10-26-2008: 22nd and 23rd

We are camping at Stoneman Lake, the road here was pretty nice. The Campground is nice too, but very windy at the moment. The Lake, however, is much smaller than we thought it would be and there are a whole bunch of cabins or I should say mini mansions on the other side of the lake. We definitely weren't expecting to see homes up here. I'm hanging out in the tent with Dusty, we're taking a break from the wind. Once we passed Mormon lake it seemed as if the forest service land was more open for camping. Jeez it's windy out!

I want to go back a few days because I was unable to write on the 22nd and 23rd. The 22nd was a cold day. I wore my puffy pretty much all day - even when I was riding my bike, which is pretty crazy. The road was pretty nice most of the way, however, a big section was a jeep track that made two single tracks, I had no problem with it, since I pull a single tired B.O.B. but since Dan pulls the Doggy Ride, which has two wide spaced wheels, he had some troubles, the wheel base was too wide for the single track. He could go along okay, but he had to go pretty slow. The scenery was beautiful, fairly flat, with nice, rolly hills.

Dan got a flat. While replacing the flat, the spare accidentally blew, so we decided to patch the one with the hole. He found he had 2 holes so we patched them up. We rode on, but Dan's tire was still leaking. It was a quick, slow leak (if that makes sense :^) so we decided to just keep filling it up as we rode. We had a hard time finding a good campsite, but we finally found one off a forest service road, it had a flat area with a juniper tree. We got in pretty late, so we just cooked dinner, ate and went to bed.

The next day, the 23rd, Dan was able to find a third hole in his tire and patched it up. The day started well, we were on a nice wide dirt road and it was much warmer than the day before. We decided to follow the Arizona Trail for a while more rather than go straight out to Hwy 180. That decision led to a rough day. We turned onto FR 417 which was okay in parts, but other parts were steep and very loose river rock which was impossible for us to peddle on (especially with our trailers). We ended up pushing our bikes a lot. We then turned south on FR 416 which was more of the same only steeper. Dan had to help me push my bike in some of the steeper areas. We finally got to the top and the road turned into a really nice, wide, dirt road. Once again we had some troubles finding a campsite, but finally found a nice spot right under Mt. Humphreys. We ended late again that night so we just ate and went straight to bed.

Back to today, we stopped at 2:30 which was very nice. Dan's able to work on the bikes and I'm able to catch up on some writing and read some. I just wish it wasn't so freakin' windy out. The dogs are funny they don't like the wind either so they want in the tent, but then they get bored so they want out of the tent. They can't make up their minds, what sweeties.