Grants to Santa Fe!

From Grants, we had to go up almost 3000 ft of elevation. Good thinng we had two days' worth of water, plus this baggied beer!

Flora changes a lot with altitude. Starting out in dry and dusty desert, we ended up in this beautiful pine forest.

After dropping elevation a bit, we camped with cactuses, overlooking the valley. Finally got to enjoy this beer!

Crazy volcanic mountains. This spike is lava that cooled inside a volcano, and then the outside of the volcano eroded away.

It is still unclear to us why some of these roads exist at all.

Terrified cows.

Back to the desert. Mesas and cool rocks abound.

Camping on a plateau at sunset, after a hard day that should have been flat, but the arroyos that crisscross the desert are surprisingly hard to cross without bridges: the road would suddenly and very steeply dip in to these canyons and then just as steeply emerge on the other side.

Third day out of Grants.

Cuba had wonderful Mexican food.

Leaving Cuba, NM on our way towards Santa Fe. This sign didn't tell us anything we didn't know already.

Steep climb out of Cuba, then steep hills all day.

We met some other bike tourists! This group from Albuquerque is on a seven day trip.

Luke came and picked us up about fifty miles from Santa Fe! we really appreciated not having to camp in the mountains, where it was raining and snowing. Instead, we got to stay in Luke's cottage at the Audubon society center. Big improvement!

On a hike up to Atalaya mountain. It was snowing!