Day 9: Farmington, NM to Chama, NM
Strava Link: Petoji Day 9
Day 9: Out of Farmington and back to the scenic roads. Farmington isn't a huge city, but it was the biggest city I had seen since San Jose, CA and it ended up being a shock to the system. I was so used to riding empty roads and seeing fun little towns like Kanab, Cedar City, etc. Now there were buildings and cars everywhere. It's not that the roads were unsafe- I had shoulder most of the time or rode on smaller roads. It's just that I wasn't used to seeing so many people.
It didn't take long to get out of Farmington and back to quiet roads with better scenery. The whole day was a gradual climb from about 5,000 feet to 7,500 feet, and the scenery changed accordingly. The end destination was Chama, which was a scenic area in the valley. I stayed in a small lodge there, which was close to a grocery store. As mentioned before, I loved being close to grocery stores because I could buy healthier food. The problem is that I usually ended up getting too excited and buying too much.
Chama is where I finally broke down and bought some Simple Green and a toothbrush for bike cleaning duty. I just couldn't take having a dirty bike any longer. I gave my bike a thorough clean that night and put the leftover Simple Green in my old sunscreen bottle to take along with me for the rest of Petoji. I've always been anal about a clean bike (but never a clean house or anything else), but I thought I'd be able to live with a dirty bike during Petoji. After all, it was only 3 weeks and a once in a lifetime thing. I was wrong.
From here on out I would clean the bike in the hotel bathtub from time to time. It's never a fun thing to do after a long day in the saddle, but even worse than that is cleaning up the mess in the tub afterwards. I just had to do it, though. It's a weird compulsion.
