Dateland, AZ

When we left Yuma we were expecting smooth sailing but what happened wasn't quite what we expected. We ate breakfast in the hotel room and left fairly early for us. First of all we saw a Barnes and Noble bookstore and stopped to buy an Arizona county map book. After that we got maybe two miles or so down the road and saw a bike trail running beside the road. So Hap swung over to the trail. In a couple of minutes I noticed Hap kept picking things off of the front tire as we road along. I said what are you doing? He said rocks keep getting stuck on the tire and I am pulling them off. Then I noticed that the rear tire was losing air. So we stopped to check it out. The first thing we noticed was that the "little rocks" were "little burrs"! Just like the ones that we had found to be a real problem while cycling in the Salt Lake City area. While mountain biking we had FOUR flat tires at one time. A new world record I am sure. So here we are now with both tires losing air. Yesterday we had stopped at a bike shop and bought some slime (tire sealant) that you put inside the tube to seal up small leaks. Hap put some in both tires to see if that would stop the leaks. I found lots of burrs sticking out of the tires. Last night he had spent putting a tire, tire liner and slime on the trailer tire. We headed on down the road. There was alot of traffic leaving Yuma and I think ALL of them passed us at some point. The rear tire started losing air again and so we stopped to pump it up again. Hap's theory was that if we spun the tire long enough eventually the "slime" would fill the holes. We stopped for lunch before leaving town. Leaving town we were on the frontage road alongside of our favorite Interstate 8 and we knew at some point the road would dead end. Just at the point where we were debating whether or not we should get on the interstate, I saw a bike shop. So we stopped. Hap bought brand new "slimed pre-slimed" tubes for the bike. But he didn't want to take the time to put them on so we got on the freeway (the bike shop guy said that is where all the cyclists ride around here). We must have stopped 7 or 8 times to pump up the tire. Can I just say how much fun we were having. Don't you wish you were there to watch HAP pump up all the tires again and again and again. I especially loved all of the traffic whizzing by. That made it really special. We had to go through a border patrol check point as we were climbing out of the Yuma area. They just waved us through, laughing...... We had a good 6 percent grade to come down on the freeway. Don't worry I made sure that Hap stopped to pump up the tires ONE MORE TIME! All in all we only road about 35 miles or so to Wellton. We thought we were going to stay at a RV park but when we called them they said NO TENTS. We don't want any riff raff in our area. We called the police to see if we could camp in the park, but they didn't seem to know either. So we ended up in a hotel again. I spent most of the evening trying to find a place for us to stay tomorrow night. We finally called and found one in Dateland. Which is where we are tonight.
Today's ride was on a road parallel to I 8 for much of the time. It was old highway 80. There was hardly any traffic on it. It was a nice road. We did have a headwind. The temps are again in the 70's. The last 13 miles we were on the interstate. There was alot of trafffic due to the holiday weekend so we were happy to get off the road. It looks like tomorrow we will be able to ride most of it on highway 80 again. Not much scenery again today. Just desert and desert. Oh and a few mountains here and there. Until next time.....