Cactus Capital, UFO Lights, and Prada "Art"--Three Days in the Desert

Friday, March 10

Waking up to rain meant that my extravagance with the motel room got pushed into the money-well-spent column.  I slept surprisingly well given that the room was as close to the highway as one could get--without actually being on the highway.  Fortunately, the traffic died down quite a bit after 9pm.

For breakfast, I had to make do with what I had on hand, and had for breakfast a peanut butter, banana, and honey tortilla wrap, supplemented by granola.

The rain had stopped by the time I started biking, and the terrain was much the same as yesterday, except even MORE isolated.  The first town I hit was Dryden, 40 miles away.  There was a fair amount of up-and-down with 2600 ft of gain and 1175 of descent.

I ran into a father and a daughter biking east.  When I discovered that the father worked at Adventure Cycling Organization, I wondered if he's getting paid to do this...

It occurs to me that I need to be more vigilant when stopping to take a break.  Today, after one stop, I noticed that both tires had thorny branches stuck on them.  Luckily I saw them and pulled them out before they could do any damage.  The old adage, "ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure," applies here.

I've been hitting a fair share of "general stores" since I started this trip, and Dryden had another little general store, so I picked up some items and had my lunch there.

I made it into Sanderson--the Cactus Capital of Texas!--a little after 2:30.  The little hotel I'm staying at provided a "welcome" tray of some cookies, mini donuts, and a banana in lieu of a breakfast for the next morning.  As I'm hoping to get an early start tomorrow, it works out well that I won't have to wait around for the serving time.

Tomorrow will be a tough day as I'm shooting to make it to Alpine which is 84 miles away, another 2500 ft up and only 760 ft down.

Day: 23
Time: 7 hours
Distance: 60 miles (Langtry-Sanderson, TX)

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Saturday, March 11

The ride today was supposed to be 84 miles long with a substantial elevation gain, so I decided to get out of Sanderson by 6am.  As expected, traffic was pretty light getting out of town since there wasn't a large community around these parts.  In fact, there wouldn't even be any services for the first 55 miles until I got to Marathon.

The elevation gain was a fairly steady and slight climb.  Personally, I find that much preferable to an up-and-down elevation gain since that is harder to get into a rhythm with.

I got into Marathon a little after noon, so I decided to stop and grab some lunch.  A burger and fries sure taste good after riding 6 hours!

The scenery today started to get a bit more interesting with the classic western look of buttes and mountains on the horizon.  I kept expecting Clint Eastwood to show up.

I had about 30 miles to go after lunch.  Although I was threatened with a few rain clouds, I didn't get caught by any.  At lunch, I was fortunate to be able to book a motel room for Alpine thanks to a last-minute cancelation.  I really wanted a motel room, instead of having to camp, as I had a 100-mile ride the next day.  When I called the previous day, I couldn't find a room available because this area gets a lot of folks visiting Big Bend National Park.  On the bike, I lose sense of what day of the week it is, so I forgot it was the weekend and Spring Break time.

I made it into Alpine around 4pm, happy to have the big day behind me and looking forward to getting a good night's rest.  But... that night as I was getting ready for bed, I noticed that the rear tire was a bit low.  Ugh.  Another flat tire.  While I was dismayed to have a flat, I was glad I discovered it before the morning.  This was flat #7 (I believe, but I might be losing count) and probably the first one not related to bringing old tubes.  This flat turned out to be caused by a radial tire wire.  All the truck tires you see that are exploded on the side of the highway tend to accumulate on the shoulder--where I'm riding.  When a tire explodes or disintegrates, the wires get strewn all over as well.  It is practically impossible to avoid or prevent these types of flats.  You can see how tiny the wire is in the picture below.

As per my previous post, since the rear tire got the flat, I put in the remaining tire liner ON the back tire.  I don't believe a liner would have helped in this case though (unless it can provide slightly more distance for the offending wire to travel before puncturing a tube) because, unlike with a thorn, the liner wouldn't be able to stop the wire.  In the process of putting the tire back on, I managed to knock a brake pad out, so I had to mess with that as well.  Sigh.

I ended up not getting to bed until essentially 11pm as I already figured in the fact that the Daylight Savings Time would start in a few hours.

Day: 24
Time: 10 hours
Distance: 85 miles (Sanderson-Alpine, TX)

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Sunday, March 12

Because of the switch to Daylight Savings Time, I actually needed my alarm to wake me up at 4:30am.  Otherwise on this trip, I had been getting up before the alarm.

It was quite dark when I got on the road at 6am.  Riding those first two hours was a bit eerie as there was nothing between Alpine and Marfa.  No house lights, off in the distance somewhere.  Nothing.

I made good time as I had a decent tail wind, but it was COLD.  The temperature was reported as 46 when I left Alpine, but it was down to 42 in Marfa.  I stopped for some quick breakfast tacos and picked up a sandwich as there weren't going to be any service between Marfa and my destination of Van Horn.  A sign as you leave Marfa warns you that there are no services for the next 74 miles!

This 74-miles stretch with no services (at all!) must be why the association route has you go through Fort Davis, which is supposed to be a very pretty area, hitting 6000 ft in elevation.  But I had had enough of climbing, and my alternate route saved me an extra day of riding since I would have had to spend the night in Fort Davis--after only 25 miles of riding--had I continued the association route.  The next place to stay was too far beyond to attempt in one day. As it was, my "shorter" detour was projected to be a 99-mile day!

Even after stopping, I hadn't warmed up, and I got the chills as I started off again.  I had to put on my gloves and put the jacket hood on to warm up.

Marfa is a bit of an artsy town and also boasts the phenomenon of UFO-like "Marfa Lights."  There were a bunch of cars parked at the viewing area as I came into town.  I hope I didn't get anyone excited with my flashing strobe headlight!

This town is a bit of an anomaly for the area generally.  I came across a Prada store (front?)--yes, in the middle of the desert-- about 30 miles outside of Marfa.  The area locals must think all the visiting and shopping tourists are crazy.

[Comment added later by Julie after our friend and Texas expert Loretta expressed incredulity: Alas, it turns out that it's just an "installed sculpture." The artists, according to Wikipedia, called it a "pop architectural land art project."  It's not clear to me what is most astonishing: a) the idea that Marfa would have a Prada store, b) that it would have a piece of postmodernist art in the desert, or c) that Will didn't get off his bike to go shopping for a memento of his Texas swing...]

I managed to keep the wind mostly at my back.  I took the shortest breaks possible as I wanted to utilize the wind as much as I could while it was still in my favor.  I ended up making great time and arrived into Van Horn around 3pm--about 3 hours quicker than my conservative estimate of 12 hours for the day.  Admittedly, I had unwelcome visions of crawling into Van Horn late after battling head winds all day...

Tomorrow, I ride on Interstate 10.  I heard it is ok because of the wide shoulder, and I sure hope that's the case.

Day: 25
Time: 9 hours
Distance: 103 miles! (Alpine-Van Horn, TX)

(post by Will)