It was a great day to ride a bicycle. What a
difference a day makes. We came from the dusty town of Sierra Blanca 80+ miles
to the sparkling town of Marfa. The dichotomy is palpable. But first let me
tell you about the ride.
We stayed in Sierra Blanca for the night having ridden
22 miles east the day before. It was all in an effort stay on schedule after
having to take a rest day. In effect we lopped off a 33-mile day, adding 22
miles to one riding day and 11 miles to the next. It worked. This morning in
Sierra we loaded the bikes in the van and drove the 22 miles covered yesterday before Susan
dumped us off on the highway to finish today’s ride. Originally today’s ride
was to be 72 miles; we turned it into an 82-mile day.
After leaving the van, we had a significant climb on
the Interstate before descending 8 miles into Van Horn, TX. That was 10 easy miles
down and the original 72 to go. Exiting I-10 we turned south onto US 90, a
highway we will be on for the next five days and return to in Florida. Unfortunately,
we kissed the wind for the next 30 miles. It was not pleasant, even though the
scenery was. We had mountains to the left of us, mountains to the right and we
were stuck in the middle. To make things worse, after about 10 miles on a nice
highway, we ran into road construction. The next 30 miles were fresh chip and
seal. It was like sitting on a jackhammer for two and a half hours. In between
all the jostling we did see some unique, to a back-easterner, events. Off in
our direction of travel in an undeterminable distance we noticed a floating
object. It looked like a tethered balloon. Sara and I debated as to what it
might be. Neither of us gave a compelling argument. We rode for at least 20 miles before we
discovered the site. We are still not sure what it was. There was a sign on the
fenced in grounds with the word radar on it. Could it be the border patrol
doing a scan of the area? We did see half dozen border patrol cars, all of them
together, pass us at one point indicating there is some sort of activity.
As we approached the sight of the odd balloon, we saw
a twister kicking up dust. It crossed our path as we rode by, making a popping
noise as it hit the pavement. Just after the twister incident we saw two
pronghorns dancing a romantic jig off to our right. They approached us with no trepidation.
After assessing that we were harmless, they continued their dance. Not five
miles later we saw another solo pronghorn. It did not look as contented as the
other two. Maybe it lost its mate.
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| Up the hill on I-10... |
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| ...and down the hill into Van Horn |
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| Lobby of the charming Hotel Paisano |
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