The "other" Las Vegas

Yesterday was the R & R day in Santa Fe. After the bike got a good bath, I joined Chris, Peter, Harry and Nancy to take the city bus into the downtown plaza to take in some art and culture. We immediately noticed the friendly atmosphere since nobody was at all inpatient as we tried to learn about the bus fares, round-trip rates, senior discounts, etc. (Peter from NYC says in New York we would have been kicked off, but here, everyone just laughed with us). While Peter was a bit distraught that the driver guessed he qualified for the senior discount, he did take advantage of it to save $1 even though he is not the required 60 years old.
The day included some window shopping and a stroll through the Museum of New Mexico Art, along with a visit to Starbucks - my first fix of the trip, if you can believe that). (The few other times we've gone for coffee, we hit the local independent shops, but Santa Fe seemed appropriate for the Starbucks routine). After all the culture, we picked up the pace and walked ~1.5 miles to the local bike shop, where we all felt much more at home.

Today we rode from Santa Fe to Las Vegas, NM. A very pleasant 73 miles along the Santa Fe Trail with no traffic, rolling terrain and more beautiful, unique scenery. We could see mountains beyond mountains in the distance along with a high desert valley in the foreground. Even a little snow cap on a few peaks in the distance. I think I may have been feeling the altitude a bit this morning, since we were at ~ 7,200 feet.
Part-way through the ride, I noticed Ira's chain had a lot of slack in it when he wasn't pedaling. Turns out that was a symptom of a broken spoke- who knew???
We were not bothered by any loose dogs chasing us today, so we think the little stuffed "guardian" dog added to Harry's handlebars after the "incident" is helping. (Any guesses as to what we named the dog???)
The "dog incident" occurred when we were riding in to Santa Fe the other day. A high-energy dog was running along and barking, but we all looked and saw that he was behind a fence - no worries. Well, the dog knew where the hole in the fence was, and suddenly he was chasing Harry, who was of course leading our pack. Harry was in a big gear so he put the hammer down and left all of us to deal with the dog. The funny thing is, the dog didn't care about any of us at all - he just went back into his yard. So Harry's solution was to add the mascot onto his handlebars.
For some reason, he also added a small plastic aquarium with a plastic Nimo and a pal onto the back of his bike, near the seat wedge pack. Makes for some entertainment when in his slipstream.

Tomorrow is another day of desert riding now that we have cleared the mountains. So it will be 109 miles, but shouldn't be too hot -- maybe only 89 degrees? Will probably be sporting some of the desert garb.