Day 12 - Wednesday, May 23rd - Gallup to Grants, NM - Crossing the Great Divide

Distance: 65.8 miles

Elevation Gain: +1275 ft. or 19.4 ft./mile

Net elevation change: -70 ft


Click here to ride along!!

After back to back days of 90+ miles it is nice to see a somewhat easier day mileage wise. The route is largely southeast and mostly on Route 66 with a small stretch on I-40. 

Leaving the hotel we can tell that today will be different. For the first time on the tour there is a head wind and it doesn't take long for a portion of the group to start to work together. For those readers that are new to cycling, the working together concept is simple. You ride in single file and take turns at the front of the line. The rider on the front is doing the bulk of the work taking on the brunt of the wind and setting the pace, hence the term "paceline". Every rider that follows is drafting off the rider in front of him/her.  The rider at the front pulls off after say a mile and drops to the back and the next rider is doing the hard work for the next mile. This worked really well until about mile 17 when Route 66 ended and we had to get on I-40. At this point we started the climb to the Continental Divide so the group of about 10 riders spread out and the rhythm we had enjoyed for that 10 miles ended. Certainly was fun while it lasted. 

Out of the hotel we head east on Maloney Ave and a mile down the road we turn south on 33^rd street and then a left to get on Route 66. At about the six-mile mark we leave Gallup, and pass through Rehoboth, home to the Rehoboth Christian School and its 56 permanent residents. The Rehoboth Christian School was started by missionaries of the Christian Reformed Church who came to the southwest United States in 1896 to bring Calvinist Christianity to the Navajo and Zuni. The Christian Reformed Church is a branch of Protestantism in the US and Canada having roots in the Dutch Reformed Churches in the Netherlands

At mile eight we pass the Fire Rock Navajo Casino in Church Rock which has a population of about 1100 and is named after a Pillar rock formation in Navajo County, Arizona. Not surprisingly the main economic activity in the area is the 60,000 square foot Fire Rock Casino

At mile 13 is Wingate which was a station on the Atchison Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad and is located about three miles north of Fort Wingate which was established on the site of Fort Lyon on Navajo territory, originally to control and “protect” the large Navajo tribe to its north. From 1870 on, it was more concerned with the Apaches to the south and through 1890 hundreds of Navajo scouts were enlisted at the fort. Fort Wingate supplied 100 tons of high explosives to the Manhattan Project for the first test of a nuclear device in North America at what is now the White Sands Missile Range. Fort Wingate base was closed in 1993 and environmental cleanup continues as well as the use of 6500 acres by the Missile Defense Agency launching target rockets to White Sands Missile Range about 150 miles southeast of here.

Some pics from this section of Route 66.

If you like trains I have been highly negligent.  For at least the past three days I have seen at least ten trains each day as our route runs parallel to train tracks. This is likely to continue well into and possibly through Kansas. We are not talking small trains either and way too long to stop and count the cars. Yesterday when I noticed a train coming towards me and counted off the time it took to pass me.  I was going about 17 mph at the time, I have no idea how fast the train was going, but I'll hazard a guess of 25-35 mph based on the speed of the train in the picture above. Yesterday's train took a full minute to pass me.  With that info, I'm sure someone out there can come up with a reasonable estimate of the length of the train and from there estimate the number of cars in said train. I probably could, but I was never very good at word problems in math class and while I am a trained accountant, I'm retired. I'm perfectly happy with...a lot of train cars.

At mile 16 Route 66 merges back into I-40 where we spend the next 11 miles and after getting back on Route 66, reach the Continental Divide at mile 27.  We are at an elevation of about 7,275 feet considerably short of Grays Peak in Colorado at 14,278 feet, the highest point on the Continental Divide in North America. For some added perspective, Greys Peak is only the tenth highest summit in the Rocky Mountains. I’m definitely not feeling so bad about the climbing we are doing on this trip, it could be a whole lot worse.

