Now we are really starting to get into the swing of things, the legs are sore but getting stronger and those daily tasks of tent pitching, cooking, washing up, etc. are getting quicker, leaving us with a little more free time (together with some good old lazy days!). This week has seen our toughest day yet, rain induced resting and more endless desert... Although I've been stunned by the variety of flora which seems to shift constantly as we roll from valley to valley. Flowers bursting out in bloom from even the most unlikely looking plants!

We left off last week with our mate Roadrunner getting fed some decent junk food at a campsite in Needles. Well we foolishly didn't look too much at the next day of cycling ahead and setted into making the most of our campsite dollars, staying there up to and beyond checkout time to get the previous weeks diary written up! So, assuming we had a nice gentle ride to the town of Oatman, our next stop and expectant Warm Showers host, we took a morning off and got on the road around lunch time, what a mistake that was! Now, we were in the Colorado river valley, a bit further down from the Grand Canyon and it is WIDE with some pretty huge mountains either side. The scale of the place made it look like we had a flat cycle to the base of the mountains where Oatman was but how wrong we were... It turned out to be our hardest day yet, continuous uphill for mile upon endless mile only comforted by picturesque mountainsides smiling down on us and crossing our first state line into Arizona as we struggled to turn the little wheels on our bikes. Then on approaching our night's stop the incline made us start doubting how fit we really were after just a couple of weeks on the road!

Well we struggled on and eventually caught sight of the little town of Oatman perched between the steep cliffs, with one particular white peak standing out amongst the reddish stone named "Elephant's tooth rock". To our surprise, generally preferring surprises over route research, we were greeted firstly by a group of donkeys (or to fit in with the townsfolk, call them "burros" in you best American accent) roaming about on the road and secondly by our Oatman Welcoming Committee! Tailor and Amber were the son and daughter of our wonderful Warm Showers host, Leanne. They took us up a steep dirt road to their house and settled us into our home for the night, the "Duke House", named after a local legend who once lived there. Leanne was a charm and cooked us up our first American burgers! We had dinner with her and the kids and, once he'd finished talking politics down the road, our new favourite cowboy, Mike. We were left amazed by how active the town was and how involved our new family were in it all. Oatman is a town lost in time, with its quaint old buildings, curious museums and wild burros, the remnants of the donkeys that used to work the gold mines around. Whilst Mike played us tunes on his guitar we listened to how the "Red Ridge Marauders", made up of Mike and Two Hat Chance, Tailor would re enact classic wild west scenes in town for the passing tourists, their involvement in the local fire department saving lives and some haunting stories about friendly and not so friendly ghosts!

It was with a heavy heart that we eventually had to wave goodbye to Oatman and Leanne's family, mostly from the wonderful experience they'd given us but in part from the huge mountain we were to tackle next... Thanks so much to Leanne, Tailor, Amber and Mike for the introduction to your lovely town! So after delaying our departure as much as we could by ambling around Oatman's many curious establishments we eventually hit the mountain and, pedal by pedal (with the odd step thrown in on the steepest bits), made it to the top. From here it was pretty much downhill all the way to Kingman with the odd stop off to lick a psychedelic frog for those in the know, don't ask... Then in the outskirts of Kingman we got a dose of 50's America at Mr D'z diner which we took as Ruth's birthday meal given it was the first place we'd noticed to be open since. Burgers, hot dogs, fries, house root beer and lemon merengue pie... nuff said!

After the rigours leading up to Oatman our legs still needed a good rest so we took the wise decision to stay at one of the very clean but slightly dearer KOA campsites, stock up on supplies and recover. I must say that this day really did turn our trip from "surviving" to "enjoyable" with two simple things. Firstly we bought ourselves a solar powered radio to liven up the hill climbs, this has been a god send, and secondly a more permanent solution to our knackered tent! Determined to fix the break, which had recently turned from a split into a snap rendering our tent peg bodge useless, we invested in a pole repair kit. Although in hindsight it could be considered a waste of $10 as we didn't use anything it offered, it did make us start to take apart the poles and think a bit harder about how to solve the problem. The Eureka moment (curiously the motto of California rather than Arizona...) was simply moving the break to the end of the chain of poles... damn I wish we'd have thought of that earlier! Upright tent now in our possession, I can inform you that we've had some better nights sleep since.

Today we again opted for a late start, as we had done from Needles, although this time knowing that it was pretty much downhill with the wind on our backs, cleaver us! So with some beats from the radio pumping us along at super speed we arrived after a few hours to the end of the day. Having snubbed some dodgy looking RV parks earlier on we ended up finding a little trailer park hidden behind a building on the main road and eventually found the man in charge who let us pitch our tent for a symbolic fee, also letting us know that it was forecast to snow and rain overnight and the next day... So we settled in for the long haul making the most of the stunning views looking out over the hills and mountains surrounding the Grand Canyon.

After being rocked by a frontal system overnight we awoke to bright sunshine, at least that's what we thought at first until noticing the dark clouds looming on the horizon... it wasn't long into our morning routine that the sun was shunned behind the dark clouds and the day steadily dampened. So we set to reading and taking on a lingering task that we were still debating whether to attempt or not, the dreaded Podcast! Now I'm a pretty quiet kind of guy so this was a challenge we'd set ourselves from the beginning to get out of our confort zone as much as we could (hence why it's taken so long to get started!). But I can report that we finally recorded our first Audiolog! Now, no promises that it will be available to listen to in the short term (I think the out of tune Ukulele jingles we recorded are not doing our efforts justice at the moment!) but we hope to make this available at some point and continue with more recordings as it was actually quite a good laugh.

Having planned an early start we only took half an hour longer in bed than hoped for, quite a feat in temperatures hovering around 0 Celsius I might add, and set off around 7:15 after leaving a $10 note in the ignition of the site owner's quad bike (his preferred choice of transport over more traditional legs). Ridding into a chilly sunrise we hit what we knew was to be a tough day through the Hualapai native Indian reservation. Tough due to many an uphill and nearly 70km of cycling. Thankfully we were distracted from the arduous miles by "The Peach", a local radio station with the most diverse selection of songs I've ever heard! From country music to rap to reggae to rock to local tribal chanting they really did have it all. I think the only repetitions were the constant Corona virus hand washing tips (although this tedium almost undid the "variety" vibe!). The day passed by peacefully with the odd glimpse of the Grand Canyon on the horizon, ending with our arrival at the Grand Canyon Caverns campsite and it's bizarre selection of dinosaurs, old cars, route 66 tributes and a signpost marking our altitude at exactly 1 mile high! (add that to the distance count!)

The news that the camping was only costing us $5 a night including warm showers, picnic tables and a nearby shop was enough to convince us to hang around for a while longer so we elected for yet another day off. I know what you're thinking as I was thinking exactly the same, "Do these guys do nothing but have days off?". Well we're loving it, so you can stick it! :) Bad news came when the source of the $5 news was a guy who had no idea about the pricing and the friendly campsite host informed us it was actually $40 a night!!! That had our budget trembling in its boots but when we actually went to pay and the lady there told us it was $50 plus tax our budget decided to jump off a cliff... Lucky she had some empathy and only charged us 1 night at the $40 rate we'd been told about second off... Phew! We were glad there was no one else in that chain that's for sure but would maybe have been glad for some company as the place was empty besides the $40 lady. Another cold night to come but looking forward closing in the the Grand Canyon after some fleeting glimpses so far and the promise from Mr Weather Man of increasing temperatures, brrr! It's been cold!