Aug 27, Day 63

Silver City, NM to High Lonesome Bull campsite

Distance - 32 miles, Av Speed - 9.4mph

The night before, we meet up with Jim and his wife, Nancy. Jim has had a few flats cycling into Silver City, so he has decided that he is going to finish the ride without his BOB trailer.

Nancy will drive their Subaru alongside as support.

We meet again for breakfast at Vickis and we all start the ride together down the state highway 90.

Soon it starts to rain, and Jim realizes Nancy has his raingear in the car! The rain is quite heavy, and the weather forecast is for thunderstorms, heavy rain and localized flooding. As we think Nancy will not be able to drive down the dirt road, Jim decides to continue on the pavement, so we part ways at the turn off to the Separ road.

It is tempting to continue down the pavement with Jim, but we both want to experience a final night in the middle of nowhere, even if it is a wet one. Plus, it has been well over a week since we last rode on dirt, and this is the last section before the border.

Within a mile or two of being back on the dirt road, Numb Stuff notices that Dirtbaby has a slow puncture in her front tire, the New Mexico thorns have struck again. This is her third flat, all in the front tire. By now, Numb Stuff is such an expert, he fixes it in minutes.

The road is sandy rather than muddy, some parts are so sandy we have to get off and push the bikes through. We only see one car all afternoon, a Prius, which passes us, then a few minutes later, thinks better of it and comes back out again!

There are no campsites mentioned on the map, so we use the book for guidance. This suggests camping at mile 30 – High Lonesome campsite. Therefore, it is an early camp for us. However, this is rattlesnake country, so we take some time to choose a site that has the least undergrowth.

There is a bull on the other side of the road, who is all on his own, so we decide to christen the campsite High Lonesome Bull campsite in his honor. He comes fairly close to us to check us out, but is not threatening.

We have packed a nice bottle of red wine, so decide to have an early Mountain House dinner, in view of the dark storm clouds gathering on three sides of us. The wine slips down a treat, and we regret not bringing two! However, we have timed it perfectly; by the time we finish dinner, there is just time to dive in the tents before the rain starts to hammer down. It rains hard for 3-4 hours solid, so hard that the water splashes up underneath the fly spreading dirt into the tents. We just hope that we have not camped where the flood water drains!