Sunday March 29, 2015

We were up and away from our warmshowers house by 8:30 this morning. Alanna was up even earlier she had left the house by 7:00 for her Sunday morning ride with the El Paso Cycling Club.

A steep downhill to Mesa Street and then an undulating, hilly ride to the outskirts of El Paso. Once we had reached the outskirts of El Paso we joined a 24 km dedicated bike path, it was a lovely ride along the Rio (not so) Grande.

We left Texas today, and cycled into New Mexico, but there wasn’t any sign that we could take a photo of cycling in to a new State.

As we came into La Mesa, a roadie cyclists came over to chat to us. We were looking for somewhere to have lunch so she pointed us in the right direction and came to the store to talk to us and asked us lots of questions. We told her (Monika sp?) all about our trip, and she was really excited about what we had done. Then she surprised us and offered to buy us lunch. She gave us a $20.00 bill and told us lunch was on her. We were amazed. Janet and Stephen arrived shortly after so we split the $20.00 with them and we all had a good lunch. Thank you Monika.

We also saw Alanna, La Mesa was the mid-way point for their club ride.

We crossed the Rio Grande twice today. It is a wide empty river. The route was fairly flat, but we know we have hills to climb in the next few days.

After lunch we headed out to our warmshowers host just outside of Mesilla. We cycled along the Pecan Orchard Road, that is not the name of the road, but there were miles and miles of pecan orchards on either side of the road.  Alanna had told us that in the summer the trees make an archway across the road.

It was a beautiful ride, flat but view of the mountains in the distance.  I really liked the look of this range, it looks like a sombrero.

Jenia and Jim live on 30 acres of property with pecans trees. We had some lovely pecans. Jenia and Jim gave us a lovely dinner of stew and home made bread. Dessert was cheesecake with fresh strawberry topping made by Jim, lovely.

Janet and Stephen told us about this place and we really appreciate them telling us and Jenia and Jim for allowing us to stay here. Janet and Stephen are heading out to Deming tomorrow, coming of the ACA route. Ralf wants to stick to the route on this section. It is hilly, very hilly, but is supposed to be incredible beautiful.