Feb 4--A Strange Mechanical, and Missing a Vital Turn

Today was a rollercoaster of hills. It seemed like they went on forever! We again saw a number of ranches. There was one really big one called La Presa. What we could see of it, it looked quite fancy.

The narrative had mentioned a 2000 foot descent to the Sea of Cortez. What it didn't mention was another big ass descent long before the one to the Sea of Cortez. We were really hoping that was it, but, alas, it was not.

We were going along, chains creaking from being so dry, other bike parts clicking and grinding. It seemed Mama Cass was making a particularly large amount of noise. But, she was still slogging along.

We finally reached the watershed divide, and could see the Sea of Cortez at last!

We started the downhill. I had adjusted my brakes as they were a little soft. The back one would be good, then all of a sudden I would have no back brake. As we started the descent, I had to stop because I was skidding the front tire with no rear braking happening. I adjusted the brake again. Again, it seemed fine, but as soon as I started going there would be no brake. At one point, I had to walk down a steep section. At the bottom, I got back on. There was a little downhill, but I didn't really need to brake. As I came down, and started up a short bit, the rear wheel stopped suddenly. It wouldn't move at all. Brent came down and helped me get MC to a flat spot. I thought I was just going to have to put new brake pads in. Then, the wheel started moving again. This started to seem familiar (the same thing happened to Brent the first day). I took the panniers off, then I saw the problem. The rear skewer had come open, and the wheel had slid back. It hadn't come all the way out of the dropouts, thankfully. I slid it back in, readjusted the brakes, and all was well. It was nice to continue the descent with full brakes!

We came down to the bottom, but we were not at the water. There was a turn. There was no sign. The route went right. There was supposed to be a turn left to go to San Everisto where we could get water. We didn't think that was the turn, as we were not near the water. San Everisto is a fishing village one mile off the route. We continued right, thinking we weren't to the turn yet. Surely, we thought, there would be a sign. Well, there was a sign. It was about 10 km on down the route saying that San Everisto was 11 km BACK in the direction we had come from. For the purpose of this blog, I will say that I said a very loud CRAP! Actually, that was not at all what I said, but it had the same amount of letters.

Should we turn around and go back 11 km? Probably, we should have, but we didn't. We continued riding. There is a place called Punta Coyote that has snacks. It is 17 miles from the turn to San Everisto. We couldn't make it tonight, but we should not have too far to go tomorrow.

We each have about 1 1/2 bottles of water. We also each have an orange. For dinner, I ate tuna and an avocado. They help with the thirst. I'll eat the orange for breakfast. We'll make it, it just won't be pleasant.