Day 73 & 74

Miles 70 (this is a guess since my speedometer does not work with mud caked on it) total for trip 2855.39 Where do I begin. Lets begin with the cool scenery from above. I was going toward this peak all of day 73. Most of the day it was sunny behind the peak, but the closer I got the more cloudy it became.

Lets start from the end. The picture above is of my seat at the end of day 74. This is after about 35 miles of riding on the seat. I road the flat and downhill sections and walked the uphill sections of today's travels back to Grants NM.

The upper pic is before a much needed bath. The clay/dirt would not come off with just pooring water on it. The high powered was did a great job. After the was I could shift my front derailleur again. The rear derailleur worked better but still needed some adjusting. Just a few more miles to the great town of Grants.

The above picture is the best sight I have seen for around 24 hours. I stopped to filter water on day 73. My water filter had been working great the entire trip. I pull it out put it in some sad looking water and start filtering. Nothing happened. I took the water filter apart and still nothing happened. I had to take my water bag off of my trailer to filter the water into. Without a working filter I could not get any drinkable water. I was frustrated and forgot to get to my water bag I had to take my GPS off of the bungee cord. So after I left the water spot the GPS fell of my trailer without my knowing. So the GPS unit kept on beeping ok for the next 20 hours or so from the same location.(I found the GPS unit on my way back to Grants NM, yippee)

The above picture is made possible by a wreck. This wreck happened after about 10 minutes of heavy rain and hail. I was about 10 miles from my lost GPS unit (I did not yet know it was lost) and the rain and hail caused the clay I was riding on to be very slippery. I saw a group of large rocks that would be ok to stay for the night. I turned my front tire a small amount and the top .5 inches of clay slid from under my front tire. I did not have a chance to correct so I hit the deck. My seat, yes my seat again broke, my front bag bent but did not break, and my trailer clips bent so I could not unhitch my trailer to fix the flat rear tire I had. I looked at the damage and saw that I had lost my GPS unit so I looked for it around the area that I wrecked. I could not find it and thought it was lost, but as luck would have it I found it later on day 74. I was trying to fix my seat, in the middle of a thunder storm, mud from head to toe, trying to figure out what to do when I decided to try to get back to Grants NM. There was an abandoned house about a mile back I decided to sleep in. I fixed the seat as well as I could to try to get back to Grants and I tried to fix the water filter, but the filter still did not work. I made it to Grants about 5 hours earlier then I though I would and got a hotel room. I will get a couple seats at Walmart and try to fix the derailleurs myself. I am looking forward to a great sleep tonight and plan to spend another night in Grants. I will be taking an alternative route to Cuba NM on all pavement.