Monday March 23, 2015

An interesting start to the day. Ralf witnessed a light air plane crash. He had gone up to the roof to watch this small plane take-off and take some photos. He came flying down the stairs with a “Holy shit the plane just crashed”.

Janet, Stephen and I were a little stunned. Ralf went back up to the roof to see if there was any smoke and then we heard what we thought might be sirens. Volunteer force were on the way.

We left the hostel shortly after, saying our goodbyes and see you later to Janet and Stephen. As we cycled down the road, we saw 2 fire trucks, 2 EMS vehicles and 2 Sherriff’s vehicles heading towards Marathon at a high rate of speed. We determined that these vehicles had been dispatched from Alpine – 32 miles away. One hour and ten minutes after Ralf had witnessed the crash, one of the EMS vehicles passed us, with lights flashing, heading back to Alpine which is where the nearest hospital is located.

As we cycled along, Ralf said that maybe we should have stayed in Marathon, as he witnessed the crash. However, Ralf could not get cell service (Verizon not AT&T) so couldn’t call 911 for assistance. Obviously, someone else had called all the services as they were on the way as quickly as they could get there – due to the distances they have to go for any kind of emergency in this area.

The rest of the day was very uneventful. Once again stunning scenery, wide open spaces, awesome geology and mountain ranges.

For the most part we didn’t have a headwind. The wind shifted in the last 10 ks coming in to Alpine and we had a slight uphill gradient. We were in Alpine by just after noon, and settled into our cheap and cheerful motel by 1:30. We wandered downtown Alpine, which is closed on a Monday!

Sunday March 22, 2015

We were up early and were on the road by 8:15 am. It was a little chilly, to start the ride and we had our windbreakers on. It was a beautiful ride, especially for me! Today we had a headwind and for the first 20 minutes I was up front as usual, and then Ralf took the lead and stayed up front for the rest of the ride. I do love him very much. It was a climbing day, although the hills were very gradual, but a constant uphill for the first 60 ks. Our total elevation was 606 metres.  Ralf said it was one of his toughest days of cycling pulling all day.  Even the rocks were leaning into the wind.

The scenery was stunning, we were in the Sanderson canyon for about 20ks, then we cycled between the Woods Hollow Mountain (Warwick Hills) and the Spencer Mountain.

The road wasn’t very busy today, we chatted for a while about the scenery and the drug bust and the fact that the last time we were at our current weight was before we left school.

We also saw three different groups of cyclists cycling the southern tier from west to east. Two Brits from southern England, three guys from Michigan, who like us had a tent but were spending most of their time in motels, a group of five from Wisconsin they were being supported and were riding for a charity. We stopped and chatted to each group, which ate into our overall time, but it was nice to chat to other cyclists.

The road was very straight, occasionally we would go through a small canyon where cactus were holding on to the rocks.

Then you would see a road sign which makes you go ????

We arrived in Marathon at about 3:00pm and headed to the grocery store to get something to eat, we were both starving and also get some pasta sauce for tonight. We headed to the hostel. It is a very interesting place. It is run by Ingrid who is from Slovakia. Most of the buildings are made from paper and concrete – a little stronger construction than papier maché, but not much.

The main hostel has a double bunk bed and a single bed, in one room, two single beds in a loft area, it has a lovely cool living space and an outdoor kitchen. The shower block, is across the yard which houses a bath-tub with shower, toilet and sink. You can also choose to sleep upstairs on the roof, under the stars. There are three other buildings you can stay in but those you have to pay for. The hostel is free for the first night for all cyclists.

Stephen and Janet were going to go to the motel, but it was full and cost $90 per night!  They came to the hostel. They have opted to sleep on the sofas in the living room.

The night skies in this area are amazing.

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.

