Day 45: Thursday July 26...Game of the mountain lion vs the divide riders

In this episode of divide rider vs mountain lion, the mountain lion are the storms that continue to happen in the afternoon.   We rode 71 miles into the Gila Wilderness to the Beaverhead Work Center.  At about mile 56 or 57, we again ran into storms with lightening and rain.  We rode as fast and hard as we could to reach the trees, so we weren't the tallest thing around and the rode had remnants of previous attempts of people trying to ride and drive through the mud.  The roads here become impassable with too much rain and the only thing you can do is sit in your tent and watch the road dry out.  I mean as fun as it sounds to watch dirt dry to mud, we decided to do all we could to not have this happen.  We were able to ride through the storm and roll into the Beaverhead work station unscathed.  Along the way we again met up with the Danish riders Kim and Anders, who told us how they had eaten the pie at the toaster house that was in the fridge as the note in the fridge said "made fresh Monday" and it was only Wednesday.  They proceeded to tell us that there was another note inside the house they discovered after eating the pie that was dated Monday July 9, apparently that was the Monday that the pies were made (remember it is now July 26.  Anders gave us some water, as each possible water source was nonexistent, even with all the afternoon thunderstorms.  Thank you Anders for the kindness of giving some your water to us, it was much appreciated!  Earlier in the day we were riding along when I let out a falsetto scream as a snake was in the middle of the road and we rode right by it, I think it may have been an anaconda!  (it was actually a baby bull snake, we found out later)

Up until the storms rolled in, the weather was perfect for riding, cloudy and in the 70s.  Our Danish friends brandished enough quarters to buy us a round of sodas at the Beaverhead work station, where we decided to camp with more storms looming in the distance.  The Danes with their fearless optimism rode on after waiting a couple of hours.  They left us some quarters for the soda machine, so even though we don't really drink too much soda at home, out here anything is a treat and will be consumed.  So I decided on a 'wild cherry pepsi' yup that sounds good after dinner.  Put the quarters in press the button and what falls out of the machine but a lemonade.  Did I mention we had bought lemonade powder along the way to add to the water to make it more drinkable and easier to hydrate, and the powder stuff was better, so much for the wild cherry pepsi.  At the Beaverhead Word Center, Michael was the head ranger and told us about the fires earlier in the summer that were only 10 miles to the west and how the area we were currently in was covered with smoke for 10 days with very poor air quality.  Thanks Mike for your hospitality, much appreciated.