Tag Archives: Winslow

Friday 19th July

After sleeping about 20hours we made it on the road. 6am breakfast, Mike asked me if I needed another day of rest bless him. He’s not the most patient of people so just hanging around yesterday whilst I slept must of drove him made. I reassured him I was fine and ready to go.

The 1st problem of the day. We wheeled our bikes out of the room into the motel car park and my back wheel was flat. Before we could go anywhere we had to change the inner tube.

Repair done we head to the nearest convenience store to stock up on water and high energy snacks only .5 miles away and got puncture number 2 of the day. Mikes front tire now. It’s going to be one of those days. I go into the store leaving mike to do the repair, that’s all our spare inner tubes used now, we’ve kept them and patched them for emergencies.

Right let’s get going only 20 miles planned today. Heading for a RV park next to the best preserved meteorite impact site. It’s supposed to have spectacular night skies and the visitor centre has a expedition on celebrating the 50th anniversary of the moon landing this weekend.

Like I said it’s going to be one of those days, we had to pass road works. Always hard work. We made it to the visitor centre and pulled over. Mike asked how was I feeling, fine why? He had a problem with his bike and as it was still early and flagstaff is only 40 miles away would I be ok to push on, he needed to find a bike shop.

So that’s what we did, we made it to a bike shop. They fixed the bottom bracket bearing what ever that meant. We brought more replacement inner tubes better safe than sorry.

We are now in flagstaff staying at Richard and Linda’s daughters house. Julie was out when we arrived but she text us how to get in, it’s a lovely place we’ve made ourselves at home and look forward to meeting her.

We are in the granny annex a self contained flat all to ourselves cool.

Thursday 18th July

Went to the motel lobby to eat a continental breakfast 6 am this morning, and whilst spooning my cornflakes into my gob I just got that feeling I didn’t want to do anything other than go back to bed. I really couldn’t face getting back on my bike.

I don’t know what’s wrong with me. We’ve both been struggling with the heat and yesterday even though we hadn’t cycled far it was against the wind. So today the thought of doing it all again just seemed to much.

I looked at mike and told him how I felt, did he mind if I just booked us in for another night and just relax. No problem. That was that, I checked us in for a second night. I finished breakfast and went back to bed. I slept until 11am. Read some of my book, slept some more. Went out for a late lunch. And then read/ slept the rest of the day.

Hopefully tomorrow I will be ready to get back on my bike. We are only going 20 miles to the next campsite anyway. Its by a meteor crater and then the next day we should be in flagstaff where we did have the kind offer of some where to stay. I hope my unplanned day off hasn’t jeopardise that chance.

Wednesday 17th July

We didn’t want to leave the comfort of our tepee reluctantly we headed of into the head wind destination Winslow. So all day I’ve had the eagles song stuck in my head. You can drive your self crazy.

40 miles to do and they weren’t easy and the sound of my wheels were driving me crazy. Gotta love ear worms.

The first small town we went through was Joseph city. We were stopped at a crossroad looking up the Main Street for a refreshment stop. When a guy on a bike pulled up next to us, and asked if we were ok. I replied that we were looking for somewhere to get a drink. He invited us back to his, we followed him to his house where he and his wife supplied us with drinks and well needed shaded rest.

Richard and Linda were so kind, they showed us around their beautiful English cottage style garden. What a surprise for in the middle of the desert it struck me funny that they had a hosepipe running and yet back in England where it rains all the time we have hosepipe bans.

I loved chatting to them in a garden that reminded me of home, I’m not loving the desert but can see it’s beautiful and what a great experience I’m having. I love meeting people that I would never normally meet. Both Mike and I our naturally shy so this is great for us.

It turns out that they have a daughter who lives in flagstaff and is willing to put us up. Hopefully we can make that happen we should be there Friday if all goes to plan. we had to leave and on doing so Richard insisted on giving Mike a amount of money we were blown away so kind.

On to Jack rabbit treading post another famous Route 66 land mark it has a giant fibreglass rabbit outside. We looked around at the normal Route 66 merchandise and other cool stuff, but we can’t buy and carry everything we like. We took two cold drinks from the fridge and went to pay. The lovely lady there asked if that was all we wanted, yes please we just need to cool off. No problem on the house it’s hot out there! Wow. Thank you.

We now have to finish the rest of the miles on the interstate. Problem road works, we can’t go into the lane it’s to dangerous nothing for it we have to get off and push our bikes past.

Any one fancy a walk in the desert although I was treated by a coyote trotting happily next to me for a while maybe he thought I was lunch, but he didn’t look threateningly just skinny and hot.

Finally we made it to the corner yep that corner. Gift shop done, photo done, now where’s my motel zzz.