Waking up was very nice in a warm bed. I couldn't thank Margaret enough for how she had pulled me, a stranger, in off of the road and then treated me so well. Over a nice hot cup of coffee I was able to chat with Margaret a little more before she took off for work. It was about 7 am and I still had a lot of things to do for the morning. There was plenty of cereal for me to choose from for breakfast and I was also able to take yet another shower. After it was all said and done, I was on the road around 8. The morning started with a good climb. I was at about 3,600 ft. in Peach Springs and to get to the next town was a climb up to around 5,300 ft. It was early enough in the morning that it wasn't very hot outside and as I climbed up to a higher elevation it became even cooler. I was able to look back after I had climbed the hill and see an incredible view of canyons throughout the distance. It was then that it became more apparent to me what I had been riding through. It was a great site, but I knew that the canyons were going to get much more grand ahead. I pulled over after about 30 miles into the ride and was able to have a great lunch just on the side of the road. It was around noon and since it wasn't unbearably warm, it made for a good spot in the sun. Margaret had sent me away with some of the roast that she had prepared for dinner the evening before and it made for a great sandwich. I continued to ride forward and it wasn't until I reached the next town that I realized the true importance of the historic route 66. It made me feel pretty dumb that I had no idea what this road was about and everyone else who was on it did, but I guess it is all a learning experience while I'm out on the road. The buildings were covered in the front with route 66 signs and manikins. Everything was from the 50's it seemed and it was interesting to find out that this was the first road to run to the west coast. It was called the Mother Road and was built in 1926. Running clear out to Los Angeles it was the most commonly used road going west for some time until the new Interstate Highway System. Each town along the route had probably lost an extremely large amount of business when the interstate first came about, but after some years it came back to be a historic route. Now a lot of travelers will go out of their way to be on route 66. Although a lot of people will go on route 66, I didn't have to see very many of them. It seemed like this wasn't the time for as many tourists to stream on by and I was thankful that the traffic was as small as it was. I stayed in the town for a little while to take a break and prepare myself for the final 40 miles to get to Williams. There were supposed to be a couple of campgrounds in the area and I was looking forward to finding one of them to set up camp. by the time I left it was around 2:45 and I knew I was going to be cutting it close with the sun. Being at about 5,400 feet now, I had to go up to get to where I was going. I started on a gradual climb uphill for quite some time when I left the town I was in and before I knew it I was at 6,000 feet. No sooner had I reached that elevation before I started to travel downhill. I must ave gone at least another 500 feet downhill and then the road started to flatten out. I was making some good time, but the wind didn't seem to be helping me very much. I had a fairly strong crosswind and it made it more difficult to stabalize my bike when flying down a hill. I went about 30 miles and then I was off of the highway with very little traffic and onto the interstate. I had a nice shoulder to ride on the interstate, which always seemed to be a gamble. It was the only way I could get myself to Williams so I plunged forward. I didn't go very long before I left the desert that I was in and was then in a National Forest. It was new to me to see so many trees and so much green around me. With the forest came the mountains though. I was continually going uphill and then downhill and took myself up to 6,300 feet for the evening. It was pitch black for the remainder of the 5 miles that I went into town and it was cold. The temperature seemed to drop just as fast as the sun did. It was not my favorite thing to do, riding on an interstate at night, but at this point I was so close. the sun had gone down a lot earlier than I had expected and that's why I was in the predicament that I was in. I had seen it go down around 7 pm, but tonight it went down around 6:30. It was not what I expected and lead to what I didn't plan on doing. I didn't want to deal with my tent at this point because of the issues it had been giving me with the broken pole and so I figured I would see what the hotels had to offer first. It was amazing. I explained my situation to the second hotel that I stopped at and was cut a great deal. For a little over 30 dollars I had a room, free breakfast, a hot tub, and a heated pool. I snatched the deal and then continued to go to my room and fix an enormous pasta. The hot food with the hot shower I was able to take was a great combination at this point in my evening. I went to the hot tub and spent most of my evening chatting with a couple of guys from Switzerland. they hand flown into New York and were now on a road trip. For 30 days they would be in the United States and then for the following two months they were headed to South America. They had been on the road for almost 20 days and it was great to exchange stories on what we had seen so far on our journeys. It was no mistake that we had run into eachother on our trips and it made for an eventful evening before I decided to call it a night and get some sleep.
Daily mileage: 79.7 miles
Average speed: 10.7 mph
Total mileage: 4,138.8 miles
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