Friday November 4, 2011, 77 miles (124 km) – Total so far: 2,185 miles (3,516 km)

We left Willcox at 8 with a high wind advisory set for 11 hoping to make it to Benson before the wind picked up. There was a lot of climbing early on and Jocelyn picked up her 7th flat! That’s three mornings in a row by the way. Today we found a large screw imbedded in the rear tire. We are getting good at this so we were soon on our way. We finally rolled into Benson and had lunch while considering our options. The wind was steadily increasing but my GPS showed the track to Tucson more northerly and in favor of tailwinds. Since it was only 1:00 we decided to go for it and were immediately met with a large climb out of town and huge cross/head winds. It was quite nerve racking due to construction on I-10 with little or no shoulder and much debris. We finally got though the construction area only to be met with the strongest winds of the trip so far. We were buffeted all around as we rode through several canyons with the wind never really behind us. We had been in contact with our family friends Howard and Carol. At one of the early exits Howard was parked with his truck. What a welcome sight! We loaded our bikes and were driven to their home where we had a great and relaxing dinner. Due to the wind and rain and uncertain forecast during the night we decided to take a break today, Saturday. The local mountains received a dusting of snow last night – what a pretty sight after a hard 77 miles yesterday.