Day 42: Monday July ...Hitchhiking 101

Leaving Cuba, NM there is an alternate which is recommended if the rains have begun, well the rains have begun and the mountain terrain ahead is reportedly washed out and more rain in the forecast.  So we set off to ride the 123 mile alternate on pavement that takes us thru a Navajo reservation with no real camping opportunities.  We gota n early start, knowing it was going to be a long day, felt pretty good, then hit a wall around 70 miles.  Along with the wall we discovered that I had completely blown a bearing on my BOB wheel, so it was just wobbling around, not good.  We stopped at a convenience store for some grub and cold drinks as the temps were rising up to the upper 80s.  I use the bathroom, my sunglasses on my straw hat, fall into the toilet, before i had a chance to flush.  I grab a handful of paper towels, knowing that I need them, held my breath and went in to fish them out and turned the sink faucet on full blast.  Again we are riding along and the afternoon thunderstorms begin to pop up with lightening, rain is fine, lightening is not.  Realizing we may not get to Grants until really late, if we made it at all with the bearing and the storms and no place to camp, we opted to hitchhike.  Now we have not done this before, which was apparent to the person that picked us up.  He slowed up, had a confused look on his face then ended up turning around unsure what or if we wanted anything.  He told us he thought at first we were just waving then he realized that our hands remained in the air and decided to be turn around to check.  We greatly appreciated ride to Grants.  So we ended up riding 87 out of the 123 miles and we were ok with the one fast forward we took.