Grand Canyon

The first 8 days have been fun and easy.  Monday's 90-miler; however, caused my 'check engine light' to come on.  For starters, I led a group of 7 cyclists out.  I looked at my directions sheet and saw that we rode 6.8 miles before turning onto Route 66.  Several miles down the road someone finally noticed that the ur turn was 0.8 miles, not 6.8.  So, we got a little warm-up ride to begin the day.  After a beautiful 20 miles, we turned onto I-40.  We were scheduled to climb around 5,800 feet and since the interstate highways don't employ switchbacks, we settled into miles of steady climbing.  Every so often you'd think you were at the top only to see another curve up ahead.  After a great sit-down lunch (I had a salad), we were back on Route 66 for 50 miles to our hotel.  The road was very annoying.  There was a rumble strip (that's what they call the thump-thump cut-outs in the pavement), a very narrow shoulder and a good bit of traffic.  One had to concentrate for many hours or you wheels would wander onto the rumble strip and rattle your bones.  This was the first day that was just very hard on my body.  This morning my typical resting pulse of 47 was still elevated at 52.  I was thrilled to finally arrive at 4:00 p.m. and kiss my darling wife, who flew out to visit me.  As you can see from my breakfast photo, I eat a lot during this ride (although I couldn't finish the pancakes).  There's also a shot of Sherry and I at the South Rim, Rustin and I along the highway.  I also had to include a sign posted in the bathroom at Big E's steak house apparently advising patrons that the water in the toilet was not safe to drink.  Yep, the world has too many lawyers.  Tomorrow's ride has lots downhill ;).

Note:  I'm not sure how I inserted the 'don't harass the burros' sign and can't seem to delete it.  For the record, I didn't harass the burro.