Well, as the title suggests, I have finished my tour, but not as originally planned. The weather was just becoming too much to try to plan around and a couple roads I needed were actually closed for 2-3 days(although they re-opened yesterday afternoon, but road conditions were still unknown). There is supposedly more snow coming to El Paso or at least the hills surrounding it where I would have to ride. On Monday El Paso broke its all time snowfall record and it sounded like the area was in a general state of mayhem.
Yesterday I decided I would at least ride up to a ranger station before a big pass I had to go over and talk to them before I made any decisions. In the morning I rode along farmland with a big snowy mountain just off to the southwest. When the sun hit it, it got some pink alpenglow on the snowy trees. It was really pretty. Just before the ranger station I rode over a pass through the Black Hills with rocky, spiky peaks of black basalt. It kinda reminded me of pictures I've seen of mountains in S. Africa, but not nearly as tall or as cool. In Three Way, at the ranger station, I was informed that the AZ side of the pass was ok, but the NM Dept of Transportation were still reporting "difficult driving conditions" on the NM side. From Three Way it was only 55 miles to Lordsburg, NM where the train and bus comes through. The ladies at the ranger station were really helpful and found a place for me to stay in Duncan, AZ 20 miles towards Lordsburg. The station also had a orange cat that was really playful. I had balanced my bike on the side of an info kiosk out front and the cat couldn't figure out what it was. He finally decided he would just jump up on it, of course knocking the bike over in the process. He found this quite terrifying and ran straight up the nearest tree and got stuck for a few minuets and then made a huge jump back to the ground. It was hilarious. After lunch I rode the last 20 miles to Duncan. Duncan is really pretty, with the Gila River flowing through downtown and lots of bright yellow cottonwoods with purplish/blue mountains in the distance (some with snow!). I passed the Gila River when I was on that reservation a few days ago and there was no water in it, but the part in Duncan was raging so I figured the storms had filled the river again. The town itself is pretty dead, but was an old mining and railroad town back in the mid-1800s and early 1900s so it has lots of old buildings and sort of a ghost town feel. The place I stayed was an old old hotel in downtown. It was the kind of place that would be haunted. It used to be a bar downstairs and a hotel/brothel upstairs. It even still had swingy doors to some of the rooms like in westerns. The owner was really nice and gave me a big discount since I was biking. This morning she made me an awesome omelette with all kinds of veggies, a big fruit salad, bacon, and some blueberry cornmeal muffiny sorta things that were also really good.
Today I just rode from Duncan to Lordsburg (35 miles). It was pretty easy and uneventful. I just bought a Greyhound ticket to San Bernardino for tomorrow morning and Matt will be picking me up there either tomorrow night or Friday morning. I have to wrap my bike in bubble wrap for the bus ride and I was able to get that at the post office in town.
Well, it's been a really really good tour and although I am disappointed I won't be going all the way to El Paso, I'm still pretty excited that I rode 605.5 miles. I am missing out on 255 miles and four more days of riding, but I think I was starting to be ready to be done. I definitely want to do another tour sometime, so if any of you are thinking about, I'd probably be game! I learned alot and had a lot of fun. Anywho, see you all when I get home!
PS. I guess I will modify the title of this journal to 1 girl, 2 wheels, 3 states, since I didn't get TX.
