Jan 26--Too Many Crossings to Count, and an Unexpected Swim

The narrative had said it didn't get any worse. Well, I suppose that was correct. There was still the boulder sections, then deep sand sections, and soooo many river crossings. The first one, the guys rode through it, but it was really long. I attempted to walk, stepping on the dry rocks while MC wheeled through the water. I almost made it all the way across, then one foot got soaked. I figured there was no use trying to keep the other foot dry, and just walked in the water the rest of the way.

I don't remember if it was the next one, or a little bit later one (like I said, soooo many crossings), but I watched the guys ride across. I decided to ride too. It wasn't as far across as the first one. Well, I got about a quarter of the way, and fell over. Man the water was cold! I got up as quickly as I could because the right pannier was in the water (they are waterproof...when upright). I picked up MC, and slopped my way across the river. I was completely soaked on my right side. I also had a nasty goose egg on my right shin. It was only bleeding a little, so I left it alone. I had my wool arm warmers on. Even though they were wet, I left them on. Otherwise, I'd have been freezing. There was a headwind blowing, so it was rather chilly. I did switch out of my soaked long finger gloves to my fingerless ones. Water had leaked into the right pannier. Fortunately, my food was in a plastic bag, but my toiletries and long sleeve jacket were pretty wet. I left them until later. I wanted to get riding so I would dry. I'm very thankful my Stio vest is not down. It was wet on the right side.

With the wind and sun, my outer shorts were mostly dry pretty quickly. The bike shorts took a little longer, as did my t-shirt, but eventually everything was dry. As for the remaining river crossings, I walked all but the obviously rideable ones. There was one crossing that was all the way up to the middle of my thighs! We all walked that one for sure!!! For being repeatedly soaked, the bikes did quite well. Just a few squeaks here and there.

At lunch I tried to ring the water out of my long sleeve jacket. It was very wet in the bottom of the pannier. It didn't get dry during lunch.

At one point we met a guy in a Toyota Tundra. He said the going was pretty rough in the direction we were going. We told him the same.

However, the road did improve for us (poor guy, if he thought what he had been on was rough...). It was still not great, and there were still several river crossings, and lots of deep sand, but in general, it was getting better.

Once we started going by the occasional ranchero, the road improved more. Finally, at the turn to Rancho San Miguel, the road improved dramatically. Of course, now, instead of a bad road, we had to climb. I think it was better climbing on a better road than bumping our way over baby head rocks.

Brent and I got ahead of Harry. I passed him when he was fixing his saddle. We didn't see him again until we had decided to stop for the night. We had come down the highest part, and done 31 miles.

Here comes Harry!

We were starting to have to walk up the hills because we were tired (okay, they were pretty steep too). There were more hills ahead, so we stopped at a flat spot next to a crossing. Harry showed up 10 minutes later. About  45 minutes later, the Jan, Ryan, Justin, and three others group rode up. Jan was ready to call it a day. They were all pretty tired. They went up the next hill and down and camped somewhere close. We could hear them.

The one thing this day had going for it was beautiful scenery. It was probably the prettiest day since being on the Coast. Tomorrow we should be in Mulége (back on the Sea of Cortez) by noon. The guys are running low on food. I have plenty, but I'll be very glad to get to Mulége.

Oh, we saw horses (including a little foal), pigs, cows with impressive horns, and goats. Brent and I seemed to be herding the goats down the road.