Springerville - St Johns, AZ - The cat named Chevy won't stop this tour, and neither can COVID

June 12, 2020

Springerville - St Johns, AZ

Heart

Comment

458 elevation gain

Last night Jacinto suggested that we ride together today. The ride is a flat 29 miles. Jacinto says I'm fast on the flats, so he doesn't mind riding with me. Let's see if I don't melt in the heat. He doesn't want to leave until check out time because 1) that's his style and 2) we are at an airbnb tonight with no wi-fi and doubtful phone service.

I've already eaten breakfast and will probably want lunch before we leave town. This is not my style of riding! It's 81 degrees out here - remember my complaining about warm weather yesterday at 75 degrees? Let's see how this goes. But Jacinto did ask to ride together and he never does that . . .

We are about to get back to the original schedule with longer days. Wind could be a factor, but it should be from the south. Temperatures look like a high of 90ish, which is much friendlier than the 107 we had in Tucson and Benson.

Later-

Jacinto didn't want to leave until check out time. I thought we didn't need to set an alarm. He was surprised. You need an alarm to get out the door by 11? I ended up waking up around 5, looked at the phone, and finally went back to sleep around 6. I don't know about this leisurely getting ready. I wanted lunch before we even went out the door!

I saw the STOP lady again this morning. She had a mask on. The only mask I've seen since . . . . I don't know when. She said good luck. There was an ambulance in front loading a woman. The EMTs here had masks. The EMTs back in Alpine didn't.

Jacinto said I had to lead because I have Bertha to guide us. Yep - Bertha's going to work hard today. 191 all the way. That's the directions. I told him I usually follow Oren. I like being the caboose. But, no.

Off I went. It was warm, but we had a strong tailwind and it was downhill. Jacinto soon fell off in the background. Is he trying to make me feel good? I pedaled even stronger to increase the distance. After all, he said I could go fast on the flats. I wanted to affirm his opinion!

Again, we had the crummy road shoulders. It's really too bad, because the shoulders are generally wide. Jacinto says he rides on the shoulders anyway. He doesn't use a mirror. When I ride to the left of the white line, I keep an eye on my mirror. Since Jacinto was with me, I rode in the grit and muck. I knew we would both have multiple flats at this rate. We hit a little incline, with a great downhill. No. I can't do this. It's like riding downhill on ball bearings. I could feel myself tensing up like I did when I rode the P-38 downhill. That's not a good feeling. I moved to the left. Jacinto soon followed suit and we rode that way all day, except when we had traffic approaching.

We had a wide variety of terrain today. At first there was a whole bunch of nothing. Dirt and sky. Then we went through a volcanic rock area that I should have taken a photo of but didn't because I was too busy proving I could indeed ride fast.

On a nice little downhill, I saw an old car broken down with it's hood up. It seemed wrong to pass by out here in the middle of nowhere. Really, really nowhere. I stopped. An extremely thin woman in perhaps her 60's got out. I told her I was no mechanic, but did she need a drink of water. Yes, she would take one and she sure wished she had a snack. There was someone else with her, so we gave her two Nature Valley bars to go with the water. The water was a bottle I had filled again, so it wasn't new. But I guess if they were really thirsty, they had water. The lady said she had cell service (amazing) and that someone was coming to help. I counted my karma as paid up for the day. Off we rode again.

It was nice to have someone to ride with out here in the big lonely. On one hand, I thought twice about taking photo breaks because I didn't want to be so slow. But I do that with Oren also. Usually with Oren I can take one photo break and catch back up. But if I take two or three in a row, I don't see Oren again until he stops for me. Which he is good to do.

I was cruising at 18 mph - at this rate we would be to town in under two hours!

Bertha wanted us to take a side road into town, but we decided to stay on 191 to see what businesses there were. None. There were none. Two closed restaurants. We made the left into town proper. There was a Circle K on the left. We stopped for a V-8 for me and a pop for Jacinto. I stayed outside with the bikes. A man asked me if the bike was comfortable. We moved on to the usual questions. He was horrified, with facial expression and everything, that we were headed to Navajo Nation. He did not warn me about the virus, instead he said it wasn't safe. I told him we had ridden through there last year and felt just fine. I know things will be different this year with the virus. His wife came out of Circle K and I had to ask about the to go container of food on their dash. It was a salad from the pizza place across the street. Hmm. That sounded mighty fine. It was 2 PM and my oatmeal was a long time ago.

