Day 23 Wed, 9/30/009 Teec Nos Pos to Bloomfield - Another Big Windy

Our day is unusual. It starts in the middle of the night with the wind gusting to incredible forces and rain starting to come down. Martha had not put the rain fly on and so we all three line up and move her and her stuff into our manger where she will stay dry. It is a bit of a process and it takes a while for all of us to calm back down and fall back to sleep. The wind is still blowing in the morning and as we pack up the car we know we are in for one stiff ride. A quick check of the bikes show that I have a flat. Gotten by the nasty goat heads! We don't leave until 9 AM and we know that we may not make it with the wind blowing so hard. Bill will wait for us down the road to see how things are going. We start up a steep hill with the wind gusting at 35 to 45 mph. Once up it however we meet the New Mexico border and just have to stop for a photo as we enter our home state. Yahoo! We chug along, slowly but surely, making steady progress towards the town of Shiprock.

But oh no! Martha has a flat. There is no shoulder and the edge of the road is full of prickly weeds and so she must change the tire almost in the lane of traffic. We are directly north of the actual Shiprock but it is obscured by the blowing dust and sand. Once on the road again we realize we are doing pretty well and so when Bill finds us we ask him to wait in town just to see how things are going. As we approach town we see this sculpture, which is pictured at the top of the page, and it looks exactly how we feel, completely wind blown!

Once in Shiprock we find Bill and decide we are good to go and release him to go onto the Farmington area where he plans to explore the ruins there. We get a sandwich at the store and sit on the sidewalk to eat it as the Navajos walk by staring at us - it feel like a role reversal! Then, to our surprise, 5 or 6 Kachinas approach us all dressed as different dolls (for lack of a better word). They were looking for donation and carried big sacks that people were putting food items and other things into. They are not allowed to talk, but through chirps and sign language asked where we were going and if we were biking. It was quite an experience that I can't possible describe here. Soon however we had to get going again. To our delight the wind was now at our back instead of at our side. We fly down the road towards Bloomfield. But then OH NO! Another flat, this time for Kit and this time plenty of room to fix it. So we are off again, still flying towards Bloomfield. We get to Farmington in no time. As we approach Bloomfield Kit gets yet another flat! Damn Goatheads! We throw in the hat as we are only a mile or two from our planned end spot and call Bill to come get us and take us to our friends, Leslie and Paul's home where we will spend the next two night. Bill has had a good afternoon visiting both Salmon Ruins and Aztec Ruins and taking lots of photos. One to the left is of the doors at Aztec Ruins. We are well ready for our rest day. Leslie treats us like royalty and fixes us a wonderful pork dinner. We are in heaven after a very unusual and memorable day.