Day 14 - October 5th

 Today was an emotional day for me. Anyone who has followed along with the stories here about the ride, or that we have talked to much about the trip, know how intertwined the memory of my dad is to what I am trying to do. He never knew the true extent of what I went through or was a part of any of my recovery. Unfortunately he passed away before I got to a point where I could openly talk about what happened in my life and how I came to be diagnosed with PTSD. He was my champion, my defender, and one of my heroes but I don't think he ever knew. We sadly never had the best communication.

The ride started on what would have been his 70th birthday. Today is officially 15 years since he passed. I knew it would be a difficult day. I started riding and as has been my pattern recently, it was an uphill climb right from the beginning. I rode to my first stop, a church in Prewitt, NM where I was grateful to get to rack the bike for the next section. I was supposed to ride across a dirt rode and with the injury to my shoulder not healing very quickly because I keep pushing it and not allowing it time to rest, it wasn't going to be possible to handle the pain it would cause to attempt such a path. We got to the Continental Divide and got the chance to take some pictures and a couple souvenirs. We then had lunch at the Route 66 Diner in Gallup, NM.

From there I pushed along some back roads where we saw the incredible scenery and even in two different places we spotted wild horses. One of the horses was scared of my bike and took off running next to the road, eventually crossing in front of me but I was going slow enough I wasn't in danger of hitting it or it hitting me. I saw prairie dogs and birds flying overhead. It was breathtaking. I rode under a beautiful blue sky with puffy white clouds and one looked like an angel wing which we all decided was a sign of my dad watching out for me. 

We crossed into Arizona, the second to last state on my journey and made our way to Holbrook. We will be taking off from a travel center here tomorrow morning and I will be pedaling along the side of the I-40 all day. I hope you are enjoying the pictures of the journey so far and we can't wait to share even more once we get to Flagstaff tomorrow.