Day #39: Deming, NM- Lordsburg, NM 59.0 Miles

Tailwinds!!!


Today we had steady tailwinds for the first time!  It was like we pressed the cruise control button on our Surly Long Haul Trucker bikes and flew to Lordsburg.


With the help of Mother Nature, we raced towards Lordsburg at roughly 20mph pace. We stopped after 20 miles to get ice cream when we noticed a Dairy Queen coming up at a rest stop.  Our friend Dovi Zucker would be disappointed if we passed a Dairy Queen and didn't stop, so even though it was about 10am we decided to split a large blizzard. At the rest stop, we asked a woman if there was a frontage road along the highway. She told us there was (we ended up not using it).  She asked us where we were headed and we told her we were headed to Lordsburg.   She was surprised that we were going that far considering she had passed us in her car on her way to work. After a total of 3 hours and 30 minutes of biking, we had reached Lordsburg (59 miles in 3.5 hours...you do the math)! Along our route today we passed the "Continental Divide" - the line that divides whether water runs into the Pacific Ocean, or into the Atlantic Ocean (pic below).  Its surprising that the line is so far west, but water that goes into the Gulf of Mexico ends up in the Atlantic.  We checked into the Best Western, watched a few episodes of "30 Rock" (we are trying to get through all the seasons... we really like it so far), and went swimming. We are going to watch a few more episodes of "30 Rock" before we go to sleep.  We would have preferred to keep biking today but the next lodging opportunity (even camping) was over 70 miles away in Wilcox, AZ - where we hope to get to tomorrow.


Thanks for coming along for the ride!


Here is some info on the Continental Divide:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continental_Divide_of_the_Americas


Check out our route at the link below:
Deming, NM- Lordsburg, NM