Continental Divide, NM is an unincorporated community with a post office and an estimated population of 415.  As you can probably guess this is where we cross the Continental Divide so I thought I would refresh my own memory on this topic which I guess I first learned about in junior high or maybe high school. Those of you with better memories than me no doubt recall that the Continental Divide runs from the Bering Sea in the arctic all the way south to the Strait of Magellan at the southern tip of south America. Simplistically it marks the dividing line for which way rivers will flow. Those to the west, flow westerly and empty in the Pacific and those to the east, flow easterly and empty into the Atlantic. 

In yesterday's post I made a comment about the red rocks stopping at the AZ/NM border.  While that was true in that particular spot, there was ample evidence of the red rocks today.  The one big difference is that there is vegetation on the tops here in NM and I believe there are even trees, but haven't really been able to confirm it.

Out of the rest stop we are warned that about five miles down the road there are two dogs running loose who may decide to give chase.  As I get about a mile down the road I begin to question the wisdom of leaving the rest stop solo. Sure enough, there is a run down auto repair place on the left and just as I'm about past it, I hear barking. A quick look back confirms we have found each other.  I speed up and fortunately was far enough ahead that they got discouraged quickly and I am on my way without incident.

At this point Route 66 is nothing but a frontage road running parallel to I-40 and the train tracks devoid of any services for the next 33 miles, but as a bonus it is also decent pavement with nearly no traffic.

We go through Thoreau at mile 33 and after Prewitt at mile 43 the road turns decidedly south. We reach Milan at mile 60 and then our stop for the night in Grants.

Thoreau is located in the Navajo nation and in 2000 the population was 1,863. According to a local author, Roxanne Trout Heath, it is named after Henry David Thoreau, but practically all the residents pronounce the town’s name as “threw”. The Navajo name for the town means “Little Prairie Dogs”. The town grew around a sawmill built there in 1881 when the railroad arrived. The sawmill closed in 1890 and the village became a trading center for Navajo crafts, rugs and jewelry. Route 66 was rerouted in 1937 killing off the trading and uranium mining became the primary economic driver until the 1980s when the mining companies closed down.

Prewitt is nothing more then a scattering of houses having seen better days in the prime of Route 66 when it was home to several trading posts. It was in Prewitt that Paddy Martinez, a prospector/shepherd of Irish and Navajo descent, discovered the yellow rock that brought the uranium mining boom to the area. The discovery was on the railroad’s right of way and though he did not file a claim (he could have), the railroad offered him a choice of $10,000 or $250 a month for life.  He took the monthly check and lived to 91!

Milan is a described as a village with a population of 3200 that has grown because of its proximity to Grants. It is the site of the Cibola County Correctional Center a major employer that houses over 1,000 federal inmates. This explains the sign along the side of the road that warned you not to pick up hitch-hikers in the area. This little village has a website and according to it Milan was the carrot capital of the U.S. circa 1939-1961. This is why I didn't see any carrot farms today.

The one impression that stands out is just the outright poverty of the area. It stands in stark contrast to Palm Springs, Sedona and even the not so great parts of LA that we road through to get to this point. I also suspect that the examples of subsistence ranching and farming I saw today are not the last that we will encounter. Sadly, I suspect that the poverty of the Native Americans will be the worst of the trip hiding in plain sight.

The lycra locusts were noticed.

Sneak Peek at Tomorrow

79 miles to Albuquerque that starts out southeast and ends up with us going northeast. We will spend a good part of the day on I-40 but there are three sections along portions of Route 66 that remain.  We spend a good portion of the day passing though land belonging to the Laguna Pueblo, a federally recognized tribe of Native Americans.

Albuquerque is the largest city in New Mexico with a population of nearly 560,000. It is was named in honor of Francisco Fernández de la Cueva, 10th Duke of Alburquerque, the  Viceroy of New Spain from 1702 to 1711. The Spanish town of Alburquerque is in the province of Badajoz, near the border with Portugal. Somewhere along the way the first “r” was dropped supposedly to make it easier to pronounce. Albuquerque was founded in 1706 as a Spanish colonial outpost that in addition to the military garrison was a farming community and a sheep-herding center of the west. It was built in the traditional Spanish pattern with central plaza surrounded by government buildings, homes and a church. This central plaza area has been preserved and is referred to Old Town Albuquerque or simply Old Town. When the railroad came through they built passenger depot and rail yards about two miles east. It quickly became known as New Town.