Saturday March 21, 2015

It continued to rain all night and most of the day. The conundrum last night was cycle uphill in the rain with a tail wind or wait until Sunday and cycle uphill in the sun with a head wind. When we woke up this morning and checked the forecast for the day and this evening and noticed the flash flood warnings we opted for cycling in the sun, maybe the wind will change direction.

We had a long lie-in eventually getting out of bed at 9:00 am – luxury. The local Legion puts on a breakfast on Saturday mornings so we decided to partake of a good cooked breakfast. I went to the motel office to make sure we could stay an extra night when the “stand-in” manager asked if we had seen the other cyclists. I said we had seen them leave to go to the breakfast at the Legion. He was going to take them in his car, could you take us I asked politely. We got a ride to the Legion and he came back and picked us all up, how nice is that.

While we were placing our order one of the locals chatted to us about Sanderson, “it is a much nicer place than Marathon, we are nicer, friendlier people, stay a while”. We sat and chatted with Janet and Stephen while eating a good cooked breakfast. They have retired and are cycling throughout America, zig-zagging their way up and down the country – north in the summer, south in the winter, or so it seems to me.

We chatted about New Zealand as Janet had lived there for about six months. We compared notes as to where they had cycled and visited and where we had cycled.

We are going to meet them for dinner and chat some more.

They told us about an alternative route to Van Horn – it would cut about 50 ks of the route and 1,000 metres of climbing. Guess which way I want to go? However, if we go the hilly route we could visit the McDonald Observatory. After Alpine both routes have limited services to Van Horn, the lower route is shorter though.

I had bought the local paper yesterday – 4 broadsheet pages that consisted of the headlines – Backpackers Arrested with Marijuana – 171 pounds of marijuana being bought in from Mexico, I guess that is why the border patrol is busy in this area as well. The police report – barking dogs, noise complaints etc. The sports page – local high school sports. A few advertisements and a crossword puzzle that didn’t work. All of the “across” clues matched the boxes, all of the “down” clues didn’t. When I checked last weeks answers, they had put the “down” clues again and that is why nothing matched up.   I was doing so well, with the crossword as well.

Had a lovely chat with Janet and Stephen over dinner. We compared notes on warmshowers and some of the routes they have cycled through the US. They have cycled the Underground Railroad which is one of the routes I really want to do. Janet really enjoyed it. At this point Ralf surprised us all by asking if we noticed that our waitress was carrying a sidearm? I guess you won’t skip out on your tab here!

We had to laugh as we were comparing notes Janet would say to Stephen remember that place and that person what was the name and looked at Stephen for confirmation or an answer, no recognition of what she was talking about. Ralf and I do exactly the same thing, we have been to so many places and cannot always bring to mind the name of the place or the name of the person. I thought it was only us that forgot things, apparently not.

No doubt we will bump into them again, as we are going in the same direction. Then when we get to San Diego we are all heading up the Pacific Coast. Although Janet has said, if the winds are against them (they are supposed to be – north to south winds) they will take the train home.

A lovely sunset – red sky at night shepherds delight – it is going to be a good day tomorrow.