Crossed The Continental Divide.....Must be downhill to Boston from here.

Day 11
Gallup NM to Grants NM  68 Miles
Crossed The Continental Divide.

We stayed on the west side of Gallup NM last night and had dinner at a restaurant that specialized in Mexican, Greek, Native Indian, Middle Eastern and Italian food...you should have seen the menu.
As frightening as I thought that this place might be the Mexican food that I had was really good and the group seemed very pleased with their meals.

The morning started with at least 6 "room flats". Room flats are what we call tires that decide go go flat overnight from a slow leak. Above is a picture of My Captain Vinny (left) and Gorgeous George, the worlds most interesting man (right) as Vinny fixes one of his 3 flats for the day. Vinny is a great guy and he is joined on the ride by his  lovely bride Tracy. Gorgeous George is accompanied my "Georges Angels", Bonnie and Donna and will soon have lead Angel, Carole joining the ride. George is 75 and is doing the full route, 3,415 miles. George is an inspiration to me.
Staying on the west side of Gallup allowed us the opportunity to ride through all of Gallup on our way out of town. Gallup must have more pawn shops and pay day loan stores than any place on earth. Gallup also had some very interesting store names. There was Fetish Indian Jewelry and the sign below that only a picture can do justice.

 I only post this picture for the 99% of you who will never be to Gallup NM to see. Please don't judge me on this, I only laughed until I realized that it was not funny and that I was acting childish. please forgive me.

Above there are a few things that may catch your attention, Ruby Jean on her side, the train in the background but what this really is a picture of  "the restroom". A nice full green bush along side the road is a much appreciated sight. If you look close you can see me waving....my hand.

As you can tell, it was still a brisk day when we crossed the Continental Divide. All water that falls on the west side flows toward the Pacific and all water that falls east side flows to the Atlantic. At the elevation of 7,295 this will be the highest point of the ride although we still have well over 100,000 ft of gain before we arrive in Boston.

Today turned out to be a great ride. I was fortunate to have no flats and I seemed to have good legs. There were predictions of thunderstorms for the early afternoon so after crossing the Divide I hammered that last 35 miles and finished early.

Tomorrow we ride to Albuqurque and the forecast again is for cool conditions and maybe even a tailwind, fingers are crossed.

Thanks for following along and remember to always Dream Big, Jeff