Friday March 20, 2015

How things change. A few years ago, when we lived in Shanty Bay we had field mice come into the house during the fall months. We got mouse traps, and sonic zappers and blocked outlets with foam etc. Our cat would indicate where the mouse was and we spent time ridding our home of the mice that wanted to make their home in our house. Why do I mention this on my blog about cycling around the world. Well, last night as we were in bed ready for a good nights sleep, we heard the tell tale sounds of mice scratching around in the walls. What did we do? – we grabbed ear plugs so that we couldn’t hear the mice or anything else that may be wandering around our bedroom, turned over and went back to sleep.

We woke up early and left the trailer at about 8:15 am. We wanted to get going early as we knew we had a long ride – almost 100 kms. We also wanted to visit the Judge Roy Bean Museum.

Judge Roy Bean was a legend in this area due to his unconventional judgments. He would often stop the proceedings of the court to serve beer as the courtroom was next to the bar he owned!

Today was a hilly ride, a steady climb up to Sanderson. Each uphill was rewarded by a downhill, then another uphill slightly higher and that is how we climbed over 900 metres today. Up and down, up and down.  The scenery was not as spectacular as yesterday, very scrubby ranch land and no major canyons.

We stopped in Dryden for lunch, fortunately the grocery/post office was open.  That appeared to be only thing in Dryden apart from a few old houses.  We ate ritz crackers and kraft cheddar cheese and drank a bottle of mountain dew.  I commented on the fact that when we were in France we had a wonderful baguette, charcuterie meats and creamy camembert cheese and an amazing cup of coffee.  Ritz crackers and cheddar cheese taste good when you are hungry and in the middle of nowhere.

As we cycled along today, we ran parallel to the rail tracks. We saw two long trains and I waved to the first driver and he tooted his horn. The second train driver tooted his horn after I waved to him as well. I never knew that if you waved to a train driver he would toot his horn, it was quite fun. I guess they get bored.

We arrived in Sanderson and were met by our neighbours, two touring cyclists that had arrived yesterday and decided not to fight the wind today to Marathon. Both Ralf and I were tired and wanted nothing more than to shower and get settled in. She chatted to us for a while asking questions and telling us about their trip. Ralf politely excused us and said we would meet later maybe for dinner.

It started to rain while we were settling in to our motel room. We had a wet walk to the local café and had fish and chips for dinner. It was quite expensive, but the food was good. We were going to visit with our neighbours, but I was tired and wanted to relax and go to sleep early, another long climbing day tomorrow.

Thursday March 19, 2015

What a ride we had today. We were up early and on the road by 9:00 am. The forecast was for sun and cloud, with a high of 28 C. As we left the motel we had our lights on and our high-vis jackets due to the overlying fog that surrounded the area. West of Del Rio is the Amistad National Park Area which is a large reservoir and river system – that, combined with the low cloud was causing the fog. I was hoping that the sun would come out and burn it off, but while the fog dissipated the low cloud stayed around for most of the day.

The back of my thighs were a little stiff from cleaning the bikes yesterday, but as soon as I got moving they eased up and we once again motored – we had a great tail-wind and took advantage of it.

We arrived in Comstock at a small motel at 11:30, it was our first opportunity to stop and we decided not to take it as we had cycled 48.5 ks and both of us were feeling good, plus the hotel wanted $60.00 +tax. We decided to carry on to the Seminole State Park for camping. When we got to that turn off (65.5 ks) Ralf said we could make it to Langtry at this rate. I agreed we were making good time, but did I want to cycle another 30 ks and miss the Indian Cave drawings?  It was still overcast and threatening rain.  If it rained we couldn\’t view the cave drawings.

The forecast is for rain tonight and early morning. Camping in the rain or motel in Langtry – no brainer other than the fact that it was another 30 ks to Langtry! The wind persuaded me to go for it.

The scenery today was a mix of hills and canyons, absolutely stunning.

As we cycled through the canyons you could see the layers of rocks that had been pushed up, incredible.

We stopped to chat to a group of geologists (oil company workers) who were looking at the way the layers revealed themselves on this section of the road.

I asked if this is the sort of rock they drill through for fracking. \”Yes, this is perfect fracking geology and that is why we are looking at it. This is usually underground, here it has been pushed up and we can view it\”. Ralf made his usual comment on how fracking creates its own problems. The oil company workers changed the subject and asked how far we were cycling and where we had come from.

