Well, I fixed it this morning. Let me tell you why.
It is COLD in them thar hills! Even with a thermal shirt under my sweater (which I nearly didn’t bring) and my thick and fuzzy camp socks (thank you, Sandra) and all manner of things piled on top of me, I greeted the morning with bone jarring shivers. I checked my little thermometer on the bike and swore out loud when it read -5C (23F). There was ice in my water bottles to confirm it.
With frozen hands I fumbled about with breakfast and packing, but knew that I could not go anywhere until it climbed another 10C. So after brisk walking and reorganizing all my junk yet again, I reckoned I should fix the handgrip, literally with a piece of baling wire. I had no chewing gum.
As the sun got higher, so did the thermometer. In fact, I experienced a range today of more than 35C.
Stopping at some point on the way back over the switchback ridges I met a young fellow who was angling to take the same picture. He is on a trek similar to mine although on quite a different bike and following a different loop. As a Texas resident he offered some good suggestions for my route through the state. With some enthusiasm he pointed to a road paralleling the Mexico border; meanwhile I was recalling a conversation with the biker park ranger yesterday who indicated the same road and advised not riding it unless “you were packin’”. “Heat” was the missing word. A ‘stopper’. ‘Fire stick’. Something to shoot a Mexican with should he be threatening as he just jumped the border. It is a conundrum to think that a Mexican refugee of poverty would want to shoot one of the members of his new host country to which he would be seeking asylum. But then I have never understood Mexicans.
We rolled some thunder down some sections of road today that were as grand as anything I have ever ridden. An uncountable number of tight, linked curves on a good surface, virtually zero traffic, and gob-smacking scenery made for truly excellent riding. Through jagged, rocky canyons, ponderosa pine forests, grassy grazing land and farms, and then more steep switchbacks that led us up to sensational scenery. After thousands of miles of straight and flat, this afforded the opportunity to put some roundness back on my tires and widen the ‘sissy strip’—that wear band on the middle of the tire tread that gives some indication of the angle to which the rider can lean the machine.
Rocks, I can tell you with some authority, come in many colours. That so many of those colours were represented in the rocks that paraded by me today was remarkable.
I write while I ride, which adds a rich dimension to my experience… but more of that for another day.
What I'm getting at is that as I was thinking about what I would tell you about, I was trying to picture the kinds of foods that these colourful rocks reminded me of. (My breakfast was rather light today as you might have surmised). There is a gelato ice cream joint just off Commercial Avenue that offers dozens of flavours, many of which are quite unlikely. But I pictured those big frozen vats and saw peach, lime, tangerine, chocolate, lemon meringue (both the lemon and the meringue), raspberry cheesecake, black cherry, curry (is there such a thing?), pink bubblegum, lemon, something mauve that I don't think is in a normal diet, although blueberry yogurt is close, and even pistachio that I saw outside of Hillborough. And they were all scrambled up side by side like someone couldn’t make up their mind which one to order.
Technicolour rocks of many flavours.
At the end of that ride I wondered why my face was hurting, until I noticed that my smile was stuck in the Open position.
Unfortunately, backcountry roads have a dearth of fuel stops and today I nearly got caught. The little dots for towns on my roadmap, once realized, were often nothing more than a post office, a farm, or a small collection of wrecked and vacant buildings. My one last hope was Hillsborough, a tiny but cute little town that has managed to survive with a couple of shops, a café and at one time a gas station, now closed. There is one 15 miles further along, I was told, and I held a steady speed (and my breath) trying not to do too much fuel consumption arithmetic that would otherwise mess up my mind. But I made it.
This police car parked on the road at the entrance to Hillborough has a mannequin in the driver's seat that was most unhelpful in providing directions. At first I thought he was just sleeping or suffering from a donut overdose.
Decision time. As we approached Truth or Consequences (seriously!) I needed to choose between revisiting the destinations of White Sands, Roswell and Carlsbad that we had seen on a trip here a decade ago, or using the time to see more of new territory. The Bruiser and I chose the latter.
Hwy 185 parallels the Interstate to Las Cruces and you must know how I feel about Interstates! More rural farmland passed by, and rather humble in places. For a while I was following a schoolbus as it dropped off little groups of kids and had to smile to see the packs of family dogs that came tearing down the driveways to greet them.
As it was getting late in the day and being in Big City territory where camping is a difficult option, I blew down the evil I-10 to the sprawl and multi-stacked interchanges and endless billboards that is called El Paso. The Welcome Centre for visitors crossing into Texas was closed and my state of welcomeness was compromised. However, I did encounter a couple of wonderful fellow tourists that had a couple of suggestions for camping on the road south. They live in White Rock, by the way!
Texas!
At sunset I came at last to an impressive ranch/restaurant/petting zoo/museum called Cattleman Ranch. These folks are most famous for their steak dinners and the place was jammed with people, but I’ll be damned if I know where they all came from! This place is out in the middle of the desert and a real haul from El Paso. Anyway, my information about an offer of free camping on the property did not apply to tent camping, so I skeedaddled out of there and am currently set up in a dusty little ‘park’ in the bugger-alls that has the look and feel of a landfill site. But the sunset was stunning, it is peaceful and warm and I have a picnic table for cooking and writing.
And a tree. Possibly the only one in the region.
It was a long ride today, but it offered a smorgasbord of sights and sounds. Man and Machine are healthy and happy.
