September 2nd, 2026 - Day 8

Day 8 - Sept 2, 2026
Route $66,000 - Arizona & New Mexico
Bike: 61 miles, 800’, 3 hours 24 minutes

What a day! We got to stand on the corner of Winslow, Arizona, eat a brisket hamburger, pull into an RV park that beautiful, bike 61 miles at 17.9mph, and change 5 flat tires and 1 blown tire.

I carry 3 spare tubes with me and at the 30 mile make I had used them all and blown a tire. The tire I could limp to the end by putting a dollar bill on the inside, but no tubes and I was dead.

Along comes Jeri to the rescue. She found an REI open at 9am, got all the tubes they had and one new tire. (I had all this already in the van, but I have another 2-300 miles on I40 to go. There are going to be more flats.) After she arrived and I got all fixed up we realized we were only 5 miles from the meteor crater. We saw it together and then I kept riding.

As Robert Fulghum wrote, “Life is lumpy. And a lump in the oatmeal, a lump in the throat, and a lump in a breast are not the same lump. One should learn the difference.” I know my lump today was like the one in the oatmeal. And without it I never would have seen that crater with Jeri.

SHINE!
The Road Rider