Ever been to nowhere?

So the past couple days of riding have been interesting. And I mean interesting in the sense that I go the entire day without seeing a human being that isn't either on a bike or in the occasional car. And I can count the number of buildings that I see on one hand.

Tonight we're staying in a town called Mosquero in New Mexico. The town has about 150 people total...so by us staying here tonight we're increasing the population by like 20%. We were eating at a little restaurant earlier when we rode in and got invited to come to Cowboy Camp tonight for dinner. I have absolutely no idea what that means...but we were told there would be free food..and I'm assuming there will be cowboys??? I'll let you know.

I realized that a couple blog entries ago I wrote that we would be riding into Armadillo, Texas. That was a typo on my part because we actually wrote into Amarillo...which is quite different. This mistake on my part leads me into an entirely different subject that I have failed to mention so far. This subject is encountered every single day, and it is called: Roadkill!

If you were to ask me what type of animal we find most lying dead on the side of the road, the answer all of us would probably give would be armadillos. We have seen countless dead armadillos, that I'm beginning to think that I will never see a live one. Once we saw a dead baby alligator (that was probably the most unique roadkill). But the worst part about roadkill being on a bicycle is the smell. No matter what animal it is...the smell is the same...and it's awful! The closest I come to feeling nauseous on my bike is from the smell of roadkill. So I think that the reason that I said we were going into Armadillo, TX was because I'm bombarded by the sight of armadillos almost every day.

But that's enough about that. Let's go back to Amarillo, TX. We had a day off there this past weekend, which gave us a chance to go to Palo Duro Canyon State Park, which is apparently the second largest canyon (next to the Grand Canyon of course). 15 of us went, and we hiked around, got tired of the marked trails and just tried to get to the highest point we could. It was beautiful and I recommend it to anyone who goes through Amarillo. It was probably one of my favorite things that I've seen on this trip so far. I loved it. And it was nice to do something with our group that's different than biking (although I haven't gotten sick of biking yet).

That's all I've got today. I'll let you know how Cowboy Camp goes, and we start riding the Rocky Mountains tomorrow...so please send me strong thoughts. Tomorrow is a 98 mile day, which is hard enough when it's flat. I'm a bit nervous about the mountains, but am also looking forward to the change of scenery. Santa Fe in two days!

:)