Chaco Wash/Chaco Mesa, NM

63 miles, 5:08/7:45

We ride 15 or so miles down into Cuba to find a little grocery and stock up. It’s raining from the moment we get out of our tent and we know once again we’ll have to take an alternate route on pavement from Cuba in order to avoid “wheel sucking mud” on the mesa. We feel like we’re missing out on beautiful country but it’s not worth getting stuck out there for who-knows-how-long. So, once we stock up and get a sandwich at the Subway we head out. In the rain, with huge storms ahead.

We head West toward Chaco Canyon, though we won’t get to see any of the dwellings because it’s too far off the road. There’s 120 miles of highway between Cuba and Grants that we’ll try to get halfway through today, but we’ve already come 15 and wasted some time in Cuba. A couple hours into the highway ride we are seeing huge thunderstorms ahead of us. The sky is grey and purple and black and bolts of lightning are striking down in multiple directions. We’re headed straight for the mesa top and the darkest part of the storm. Maybe not the smartest thing to be doing, but there are other things higher than us.

We put our heads down and pedal as the wind whips our faces and sides. Soon the rain is harder, and then harder still. I’m scared but at the same time it’s very exciting and I’m laughing out loud at this craziness. The storm throws more at us as we descend a little and we’re now in the center of it. We’ve got our rain jackets on but the rest of us is soaked through. It feels like there are several ounces of water squashing in each shoe as I pedal. But before we know it the sky is getting a little lighter. The rain lets up just a little. We are passing through the worst of it, and soon we’re on the other side with only light rain and later just a sprinkle.

As we ride, the heat from our bodies starts to dry our legs. We unzip our jackets and let the air dry us some more. The rest of the day alternates between high clouds and sprinkling rain, and in the late afternoon the sun pokes out and everything sparkles. We’re facing a head wind all day, so by the time we get to a laundromat in the middle of ranch country (nothing else around for miles and miles) we ask if we can camp and they say it’s fine. They offer showers and we take advantage of them, as well as the laundry. It’s actually a quiet night and we get good sleep.