We crossed the Pecos River where there was no water flowing, but in the event of a heavy rain, you could see where the flood water smoothed the canyon sides, the power of water.

We arrived in Langtry, home of Judge Roy Bean (Movie made about his life, Judge Roy Bean was played by Paul Newman) and went to the information centre. There are no motels in Langtry! The café does have rooms, but none were available. There is a warmshowers host, that I had emailed and requested a room for tomorrow night. He has a trailer on his property to rent to cyclists. We are a day early and could not get a hold of him.

I am sitting at the trailer while Ralf went back down to the Info Centre to try and give the warmshowers host another call. He is listed as a warmshowers host and on the ACA maps as accommodation, so I think we should be o.k. The trailer is clean(ish) and has water and gas.

Our only other option is to camp for free near the community centre, however there is no water and toilets. We can use the toilets at the Information Centre until 5:00pm.

The sun has come out and it feels really good on the back.

Another cyclist joined us at about 4:00. Ethan is cycling the southern tier from west to east. We chatted for a while before having an early night, another long day tomorrow.

Wednesday March 18, 2015

A good productive day. I got so much done today. Both bikes are cleaned, oiled and ready for it to rain on them on Friday, although that is the forecast for Del Rio, maybe we will miss it as we are heading west.

I called my Dad and Joy. Joy is doing really well and I thank everyone once again for their prayers and kind words last year. She is not able to go back to work yet, but she is getting bored and is volunteering at a couple of places in Tetbury, a village nearby to where she lives. Dad is fine, he is visiting my sister in Cyprus in May.

I went through my panniers to see if I can lighten my load at all. I have cleared out some papers I have been carrying, probably a couple of grams lighter!

Ralf is cooking tonight – salmon, rice and veges. We decided to get some camping gas, as we are heading out to a less populated area where we will probably be camping. The motels have been nice, but it is time to camp again.

Tuesday March 17, 2015

A lovely quiet sleep in our Cavalry barrack room, no ghosts! I checked the weather forecast, it was going to be a wet but warm ride.

Just as we were ready to leave it started to shower, oh well, tomorrow is a rest day and the bikes are scheduled for a cleaning anyway.

The downtown of Brackettville is very run-down with some lovely buildings that are abandoned and ruins.

However, the court house was still a very impressive building.

We headed out in overcast skies, and drizzle. It continued to rain for about an hour and then stopped. We had a great tail-wind and covered 40 ks in less than 2 hours. No struggling today.

We are back on a highway with a wide shoulder, no listening to birdsong around us just the steady thrum of tires on tarmac. Everyone is giving us plenty of room and we have a wide shoulder so we feel safe.

We arrived at the outskirts of Del Rio before noon and headed up towards our motel. We knew it was near a big Wal-Mart and we had decided to pop into the Wal-Mart and pick up some lunch then head to the motel, which was 2kms past Wal-Mart.

I have a long list on my To Do list – although tomorrow is going to be a rest day I will be busy doing washing, cleaning bikes and preparing for the next section of the Southern Tier – we are on the next map – Map 3 of 7 or Map 4 for us as we are going east to west. It seems amazing that we have already cycled over 2,500 kms in six weeks.

We have a great kitchenette room in the motel with a full working stove. Tonight we had pork chops, potatoes and veges – lovely. It so nice to be able to put a good meal together instead of working on a little camp stove. Tomorrow we plan on having salmon! Pure luxury!

Monday March 16, 2015

We headed out of Camp Woods at 9:15 this morning and we were really motoring. We passed the campsite that we could have stayed at last night.  Please note the waterfall over the dam – I would have not had a good nights sleep listening to that water flowing all night.