Jacinto and I rode across and both ordered salads. He ate his with sunglasses and helmet on. Jacinto doesn't usually like to eat until after a shower . . . I guess he doesn't know how to slow down when riding. I don't generally like to stop for an extended period of time mid ride. But we are just a few blocks from our airbnb and I know I'd be starving soon.

St Johns has two recently closed motels. Both are quite large, two stories. Luckily for us, we found an airbnb. Otherwise the routing on this part of the trip would have hit a real road block. It is 60 miles tomorrow into Chambers. If we hadn't stayed here, that would be a 90 mile day and that's too far for us. We would have had to reroute. But, here we are - in a great two bedroom apartment for only $93. We have to leave the dirty linens in the middle of the living room and take out the trash. There's no cable or wi-fi, but there's a selection of DVD's to watch. Jacinto has them narrowed down to four for me to pick from. That's our after dinner entertainment.

We are going to a nearby Mexican food that has dine in. Jacinto scouted it out on his way to the post office. Hannagan Meadow Lodge has real keys and Jacinto accidentally brought his with him. It was $5.80 to buy a padded envelope and mail it back .

I ran out of ZQuill days ago. It didn't seem to make me sleep longer, but I did sleep deeper. Tom recommended an Antihistamine to try instead. Jacinto walked past a pharmacy and stopped in. Let's see if we are indeed 'markedly drowsy' when we take this.

We are in the area of Arizona that has increased Coronavirus cases. Apache County. I'm surprised that no one is wearing masks, etc. Jacinto said inside the Circle K they had partitions at the registers, but in order to use both of them, the customers and the clerks both had to be shoulder to shoulder. At the post office, partitions only, no masks. I told Jacinto that for the next few days we should try to minimize our contacts. He said we are minimized already. We are already out here. I'd like to be smart while I'm here. I guess we are the experiment to see if UV rays really work.

Speaking of sunshine - we had interesting cloud formations all day. There were about five fat drops of rain coming into town. When we got in, I could hear ten fat drops on the window. Even if it did rain, it's warm. 91 degrees when we got to town.

Jacinto floated the idea of riding together again tomorrow. I'm flattered. He quickly followed that with we don't have much climbing, so we should take only four hours to ride 60 miles. Ha! In what dream world? Jacinto thinks that's a good number because it's supposed to be very windy (direct tailwind) and we should fly to town. We are staying in Chambers. We have 7 miles on the interstate headed east. That will not be a tailwind and could be a trying part of the day.

We aren't so excited about Chambers, but it's where we need to go to get where we are going. Try saying that fast! Chambers is basically a stop on the interstate. It has a Days Inn, a restaurant, and a gas station. That's it. The Days Inn has terrible reviews, but we have no choice. What's more - we took a day off here trying to shoehorn in all of those rest days. At the least they should have wi-fi and TV? Ice?

I would be interested in seeing the popcorn machine. I bet it was a Creators. Those were good. I'm also guessing someone has installed new wiring.

This is a rest area. Isn't that an interesting building? It is only open between 7-4, Mon-Thurs. I guess people don't need to pee outside of those hours.

Jacinto laughed at me for taking a photo of the rest area. I liked the architecture.

We were quickly out in the wide open spaces.

Lyman Lake Recreation area was open and busy. I don't know why they are open and all of the other places we passed are closed. One of the mysteries of bureaucracy.

I haven't seen many cows this trip. I had to admire the cute little guy in the center of the photo.

Our airbnb is an excellent value. $93. for a two bedroom apartment that is new. Oren, you made a good call on this one!

Jacinto is no longer worried about weight. He bought sugar and dried milk to go with his coffee. Up until now he had been getting sugar/creamer at the motels or convenience stores. That wasn't working so well. Now he has plenty of both!

Last night we were given an unsolicited senior discount at dinner. Tonight Jacinto was carded buying beer!

Today's ride: 30 miles (48 km)
Total: 533 miles (858 km)

Rate this entry's writing	Heart	2
Comment on this entry	Comment	0