so I kept eating it. Then I was thinking it tastes more like gasoline, or even more specifically... Kerosine! This made sense to me because there was kerosine packed in the same bag. But no... Lenora assured me it was just cilantro and Zach said it was impossible that there could be kerosine leaking. Soooo I finished the pita. Then Zach looked in the bag and realized there was kerosine leaking all over the bag. AWESOME! So I checked the back of the container which told me "harmful or FATAL if ingested". This kind of scared me so I just quietly went to sleep hoping I wouldn't be dead by dawn. Fortunately I survived with just a little pee butt. 

The next morning we woke up cold as shit. These mountain mornings without the sun are frigid. We go to bed with like 70 some degree weather and wake up to 40 degree weather. It certainly makes it hard to get out of the tent in the morning. Anyway, we got up, got our shit packed and hit the road thinking we were at the top of the mountain. We got all bundles up in our hoodies expecting an imediate long chilly descent. We even saw a sign showing that we were about to descend at a 6% grade for the next 12 miles. We were so stoked! Instead... We climbed for about an hour before we got to descend. LIES! Our elevation map lied to us all damn day! We were supposed to be going downhill pretty much the entire day. Instead we were going up hills all day with short descents in between. It was agonizing and infuriating. Every time I saw a new hill I would get enraged. It was definitely one of the worst days for me by far. I hated it. On top of it sucking we still managed to ride a record breaking 98 miles. We are tough. 

Anyway, next up is more mountains for like the next 3 days. We will hit up new Mexico by the end of the day if all goes well. 

Ok bye.