Seb has never been happier. Seb was towing the bench. Yesterday we floated along the great open spaces between Safford and Duncan in near silence, relieved of the psychic and physical burden of the clattering, clunking platform of failed dreams and hopes. George W. Bush probably felt the same way on the day he left the Oval Office, when suddenly things just got a whole heck of a lot less complicated, heh, heh, heh...

Seb's been dying for me to use a pun he came up with for a stretch of road between Superior and Globe, Az a few days ago, so here goes:

Seb and I were cycling along a stretch of highway between Superior and Globe, Az a few days ago. We were grinding up a 10-mile climb involving tunnels, twists, twenty-ton trucks, tragically unsympathetic horn tooters, and it was, like, real hard and- wait for it - we didn't have a shoulder to cry on! Get it? Get it? There were no shoulders!! Classic wordplay.

Actually, it did feel pretty freaking dangerous, especially as, right before the long, dark tunnel, there was a little memorial to Deano at the side of the road, with a set of bike handlebars replacing the cross as a centrepiece. Nice. On yesterday's stretch of highway, a cyclist doing the same route as us, a year ago, was wiped off the road, permanently. Happy thoughts.

Deborah and Clayton (well, mostly Deborah) have restored the historic Simpson Hotel in Duncan, Az and turned it into a profoundly funky B & B. The image above is part of their back garden where, out of charity, curiosity, and pity, they allow touring cyclists to pitch a tent for free. A menagerie of 1 goat, 3 chickens, and 70 -80 cats share the garden with us, making it feel like an Eden run by the original Cat Lady, the one with a kindly, but limited, tolerance for select other species.

We cross into New Mexico today. Scorning the 8200' Emory Pass, we've chosen a southern route to El Paso involving lower elevation, higher oxygen content, lower population density, and higher chance of Breaking Bad interactions.

Later y'all...