Day 18: A little desert goes a long way

Sierra Blanca Texas

For those of you who have hoped that things would get better, I must say that today was not the day that it happened.  For a 75 mile ride I left Fort Hancock in a blissful state of contentment-- nice and cool, great road, no traffic and reasonably attractive Texas farm land.  Twenty miles later the ride hit a bump and sent me into a fresh new hell.  It began with a short stint on I-10 on a shoulder that was fully grooved.  For more than two miles we struggled along beside hundreds of trucks and a legal speed limit of 80 miles per hour.

The next direction was to carry the bikes over a short graveled section and onto a frontage road that had suddenly materialized out of nowhere.  Little did I know that I was beginning a gradual but ten mile long climb on a rough road.  Bubba, with his philosophy that "it is all good" prefers to gloss over the parts that someone might think are not so good, so the climb was briefly mentioned at the meeting last night but the details were left very vague.  My own preference is to know the worst ahead of time so that I can be mentally prepared-- in any case, the road was there and I had to ride it.  Aggravated, annoyed and aggrieved, I toiled on with the help of my iTouch and "A Prayer for Owen Meany". Eventually we reached Sierra Blanca, a town in complete dishevelment, where we had lunch-- I am existing almost entirely on cheese sandwiches and cheese enchiladas-- vegetarianism on a bike ride is nothing like what it is in Northport Maine.

I was wrong, by the way, when I said we would be on Route 20 for some days-- it is Route 90 that we get on tomorrow and will ride for the next four days.  More frontage road after lunch and eventually back onto I-10 proper (supposedly the last time we will be riding on an interstate) and eventually a nice long downhill-- marred only by the close proximity of two lanes packed with huge trailer trucks.  Our immediate destination was a Dairy Queen on the outskirts of Van Horne.  Simultaneously with reaching the DQ, I realized that it was closed and that I had a flat tire.  A double whammy.  Thinking John was not far behind me, I began to push the bike.  Since he didn't show up I finally called and learned that he had also had a flat and that in his case the whole tire was ruined.  Fortunately our mechanic came along with a new tire and got John back on the road.  In the meantime since I was only 1.5 miles from camp I took a ride rather than asking someone to change my flat in the heat and dirt of the roadside.  We are now in the shade in a KOA and John has spent some time patching tubes and getting us road worthy again.  Tomorrow we ride another 75 miles to Marfa.