Day 12, April 2, Safford AZ to Buckhorn NM, 77.73 miles, 682.6 cuml miles

>Bruce crossing into New Mexico, state 3!

Buckhorn RV park my orange tent

Leaving Arizona

going up

Thumb Butte

desert
flora

more desert flora

Here is the elevation map for April 2. We did 78 miles with big mountains going over 6,295 ft pass just before NM state line. It was a challenging day! You can click on the picture and zoom to examine it (photo of ACA map). I think it was the hardest day, being long, and following 2-80 mile days, ahd having the two big passes to cross. We went from 2,800' to 4,700' to 3,500' to 6,300 ft.
We did have favorable winds most of the day and had some lovely long downhills.
We left Safford, AZ, which was any-strip-town USA with the regular stores, restaurants and motels, and went over 2 passes into oblivion to Buckhorn, NM. The only "town" we went through today was called "Three Way, AZ", no kidding. Luke said it had to be the worst 3-way in the world. There was a convience store and an outhouse. Past there, there were no cell sites within miles, so we were disconnected from the world for most of a day...Buckhorn NM RV park is where we stayed, and it was a junker, but the only place within miles. I made it in first today, having left at 6:55am, arriving at 2:15 pm, which turned out to really be 3:15pm given our move into Mountain Time Zone. Others arrived by about 645pm (MT) and Luke and I were on for dinner and cooked up turkey meat spaghetti, salad and garlic bread, which went down well. We had our group of 12 plus 2 leaders plus 2 other xc riders sharing the tiny laundry room/shower-sink-toilet. It was easier to soap up the sides of the shower and spin to get clean - don't drop the soap because there is no room to bend over...
But we survived.