Day 31 - A New Month and a Nice Climb

Today we slept in a little, the quiet of the middle of no where helped :) We rolled out of the rest area where we stayed last night about 10 am. Kenadi (sister, 18) decided to pedal with CJ a little again today, so she took the first "shift". The border patrol guys from yesterday told us to stop in Cornudas, TX on our way and eat at May's Café. Cornudas was about 14 miles from our starting point, so it wasn't quite lunchtime, but we decided to stop in anyways. When we got there we realized that actually May is real lady who OWNS the entire little town. She is the cook at the café and is the "mayor" as well. She told us about several other cyclists who had stopped by her place. The population of Cornudas was less than 10, but the burgers at May's were awesome!
After eating at May's, Kenadi got back in the bus and CJ and Craig (dad) pedaled on down Hwy 180.  Katie, Kenadi, and the little boys drove into Dell City, TX to find a place to fill up the bus with water. Thanks Benjamin for helping us out with that!
The "bus crew" caught back up with the "bike crew" right before Salt Flat, TX. They had a steady tailwind and were ROLLING at around 23 mph avg. They took a short snack break right before they started climbing up the Guadeloupe Mountain. The climb went up to 5695 ft and was approximately 7 miles long with a 7% avg grade. It wasn't quite as bad as the climb over "Mule Creek" coming out of AZ, but this time they were climbing after they'd already ridden for 54 miles. CJ and Craig reached the top right before supper time and we set up camp at the Pine Springs Campground in the National Park. The view on the way up the mountain was just spectacular. We are amazed more an more every day at the awesome creation that we see. "America the Beautiful" really IS beautiful!
The total mileage for the day ended up at 61.3 It was the longest ride Craig has ever done AND his first day wearing clip-in shoes on the road (He only fell 3 times)! Congrats Dad! (Pray for his boo-boos they are going to be sore!) We have officially made up one of the days from last week's break down! YAY!
Even after that LONG hard ride today, CJ ate supper, took a shower, and did THREE subjects of school work before bed! He's really been a trooper! This makes 3 days straight of 50+ mile days! He deserves a break tomorrow. We plan to drive up to Carlsbad Caverns which is around 20 miles from here and check out the caverns and the BATS!!!!! The boys are super excited. We will try our best to get some good pictures! We are not sure how the wifi will be for the next few days because we are in no major towns, but will post as much as possible. 
If you are reading this from TEXAS, or know someone who lives in Texas, we'd LOVE to have church contacts for the Sundays we will be here. If you know of a church along our route that might be interested in hearing CJ's story please have them contact us!