Today was a unique day for me. I had a phone interview scheduled for 11:30AM. I wanted to avoid having to do it on the side of the road so I planned on riding out by myself and getting done as fast as possible. Fortunately, it was a short day, and was overall downhill. I think most people stopped for coffee, but we were also expecting it to be hot so people wanted to get done before it got too hot. Lunch was up and over a mountain pass. We didn't gain a whole lot of elevation, but the climb went on for a long time. It was really cool to wind through the mountains on the way up. I got to lunch and realized I was well ahead of schedule and it would actually be downhill the rest of the day. I hung out and waited for the next group to show up before I took off.
The downhill after lunch was awesome. Usually they're pretty straight and fast, but today's was windy and had sharp banked turns. Even though I had to brake a lot more, it was more fun than just sitting and going straight. The route rolled through the old mining town of Oatmen. When the mines shut down, they set the burrros free, and now they just wander through the town aimlessly. When I went through they weren't actually in town, but I found a pack of them on the opposite side. I thought one got hit by a car in the middle of the road and was dead, but turns out they just lay down and take naps in the middle of the road whenever they want. When other people got to town, the burros were actually in the town hanging outside of shops hoping to catch a free meal.
Once I got into Mohave Valley, the cue sheet had us turn down a dirt road. I quickly looked at the map and found a reroute that was actually paved. It ended up being further than the cue sheet had listed, but I still made it into town with enough time to find a restaurant, eat lunch, and relax before my interview. We were staying in a school, so we didn't have access to where we ere staying until 2. I stayed in the restaurant for a while and then went over to a little park to take a little snooze. Eventually we got in, took hose showers, and then host provided us pizza for dinner. Some people went and swam in the Colorado, or set up a slip and slide, but I was content with taking an extra nap.
We had two Olympic challenges tonight: bag weight and Therma-rest rolling. Bag weight was simply the average team weight of bags. I think we came in 3rd. We're supposed to be limited to 50 pounds, but there were a couple people over that limit. I think the overall average was around 35 lbs. Matt and I had been practicing Therma-rest rolling to see who was faster. We were both down around 30-35 seconds, but I was slightly faster. I knew I could get it under 30 seconds, so that was my goal. I ended up winning with a time of 28 seconds again beating the other team by a solid 20-30 seconds. At this point we pretty much had enough points to have the victory regardless of the last challenge.
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