Safe Return Doubtful

8 miles (13 km) – Total so far: 2,055 miles (3,307 km)

I spent most of the day riding around downtown Santa Fe, somewhere quite different. And reading Death Comes For The Archbishop (Cather) in the shadow of the St Francis of Assisi Cathedral. It really couldn’t be any more appropriate. I hope for some quality Mexican food tonight to go with some local beer, then the final day of riding tomorrow, some up of course, but generally downhill to Albuquerque. From there I am on a selection of different transport, Greyhound, Amtrak, and car rental, with some small cycling, down to a Houston that is hopefully drying out.

The Railyard farmer’s market

Brewery to the left where I enjoyed a couple last night, hatch chillis to the right – what more does one want?

Santa Fe even has a passenger train station…

A museum in the downtown, typical architecture

Norwegian Jarlsberger per chance?

Storytime:

Bins and Bhajis in Durham

Nigel played quite a bit of representative cricket between the ages and 15 and 18. Joe has referred to him suffering concussion and a broken nose from a delivery from fellow Sheffield University student John Kelly. That injury was while playing for South-West Lancashire in a tournament at Old Trafford.

He also played for Wirral schoolboys Under 18 group, when I was coaching the Under 13 group at the same time. In those days Wirral had a high status on the County front, playing full fixtures with the likes of Durham, Yorkshire, Cheshire, Lancashire and more. The highlight of their season was a Festival that moved around between the northern counties every year for a week in July. The year I recall most the venue was Durham, with several excellent grounds, and accommodation in Grey’s College. As a good friend of the coaches, I was invited as an additional teacher / coach. The games were rough and Wirral gave a good account of themselves and won their share, I recall the weather wasn’t wonderful, and we lost quite a bit of time to rain. The evenings were lively as you would imagine with a group of 17 / 18 year olds all of whom played club cricket together and with the coaches. Durham has a great nightlife also.

The College had strict rules on closing up at night, the doors were locked after 11 pm. One particular night a group of about 6 of us, including Nigel and the coaches, were enjoying Durham so much that we were late. We had gone for Indian food and during a heated coaching discussion I had demonstrated leg spin bowling grips with Onion Bhajis, the larger type are actually quite suitable for this. Fortunately on return to Grey’s Nigel had been vigilant earlier and expected that we may miss the curfew. We were on the second floor and he had left his sash window open. All that was now required was to wander around the campus and collect the black plastic bins and pile them on top of each other. It was his idea, and despite being responsible and in charge we allowed him to go for the climb. None of us felt we had the appropriate skills to negotiate the bins and gain the twenty feet necessary. Fortunately he was successful, but by the time he had gained access (after several stumbles and near falls) the rest of the squad had woken up and let us in in anyway.