Day 12 – It’s my birthday!

Miles completed: 77.5

Cumulative miles: 682.3

Miles to St Augustine: 2,416

Today we rode on Arizona Highway 70 from Cutter, AZ to Safford, AZ. This was my least favorite ride of the trip so far. Let me explain why.

The route itself was not too challenging with a big 6 mile descent near the beginning and then some gradual inclines over the rest of the route. However, there was about an 8 mph wind in our face the whole day. But the main reason was that Highway 70 didn’t have a great shoulder and we had to ride in the roadway until a car came and then ride into the shoulder. All day I was looking at traffic instead of the surrounding scenery, so I didn’t get many scenery pictures today. It was more stressful than the other days. And I also got a flat tire.

Remember when I told you I had good luck at the casino? Well that luck changed when I got back to my hotel room last night. My bike had a flat tire caused by a thorn and I spent the next hour fixing it. So this morning I was nervous about my tire. And I was right, at about the 23 mile mark today, I had another flat tire, this time due to a metal shard. Pat, Brent and Roy all helped with getting me going again. Luckily, I survived the rest of the trip with no more tire issues.

Now for some fun stuff. Today we are staying at “The Essence of Tranquility”, a hippie-looking place with natural hot springs. They have varied accommodations, and our group was assigned two single person cabins among other multi-person accommodations. I got one of the cabins because it is my birthday and Mark got the other as his birthday is tomorrow. Check out the pictures.

Finally, the group sang happy birthday to me and we shared a red velvet cake that said Happy Birthday Tom!