Alright I know I haven’t blogged in like 3 days. The reason I couldn’t write this blog on time is because I had absolutely zero Wi-Fi and zero data service in Kayenta, AZ. Anyway, here are the pictures:
Today I dedicated my day to Sue and Gene Tawes. They are the parents of my third grade teacher who, together, have survived breast, colon, liver, and lung cancer.
I woke up in Chinle and discovered that overnight I had gotten a flat tire in my rear wheel! Upon replacing it with a new tube, I discovered that the tube that was in my saddle bag was also flat! I guess that’s what happens when it sits in there untouched for 51 days. It was probably rattling and bouncing around through hot and cold temperatures and ended up with a tiny hole in it. So now that makes 5 tubes that I’ve gone through total on the 4k. Two this morning, one on my flat a couple days ago, one for the slow leaking valve, and one on the first day when I shredded my tire.
The morning started out warm! The past couple of days I had to start the ride with a jacket on, but this time I didn’t! I rode with Heather, Dan, and Dana. Just like on the way into Chinle, we had to bike out on a dirt road. Heather joked that she would fall off her bike within the first mile and funny enough, a few seconds later, she did! Luckily she was able to unclip her feet really fast and was able to save herself, but her bike fell in the dirt.
The ride was really easy and there were really only two “big” hills. These hills would’ve been awful during the first week, but now that we’ve climbed mountains, they were just another hill to pedal up. We left Chinle a little earlier than usual to beat the heat, and we arrived in Kayenta around 1pm. The ride took a little over 6 hours. Here is the GPS route: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/549372170.
Some other interesting things about today…
There were a lot of naps since we got up earlier than usual. Here are a few pictures I got of Kirk, Kenny, and Aaron:
Just another day on the 4k. We can literally sleep anywhere. Also, Matt was in the water van and at each water stop, he had changed into a different pair of obnoxious running shorts. There was neon yellow, leopard print and my favorite, America:
Unfortunately we couldn’t see the full glory of the leopard print shorts because there were police officers at that water stop. They were escorting us into Kayenta. Normally I would be a fan of police escorts, but a 15 mile escort is a little too much. The traffic wasn’t too bad on the road and it had a nice shoulder, but with 27 riders all riding together taking up the whole road, the traffic gets backed up. We had to stop every 2 miles to let traffic go by. I honestly don’t think the escort provided many safety benefits, and at the same time I think it slowed us down a lot. We’ve learned to try to keep escorts to under 5 miles.
When we got to the host in Kayenta, AZ, we ate lunch at the recreation park under a pavilion and met two stray dogs. There are a lot of strays around here, but they all look relatively healthy, and they all are very tame. We fed them some bread and crackers and played with them a little bit. Kirk even picked some ticks off of the one!
After a while, we split up into three groups to go to different places to spend the night. When I got to the house I was staying at, I took a good hour long nap while everyone else showered. We then met up at another host home for dinner. Dinner wasn’t ready for a while, so we all sat and watched TV! Law and Order SVU to be specific. Dinner was pasta and salad with fry bread! Fry bread is common in Arizona and is pretty much homemade flatbread made in a frying pan that is delicious!
After dinner, we departed to go to Monument Valley State Park. Unfortunately my phone died so I wasn’t able to get any pictures, but Simon got this awesome picture of Max blowing us all away with his superpowers:
The views were incredible, here is a picture that Brad took:
After leaving the state park, we went to our separate host homes and went to bed. I know this post is late, but don’t forget to comment on it!
Tyler Stocksdale's 4K Ride 
OK…I had to comment. Glad you got to try and enjoy fry bread. Do you put anything like sugar on it? And it’s flat and dense versus risen and fluffy? When I was younger we would take white bread dough that was risen once, brake that into pieces and fry in oil. Then roll in sugar ….yummy and oh so unhealthy! Which is probably why you never experienced growing up…haha So what are Max’s super powers?
No it looks like pita bread but more greasy. And did you not see the picture of Max blowing us all away?
I saw it. Im blonde remember!? How’d you do that?
Great and beautiful pictures!!! 🙂