Spinning in the sand.

August 9th

Had a great nights sleep at the Hidden Springs Hotel and packed up and hit the road by eight.  Had about 30 miles of pavement till our first sand road of the day.  Took that up through Pie Town, NM and after a bit started climbing up a mountian on a nice wide gravel road.  We climbed up to 9200 ft in elevation, which
was the highest yet for us.  Came down the mountian and into the valley which was like the desert, with sand roads, srub brush, and catus.  This was an awesome ride as we followed the valley for 110 miles through big washouts and around rock outcroppings along the caynon walls.  After fueling up we had another 120 mile
strech of a beautiful ride through the valleys of several mountians and then across a huge valley that aforffed us the ability to run about 65 miles an hour.  We saw two cyotes thru this run.  Got into town about 8:30, fueled up and headed into the mountains to find a place to camp for the night.  On the way up the mt. we ran into a herd of 5 or 6 bull elk.  Found a nice clearing and set up camp. Put in close to 300 miles for the day.