Our first century day

Wednesday, June 10   Day 4  Sorocca to Albuquerque, NM  105.4 miles

One more crossing of the Rio Grande River, when we had ridden 95 miles. The final 10 miles were the hard part of the ride, since it was into a strong headwind. Fortunately, for most of the day we had brisk tailwinds, but approaching storms caused the winds to change direction. We all made it into the hotel before the rain began except for Sue and Neil Rowland. They had to seek shelter, but it passed over quickly.

It was a perfect morning, weather, scenery, and smooth-road wise. We continued to parallel Hwy 25, and at mile 17, we got on it and rode 12.5 miles. As yesterday, the shoulder was nice and smooth...for the first few miles. But then the road surface was old and bumpy, and my buns got sore absorbing all those mini-shocks.

When we departed the interstate, we had a rest stop to refuel, and then headed north again on the same road for about 30 miles. It too was within sight of Interstate 25. The two north-south features we have had for a long time are the Rio Grande River, and Interstate 25. Interspersed now and then are dramatic mountains on either side of us, sort of like this:

What a great shot, huh? Well, we actually haven't seen this exact scene; this is my photo of a photo in our hotel tonight. But some of our mountains have been sorta close to those on the left of this picture.

When we reached Las Lunas, there was our lunch awaiting us in a park. Look what Rod, Ella and Jack did for us!

The set out chairs, they made our roll-ups custom to our wishes (every day is a different delicacy), they brought us cookies and drinks so we wouldn't need to get out of our chairs. Oh my, what service!

The proud daddy has them "trained", so he can just supervise now. It was tough to get out of my chair to resume the ride. But the strong tailwinds made it more acceptable. Haha

At one point, we saw this sign and I wanted a photo since the only El Camino Real (the Royal Road) I was aware of was in California. The California missions were built along the old road during the late 18th and early 19th centuries. There, we called it The King's Highway.

Just before this photo, it got cloudy and I put my sunglasses away into my packet on my top tube. I hit a bump, they popped out, and before I could turn around to get them, they got run over! Oh well. I went back to get them and they're not TOO scratched. Maybe I'll pry the four clips and try to still use them until I can buy new ones.

In the outskirts of Albuquerque at the southern end, we crossed the Rio Grande and on the other side was this "bike monument". I had never seen something like that before, but Paul had and told me it's called a Ghost Bike. It honors someone who died riding his or her bike. Sad, but a nice tribute.

Just past this photo, we got off the roads and onto a bike trail that was essentially the Rio Grande levee. It took us through and past Albuquerque so that we did not have to navigate and ride through a large city to get to our destination to the northwest of downtown.

That's the Rio Grande River off to the left, although you can't see the water. Very pleasant way to ride through this area. Much of it was developed into park land with lakes and even a choo choo train for fun rides. When we finally got off the trail, the headwinds began and the final 10 miles were tough. I was really glad when we finished, as you can see in this next photo:

This Hyatt Regency Tamaya Resort is pretty incredible. There are acres and acres of beautiful grounds, and spas, and hot tubs, and this and that. At dinner, we heard some stories of wonderful things others had done on the grounds of the hotel, but I was so thrilled to be connected to the Internet and had so much to catch up on, I have not seen much. The dinner was in an outside patio with a live piano player, and the scenery/food/drink were superb.

Okay, I'm caught up, but it's late and tomorrow we have our first real climbing day - 6500 feet, and another century (100 miles).  We will go through Los Alamos on our way to Española. I might have time to visit something historic in Los Alamos.

The route link: http://ridewithgps.com/routes/7806845