Turns out, you CAN go home - sort of...

Day 5, and you can almost see the shift from new to familiar. The people who are now part of your "XC Family" are those who accept the challenge, feel your pain, and share the ice. It is like a surreal new home life.

This was our home today.


Home for an hourish...

As at home, you get up in the morning and commute to work.


The road goes into the mountain pass.

You may stop along the way, and chat up the shop keeper as you get a cup of coffee...or a chocolate milk, V8 Juice and a bag of ice. (Great ladies who run the general store outside of Nowhere, AZ.)  You chat them up, and make a new friend along the way.


Yep - cheesey

Of course, you watched the Weather Channel before you left, so you knew what to expect.

8,000 Acres burning in Bradshire Mountains

You check on the kids. At a SAG stop yesterday, two boys in school uniforms approached me as I was sprawled on the ground begging my booty to unlock.
Brothers, one fourth grader, and one fifth: "Are you guys biking around the world?"
Me: "Um, no sweetie, it only feels that way... How was school today?"

The pace and rhythm is just what is, and you take it, as well as take it in.

At the end of the day, you return home. For us, it was Prescott, Arizona, home of Bill Gates and Dick Cheney...so they say.  We climbed to 6100 feet of elevation.  At the end of the day, I could just look around and think I was at home in NH. The grade and the switch backs were as if we were biking our own loops. But the scenery, well, we were clearly not in NH.





switchback havens