After a relaxing night with visions of wonderful pie, Daren and I set off for our second to last ride of the trip. We were hovering around 7800ft and had gentle rollers with one 5 mile climb of 800ft to top out at 8200ft. Nothing compared to some of the climbs we had been through. What we weren't expecting was the animal rescue operation at about 10 miles in. We had plenty of run ins with overprotective dogs chasing us through towns, but here, there were three friendly dogs that saw us from across the field and decided they wanted to join us for the days ride! They were sooo... happy to be with us no matter how much we scolded them. They followed us for almost a mile, when we decided we better turn around and lead them to home. Heading down the driveway to the rescue place(someone's house with lots of fences, cages etc.) several dogs started appearing from behind structures. None of these dogs were caged. Very soon, I found I was surrounded by we estimated, 30 dogs, with a total of 50 in the general area. Snarling/barking pit bulls, dobermans, german shepherds, you name it. The three originals were trying to steer the others away from me. I was trying to maintain my composure, Daren was trying to get me and my bike between the dogs. It seemed like too many minutes went by before we saw a human being, and I had already started heading out the driveway at this point. A man dressed in green pajamas came out and told Daren to head out and they would drive out with their car and the dogs should follow. Not really. The wife (also in green pajamas), headed out in her Civic yelling the dogs names trying to get them into the car! Eventually the nastiest meanest dogs returned home, but the three originals plus a couple of cute lab/german shepherd pups remained. The lady kept apologizing saying this has never happened before. She thought we were part of the Great Divide Race, but were early(2nd race), or else she would have locked the pooches up. They have 100 dogs at this shelter, and many cats. She was trying to herd the dogs with her car, driving forward to catch some, backing up trying to cut other ones off. It was hysterical! Finally she resorted to throwing the dogs into the car. Daren caught the last two for her to put in the car.
About 45 minutes after the whole thing started, we were on our way. That kept us going for quite a while. The road turned from descent dirt to deep sand, and I flipped. Now get this, only my second fall in over 1500 miles!The rest of the ride was pretty uneventful thank God. We did have a horrible bone jarring 5 mile descent to Rocky, who was parked next to the highway. Again for the sake of time, and the want to visit the Gila Cliff Dwellings, we drove from Old Horse Springs area 150 miles or so to Silver City.
More pics here
https://plus.google.com/photos/112714069817620713891/albums/5780428022232826785?authkey=CODP6dPDp_2bnwE
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