Wild Tarantula!

Day 53. 30.5 miles - the most challenging day of the route per the guidebook. Mostly uphill and very rough. From our campsite this morning we biked into Abiquiu and stopped at the “store” and discovered a cinnamon bun…….and filled up with extra water. We are riding on a ridge with no water for almost 80 miles over 2 days. Shortly up the trail/road we saw a tarantula. Its’ back was all tan and it was big, black and hairy. Great wildlife experience. The climb was fairly gradual and we stripped off layers and climbed up a desert landscape with lots of cacti, some with fruit. We passed a large wall of columnar basalt. The road was fairly rough and a couple of hunters went by in trucks. Eventually it rained and we put on all our rain gear and kept going up. Did I mention that the whole day was up?! We were supposed to go 23 miles (A very low mileage day due to the difficulty of the train and the fact that we were only going up) but we were able to go a bit further. At one point we passed a low area that had warning signs posted of a flash flood risk in that area. We saw a few flocks of beautiful bright blue bluebirds earlier in the day. Most of the afternoon was spent in the rain and in the drizzle. When we reached the initial campsite we decided it was wet and not appealing, and it was early enough to continue a few more miles so we finished the climb. At the top of the climb we stopped to have food and to put on dry clothes as we were all damp and chilled. Tara’s rain gear had wet through despite two treatments with waterproofing. We decided to start down (planned for tomorrow) and stop as soon as we found a good place to stealth camp. We found a place off the road that was level and far enough away as to not be really obvious to anyone passing by. We only saw 3-4 cars all day and maybe 3-4 four wheelers/quads. We were fortunate that it stopped raining while we set up the tent and cooked dinner. We were in our tents by 7:30 studying the maps for tomorrow. We are sleeping at 10,140 feet tonight. The landscape on this side of the mountain is no longer desert with cacti and sage but is back to high mountain aspens, Ponderosa Pines and Cedars.