Day 6 Salome to Wikenberg AZ

Stats-54 miles and 900 feet of climbing

Woke up to clear skies but as we rolled the bikes out of the garage we discovered 2 flats, appears we picked up a lot of glass and road debris over the last few days  that's working it's way into the tires over time. We have now have had 6 flats, roughly a flat every 333 miles ( est. team milage at about 2000mi at this point).

 Walt tried to put a new Swalabee tire on his  custom Eisentraut but not enough clearance so back to Conti grand prix tires( this post is for MzB).  But on the bright side day 6 was officially 2-2 day ( of course some Clydes require a 4-4) check out the picture.

The road was smooth with very light traffic, the rumble strips had gaps to go in and out of so we road on the main road a lot ,Scenary was fantastic- lots of Saguro cactus, we were told it takes 70 years before they can grow an arm and many of them are over 100 years old. Creosote bush in bloom along with lots of desert flowers( whites, yellows, oranges,..) . At times along the way  we spotted snakes( dead and alive), road runners, coyotes and hawks. One sobering but touching sight was quite a few of these memorials to what we assumed must be accident victims along this highway.

  Rizzy and Cathy rode together most of the day with only one incident as Rizzy hit a branch  of a really thorny bush which ricotched into Cathy requiring the removal of some thorns from her lip and face (thanks Joan but ouch!).  Walt and Bernie yield to fun at one of the rest stops and Julie, Liz, Ken, Ciardo and Rizzy  rehydrate  along the way.

 We powered through to Wikenberg where we  checked into the best Western Rancho Grande and went across  the street for burgers at the Meca, they have happy hour from 2-7 ( wow- that's a happy day).  Back to the rooms for naps and then out to the pool for Margaritas hosted by Ciardo and Liz. The crew had dinner at Nana's, great home cooked comfort food.

We are approx 350 miles into the ride and everybody is looking good. Stan is no longer wrapping his ankle and will soon lose his "bigfoot" nickname.  Walt however is still mooching food and may have to wait till el Paso to lose his new " Yogi/Big feller" nicknames.

" Everybody talks about our drinking , nobody talks about our thirst"