Day # 12... Wind Games in West Texas: Pushed, pulled, and knocked over into Fort Davis, TX

check it out in google maps

Monday April 7, 2008, 90 miles (145 km) - Total so far: 1,125 miles (1,811 km)

Today was a varied day, especially as the wind was concerned. I felt lazy this morning and didn't want to get up, so I didn't get out the door and on the road till 10:15am. An hour or so later while stopped on the side of the road talking on the phone for awhile, Gerry caught up to me. I mentioned in yesterdays post the 3 guys travelling together; Gerry was the third whom I had yet to meet. I knew who he was and he assumed who I was so we talked and hung out for a bit before going up the road and meeting Tom and Martin at a gas station in Kent, TX. We all talked and took pictures and then I went on my way; they planned on camping a couple hours down the road, while I still had 50 miles to go.

Today was a very physically demanding day, and very mentally challenging, but I put on some music and got into a comfortable mental place where I could block out the pain and suffering of 4700ft of alternating gentle climbing, to steep in your face climbing over 50 miles. The worst part was the great tailwind of the morning turned into a terrible crosswind, and then headwind when I changed roads and direction. It was blowing a good 20-30 much of the time, but I managed to get through it and feel pretty good tonight; ready to tackle 110 miles tomorrow into Sanderson, TX.


Here's the highs and lows;


Highlights:
-sleeping in
-nice tailwind to start
-good company until I parted ways with the 3 other guys.
-extremely desolate but beautiful country to roll through. I didn't see a car in either direction for almost 3 full hours. Nuts! Never been on a state highway anywhere with so little traffic. Which is a good segway into the next highlight;
-as I am getting close to the McDonald Observatory, about 15 miles anyway, hiding behind the bushes is a county sherrif in his patrol car, radar gun facing the area I was coming from. Okay, let's recap: I hadn't seen a single car in THREE hours, and this guy is looking for speeders. It was so absurd I had to talk to him. Here's how the conversation went:
Me: So uhh.. Does this road ever have cars on it?
Him: yep.
Me: really? I haven't seen a single car in 3 hours!
Him: that's not uncommon.
Me: so you just hang out here and wait for that one speeder?
Him: yep. They'll come along.
Me: well, it certainly is a nice place to hang out for the day waiting.
Him: yep. It's quiet. That's how I like it.

Wow! How weird. The guy gets paid to sit in his car for hours in a nice place to catch maybe 1 or 2 speeders a day!
I took his picture too so I'll put that up at the next computer.
Continuing on...
-getting to the top of the climbs for the day.
-nice downhill for a few miles.
-getting to the motel and having the owner excitedly tell me I have the room with the biggest flat screen tv. (Maybe I should turn it on? I feel bad, it seemed like he went out of his way to put me here with this massive..well, 40in flat screen)
-talking to a bunch of friends on the phone tonight and catching up.

Lowpoints:
-Headwinds, climbing. Tough stuff.
-leaving the company of fellow cyclists; it might be fun to travel with someone who had such crazy ambitions as I do; 100 miles a day on average over the course of a month.not many people do it this way though.
-moving a beautiful (dead) falcon out of the road and into the grass. It looked like it had been hit very recently and was really pretty. I guess I didn't want it to turn into another smashed pile of feathers, seen quite a bit of roadkill on this trip. :(
-getting to the road leading to the mcdonald observatory and not a single car came by that could have taken me up.- waited for almost an hour. I could have rode up, but it was a really steep 1000ft+ climb in under 2 miles and my legs were not going to be able to do that and be happy after already doing 4700ft.oh well.
-the motel guy reccomended the best place in town to eat dinner.. So I go there, to find it open 6 days a week, closed mondays (today). What's the ONLY place open? The place he shook his head at, scoffed, and said "that place is terrible. No" ... Where did I have to eat? Yep. The bad place. It wasn't the worst ever, but I wouldn't go back or reccomend it.

That's all he wrote folks.