Greetings from the air conditioned wife
Hello! I know you would all prefer to hear from Bryan Rogala—the man, the myth, and the legend. Unfortunately, he can’t pick up the phone right now because he is sweating it out in the desert! But I have updates…
Last night, I met up with Bryan outside of Abiquiu to drop off his buddy Eric Ladd and try to fatten him up like a Thanksgiving turkey.
This brings me to my first bit of news—on a scale of 1 to Severus Snape's level of gauntness, Bryan is currently at a 3. It will only get worse from here, so I am doing everything in my power to keep the bones at bay. I arrived at the campsite last night with approximately 50,000 calories in the truck and gave the good Dr. Ladd specific instructions for the week: to keep feeding that man!
In all seriousness, Bryan seems to be doing really well. His spirits are up, his ass is still attached to his body, and he seems to be having a great time. He reports that Grants leaves a lot to be desired, and Cuba isn’t all that exciting either. On the plus side, the NM heat wave seems to have finally broken, and freshwater is in sight for most of the rest of his journey.
After a short ride with Eric last night, the boys met me at the campsite and started snacking. Then I forced Bryan to take a shower (look at the color of that water) and fed him again for dinner. By the time Bryan and Eric were done packing up their gear, it was lights out at 9:00 p.m. What can I say—we party hard!
This morning, I sent the boys on their merry way and started to head home when I ran into two fellow riders. First, I stopped to offer some snacks to David, who is traveling at a much slower pace than Bryan and was excited to meet “Bryan from Santa Fe’s wife” because it meant he was gaining on him. While chatting with him, the elusive Mitch from Boseman arrived. I have been watching Mitch on track leaders because he seems to be covering as much ground as Bryan, and they keep leapfrogging each other. It turns out the poor guy has had a lot of mechanical difficulties and had a great story about exchanging his broken, expensive carbon seat post with one off of an ancient bike a minister offered to him. It is still a few inches too short and doesn’t stay put, so hopefully, he can get it properly fixed in Salida. In the meantime, I gave him some food and my number to connect with his wife when I get to the Montana leg of the journey. He is determined to catch Bryan and Eric at Bodes (a restaurant) to have some company on the trail, so Godspeed, Montana Mitch!
It was great seeing Bryan and getting to pass on some of the wonderful trail magic he has been receiving so far. I don’t think we will hear much from him this week due to his cell signal, but thanks to the satellite device he uses, I am in constant contact with him. It looks like Monsoon Season might have finally arrived in NM, so that should be an interesting development for this week. I will check back in periodically to give you all updates!
