We set a cycling record at Roper Lake State Park

Four flat tires!

Unless you won't count having two flats on the same tire (geez, picky) and then it is "only" three.

We headed here to get water and electricity after our three day stay at Madera Canyon. When we dry camp for a few days, then we need to get to a place where we can get full hookups, and empty our gray water tank. We mostly liked Patagonia Lake State Park, so thought we would try another.

Missssssssstake.

This lake is more like a pond. The ranger and volunteers do the best they can, but there just isn't enough there. There are lots of signs, that kind of place. One of them threatened to disable the showers "again" if people don't do a better job of conserving water. That night I ran into a couple at the bathrooms who were finishing their showers. When I inquired as to where they were from, they cheerfully said "over the hill!" Their showers don't work so they sneak over and use the ones at the Park. I hope they are conserving water.

There was no hiking there. In fact I am not sure what there was there. So we decided we would try to get in a long bike ride.

Heading out we found we quickly ran out of pavement, and were on dirt roads. That's OK if the dirt is hard packed, but I actually brought the wrong bike. I should have brought my hybrid bike on the road trip, not my road bike. I can't get any traction in the dirt.

After riding around for awhile we headed toward the town of Safford, where we heard there was a multiuse trail at a place called Discovery Park. We found it, and rode on the trails. When the trail ended we stopped for our picnic, only to discover when we started back that we both had flat tires.

After much grumbling (swearing) on my part, I got both tires changed. I carry a spare for both of us. However, my other tire was low on air, so we knew we were on borrowed time. We scurried back, but a mile before reaching the campground Vicky's other tire went flat, so we walked the bikes the rest of the way.

The next morning my tired that was going bad was totally flat, along with both of Vicky's, for a total of four. We ran across some wicked stickers somewhere that are now all over our tires. We will have to carefully pick them out.

Our plan was to head back into the wilderness after stocking up on food, ice, electricity, and water, but the weather forecast was for subfreezing temperatures in the mountains we were headed off to. Since we have uncertain heating in our camper, we have to be careful about our water freezing.

We decided to go to another state park instead. We will go to this mountain campground someday, I am sure.