Cross Country Epic - Days 4 & 5: A Ride with A View

One of the best parts about driving across the country, or actually, THE best part of driving across the country, is witnessing the changing scenery around you. It can surprise you, depress you, elate you, and a host of things in between. You start off in the Piedmont of Virginia amid the Blue Ridge Mountains, and are surrounded by familiar sights. Comfort scenery. Not much changes in Tennessee except for a little less mountain and a little less green.

Suddenly, you are in Arkansas. The air outside is a wet blanket and the scenery is this:

Then you enter Oklahoma and Texas, the flatlands, which certainly start to tire the eyes eventually but also offer up something completely foreign. Windfarms, stockyards, lots and lots of yellow, and old abandoned buildings just begging for stories:

Then, you head into New Mexico: Land of Enchantment. It's not a joke when I say that you round a corner and find yourself staring at a 180 of panorama.

The best part by far, though, has been the ability to experience this transition from my bike. Though the rides haven't always been fun (ahem, North Little Rock), they have been a change from the normal routine.

Yesterday, I had a fantastic Albuquerque route planned that consisted of an "out" on a bike trail by a river, then cut across town, then "back" on another bike path by another river, then a detour through Old Town, before heading back to the parking lot. The glitch? My garmin had its mind blown by the bike path, and thus, we wound up just staying on the same stretch of path the whole way, and coming straight back. The other glitch? The "river" was actually a huge empty cement drainage ditch.

Did it matter? Not really. Though our immediate view was of industrial buildings and razor wire, in the distance we were treated to the following:

Today, I was REALLY excited to be riding through Petrified Wood National Park. Not only was I going to get to see PETRIFIED WOOD, but the park was PERFECT for exploration by bike. Park at the Historic Rainbow Inn, and follow the one road that had look out spots along the way. There are too too many gorgeous shots to try to fit (it's the sort of place where you close your eyes and point your camera and you look like the next Ansel Adams), but here are some of my favs:

But lest you think I left out the best part. au contraire.

I give you, petrified wood.

If you ever go to this park, the BEST way to do it IMHO is on bike. Here is a picture of us heading out triumphant with a tailwind and a continuous downhill.

The worst way to do it, on a bike, IMHO, is the way we did it: downhill going out, uphill coming back, and only 2 water bottles. Here is a less triumphant picture of the ride back.

The first part is a no brainer. If I had to do it over again, I would have driven all the way to the end of the park, changed at the Petrified Wood Center, and headed out from there.

The second part. Ah yes. Well, you see, I blithely assumed that at a National Park, with bathrooms, in the middle of the desert, there would be opportunities to get some water. Unfortunately, as soon as Tom and I saw the compost bathroom and the locked spigot outside of them, we knew otherwise. Also unfortunately at this point, we still had about 12 uphill exposed uphill desert miles to go before reaching the car.

These are small quibbles to what was otherwise a fantastically gorgeous and amazing experience, though.

The long and the short of it? Seeing the country by car is a great experience, but the bike is definitely the cherry, chocolate sauce, AND whipped cream on top.