day94

Day 94 (November 22, 2006) - El Paso, TX

We did eventually bike the Saguaro park! We woke up to a beautiful, sunny and warm day in Arizona - may I remind you again there are 300 such days here - that we could not resist. We drove to the park with the RV and parked at the picnic area to take the 8-mile loop around by bike. It turned out to be 10 miles in the end, not a whole lot, but it was simply perfect. It's an idea cardio circuit that mimics perfectly one of my spinning classes with Juliette (those of you who are taking them with me know what I am talking about!). It keeps your heart pumping at max rate for the entire loop, with one long steep hill and some short but sweet freewheeling stretches. It does not surprise me that there are so many cyclists around here. I bet the locals don't ever go to the gym, but come here every day for a spin class.

Early afternoon we leave Tucson for New Mexico. Another 200+ miles of desert, dotted by yucca and agave, the Coronado National Forest and then, suddenly, crops, farms, ranches and cows. Cochise County is home to the real cowboys, ranchers, miners, bandits and gunslingers from the Wild West. We enter New Mexico through the Hidalgo county and we find ourselves in the Chihuahuan Desert, back to yucca and agave plants. The desert is humongous, is covers a good portion of western Texas and is known as the most diversified desert habitat in the world: coyotes, reptiles, raptors, mountain lions and bobcats are at home here, as well as over 300 species of succulents. We are sleeping in El Paso, TX tonight, on the border with Mexico: you take a wrong turn on the Rio Grande bridge and you end up in Ciudad Juàrez, Mexico. If it weren't for street and shop signs written in English, I'd swear I am in Mexico. Everybody speaks "Spanish", everybody looks Mexican. As soon as the cashier looks at me though, she switches immediately to unaccented English. Did she see a "gringa" in my pale face? We are going to bed early tonight, we have not one but two national parks to visit tomorrow.

Red rocks.

Detail.

A truck carrying three same trucks on its back.

Welcome to New Mexico!