No time + no T-Mobile network + no strength = no news = good news… It is mathematical… Quite obvious for us engineers!! (Not sure what I still have left of an engineer… and same remark applies to my banker friend and cycling partner Bertrand…)

Ok we just finished!!! We are in beautiful Santa Fe!!

Very happy the challenge is behind us, not that it wasn’t great, but we need some rest.

All in all, here are some numbers:

• Day 0: 45 km Vegas Airport to Mead Lake Las Vegas
• Day 1: 230 km to historical Route 66
• Day 2: 135 km to Grand Canyon going through dirt tracks and cattle, over rail roads… finishing with 90km of hitchhiking as the sun was down…
• Day 3: 125 km in direction of Page, AZ (Lake Powell dam) but changed the route to cut it a little shorter and ended up in Tuba City, a town you don’t have to stop in, unless you wanna taste a real authentic $5 Taco Belly…
• Day 4: 170 km to Monument Valley and arriving in a middle of a thunder and sand storm… This is Utah, our third state.
• Day 5: 185 km probably the most beautiful day going to Cortez, CO
• Day 6: 75 km short day going up hill and finishing in Durango, CO, probably the biggest surprise… A town “of many uses” as they say about their National Forests… Beautiful bricks and wood architecture with casual bars, restaurants and breweries. Everyone has a mountain bike or kayaking equipment. The town lives and breathes outdoor sports. With the large snowy mountains just right next to it, I expect the winter season to be all about skiing too…
• Day 7: 170 km enter New Mexico and say Good Bye to civilized world… No gas station for 140 km… Not that we need gas in our eco-friendly bicycles, but we need our every 2 hour junk food refueling, and gas stations are usually the best places for that.
• Day 8: 170 km getting closer to civilized world or should I say uncivilized population. It was a first, but a guy in a big pick up truck pulling a boat threw his coke at us and finished us with the can… Unfortunately it was one of many incivilities we have witnessed or suffered from… The scariest thing is the amount of beer bottles and cans thrown on the side of the road…

Now enjoying the luxury Bishop’s Lodge in Santa Fe, NM and its awful service. They certainly missed their only chance to make a first good impression, as the receptionist totally ignored us for 20 min before checking us in. Then we had the pleasure of hearing the very polite Restaurant Manager telling us about his bread that was just about to get out of the oven, but that we never got, because it actually didn’t exist… A dinner bill that doesn’t add up, a wifi in the room that doesn’t work (never worked), the front desk giving us wrong infos about the shuttle to the airport, the bed sheets not even lasting 1 hour of sleep before being a big mess, the room not done at 3pm…

I should probably go to church more often to get better service at the Bishop’s Camping Ground, or Motel or whatever they call it…

Spoiled child’s considerations put a aside, this Las Vegas – Santa Fe challenge was a great experience. We had the most beautiful landscapes ever and our muscles really hurt, which was, believe it or not, a starting point in deciding about this trip (getting hurt)…

All together 1300km cycled (808 miles) in just a little more than 8 days, which represents 156 km a day (98 miles)…

It was pretty stupid and pointless but we made it!!