The road was flat but with a rough chip and seal surface, it was really hard on the hands and shoulders. At about the 40 k mark which we had done in just under two hours, I couldn’t keep up with Ralf anymore, he was like a demon – pumping out 25 – 28 kph. I slowed down and eventually had to call to him to slow down. I told him I was struggling, at this point we were doing 18 kph. He complained that we were only doing 18 kph and going downhill. I told him in no uncertain terms that I didn’t care what speed we were doing, I was struggling. He slowed down and then I took the lead so that I could set the pace. The speed demon did redeem himself by taking the lead for the last 15 k’s as the wind picked up and changed direction.

My hands and shoulders were killing me and I struggled for another hour. Going at the lower speed didn’t help with the hands or shoulders, but at least I wasn’t going to blow my legs as well.

After all the hills over the last few days, today was a fairly flat ride, so it should have been easy, but that is what happens sometimes when you are riding what should be hard days turns out to be fun, then what should be an easy ride becomes hard.

Other than the road surface it was a nice ride. We passed a farm that stated No Trespassers, high-tech surveillance in effect. About a hundred metres down the road two large pyrennean mountain dogs came bounding towards the fence – high-tech surveillance!

We are almost out of Hill Country. As we have cycled this area over the past few days, we have wondered how this area was formed. It is not volcanic as the rock is primarily limestone. I had to google it and this is what I found out. The Hill Country is also known as the Balcones Canyonlands, it is composed of rugged topography with flat-topped hills separated by steep canyons. The area was caused by “faulting”. The east side of Austin moved downward by as much as 700 feet. After millions of years of erosion, the soft sediment in the Hill Country area were eroded away, exposing the hard limestones and dolostones creating the hills and steep canyons.

Texas is a bit of an anomaly, we have seen more Hybrid cars here (primarily Toyota pruis), today on the far hills we saw wind farms and as we came into Brackettville we saw a huge solar farm. Texas oil country but surprisingly environmentally concerned. Could it have something to do with the eight year drought?

We arrived in Brackettville at about 1:30 (4 hours). We stopped at the local grocery store and picked up some meat and cheese to make sandwiches. I wanted to stop before we got to the motel, so that we didn’t skip a meal.

We found the motel very easily and checked in. We are staying at the Fort Clark Springs Motel, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Fort Clark was a U.S. Military fort in operation for almost 100 years, from 1852 to shortly after WW2. The motel rooms are converted from the Cavalry barracks.

After we had got settled in we picked up a brochure which described a walking tour and toured the site.

The site is now a gated resort and leisure living community. The Las Moras Spring runs through the property and feeds the swimming pool. The pool is open year round it is a constant 68 degrees F. A little nippy even on a warm day like today.

Ralf wandered back downtown to check-out possibilities for dinner and to take some photos of the City Court House. He got chatting to a Deputy Chief Border Patrol Officer, we are about 50 kms from the Mexican border. The officer’s family emigrated to Texas when he was three years old. For the past 16 years he has been a Border Patrol Officer. I noticed a big black Ford with a large camera mounted on the back, near the court house, at first I thought it was a google camera van. This camera, worth a cool half a million dollars, can reach 30 feet in the air, do a 360, and is equipped with thermo imaging. The Officer, played back last nights video, and everything that I have seen on the reality shows, I got to view it in real time. How cool was that! You could clearly see two Officers following six illegals, it was like a ghost story unfolding in front of you, all green and white hues. We talked a bit about his three college kids and how he has always taught them that there is a right way and wrong way to do everything, you choose.

Sunday March 15, 2015

Camping for the first time in five months. It did get a little chilly during the night, but I enjoyed being under the stars again. I woke up at about 10:00 pm and looked at the stars were amazing. When you are in the middle of nowhere with no light pollution, the night skies are absolutely beautiful.

I first woke up at 7:00 am and it was still dark, due to the silly time change. The skies started to lighten up at 7:30 and we got up and started to pack our tent. Back in the routine Ralf packs up his stuff first while I go to the shower block. Then he goes to the shower block and I pack up my stuff.

