Monday March 23, 2015

An interesting start to the day. Ralf witnessed a light air plane crash. He had gone up to the roof to watch this small plane take-off and take some photos. He came flying down the stairs with a “Holy shit the plane just crashed”.

Janet, Stephen and I were a little stunned. Ralf went back up to the roof to see if there was any smoke and then we heard what we thought might be sirens. Volunteer force were on the way.

We left the hostel shortly after, saying our goodbyes and see you later to Janet and Stephen. As we cycled down the road, we saw 2 fire trucks, 2 EMS vehicles and 2 Sherriff’s vehicles heading towards Marathon at a high rate of speed. We determined that these vehicles had been dispatched from Alpine – 32 miles away. One hour and ten minutes after Ralf had witnessed the crash, one of the EMS vehicles passed us, with lights flashing, heading back to Alpine which is where the nearest hospital is located.

As we cycled along, Ralf said that maybe we should have stayed in Marathon, as he witnessed the crash. However, Ralf could not get cell service (Verizon not AT&T) so couldn’t call 911 for assistance. Obviously, someone else had called all the services as they were on the way as quickly as they could get there – due to the distances they have to go for any kind of emergency in this area.

The rest of the day was very uneventful. Once again stunning scenery, wide open spaces, awesome geology and mountain ranges.

For the most part we didn’t have a headwind. The wind shifted in the last 10 ks coming in to Alpine and we had a slight uphill gradient. We were in Alpine by just after noon, and settled into our cheap and cheerful motel by 1:30. We wandered downtown Alpine, which is closed on a Monday!