It was cool morning, and we had to put our leggings and jackets on to stay warm. We had breakfast, and then packed our gear into the panniers and we were away for the days ride. I chatted to a couple of roadies who come to this area every year and ride the hills. Ralf chatted to one of our neighbours who rides the MS ride with a team from his work. The MS Ride is from Houston to Austin and is about 180 miles over a two day ride.

This is one of the reasons we like to camp, we chat to the locals.

We were leaving the State Park at 9:30, I knew we had some climbing today.

We had two big hills before Leakey, where we had lunch and one long hill after lunch. In Leakey we stopped at a Motorbike bar hoping that they had something to eat, but they only had meat plates.  I went in to the local grocery store and bought meat, cheese and buns, we made our own sandwiches and sat outside on the picnic bench. Of course we garnered attention and chatted to old boys who were interested in our ride.

As we came out of Leakey after lunch, I said to Ralf I have left my legs in Leakey. The hill coming out of Leakey started slow and then just continued, 6.3 kms and topped out at 2,197 feet (669 metres). Fortunately for me my legs caught up with me and I cycled to the top without having to get off. I felt very proud of myself.

Eventually the route levelled out and then went downhill.

We decided to stay in a hotel tonight, the weather is supposed to change and get colder and maybe rain. I also have the opportunity to update the blog. Plus the campsite is another 6.5 ks away.

As we came into Camp Woods, we spotted what looked like a guy walking a very large dog. Turned out the large dog was a little Shetland pony, he was walking it home so that it would “mow” the lawn for him. We had to stop and chat to him, he was hilarious. The things you see in small town US.

Saturday March 14, 2015

We were up early (7:00 am) Fred and Janice were up and we could smell the coffee brewing. By the time we were showered and starting to pack-up breakfast was on the table, scrambled eggs and venison sausage! The coffee was lovely, so was the venison sausage.

We had an interesting discussion on religion, it is quite amazing that early in the morning and we are chatting about theology!

Janice had told us about a replica Stonehenge located not far from their house on our route.

We couldn\’t get close to the original, but here is Ralf standing in front of the 2/3 the size replica.

Today’s ride was once again hilly. As we have cycled along in different countries, I have often compared where we are cycling with other places we have been. For instance there were places in New Zealand that reminded me of England. As I was cycling today I was trying to compare Hill Country Texas with other places and I have come to the conclusion that Hill Country Texas is unique.

The hills and valley are made up of limestone and the trees are primarily pecans. The ranches are big and are primarily cattle ranches, but are nothing like what I had imagined them to be. I imagined big wide open spaces. Hill Country is rugged, big rolling hills, with the Quadalupe River flowing through the valleys. It was a very pretty ride.

However, we have seen boot and shoe fences before.

After all the hills, it was nice to come down a wonderful hill to the park.

We arrived at Lost Maples State Park at about 2:30, I was tired. The park website stated that it was full, Ralf said use your best “English”, I went into the office and asked if they had any spots for a very small tent. Apparently someone had not turned up, so we could have that site.

As I came out with the good news, two guys were chatting to Ralf about our ride. They were roadies and had seen touring cyclists but had never had the opportunity to chat to any of them. We were inundated with questions. When we told them we only planned about two days ahead, they were gobsmacked “Say What”, the look on his face was a picture.

When we arrived at our pitch, the next pitch was full of people sitting around their picnic bench. They watched us arrive on our bikes and as usual were very friendly. One of the guys asked where my accent was from and when I told him Nottingham, he said he knew the area. His first wife lives in Nottinghamshire, we had a chat about Nottingham and told us if we needed anything we only needed to ask. They offered us some fruit, which we readily accepted. Later when another car arrived, they asked us if they could use our parking space. They bribed us with two bananas and two oranges – how easily we can be bought.

The shower was hot and I didn’t have to keep pressing a button for the water to continue, it just kept coming out of the shower head. We have a picnic table, things are looking good for camping in the US. The State Parks are a little expensive, as you have to pay to enter the park (per person) and pay for the tent spot.

The weather started to cool down and we were in bed by 8:30. I listened to the neighbours chatting, country music playing and the final songs from the birds, before I drifted of to sleep.