Cycling Ellen

75 miles
1031 miles total

What a difference the wind makes!  After the sag stop at mile 40 today, the wind was at our backs and we just flew into Van Horn.  The last 10 miles or so were on the interstate and even with the up hills; I was cruising along over 30 miles an hour.  What a treat to get so many free miles at the end of the day!  I cruised right into the Dairy Queen across from the motel and refueled with a chocolate milkshake.

The first 25 miles were fun and easy in a different way.  We wound our way through back roads along the irrigation canals and fields.  There were a bunch of horses together with one clearly young foal in one field we stopped to watch.  I like riding in the morning with the sun low in the sky, the birds singing and the winds down.  A huge tumbleweed crossed the road in front of me at one point.  I’m sure I’ll see more to photograph.  Tumbleweeds carry prickly thorns which can cause flats on bicycle tires so we have to be careful to avoid little pieces of them that break off in the road.

The middle section of the ride today was more of a challenge for me.  I’m still recuperating from this cold and without a lozenge in my mouth, my throat was burning.  (Yes, I kept a big supply in my back pocket.)  My lungs were also burning at some points but I decided to take the ride mile by mile and see how I felt.  Thank goodness I decided to keep going, as those last miles were so sweet!  Most of the later part of the ride was spent on a frontage road next to the interstate and was very rough chip seal pavement.  We’ve heard that Texas has a lot of these.  At one point, I stopped to take a picture and as the road headed upward, I couldn’t catch up with my fellow riders.  I started to get discouraged but when Debbie came up beside me, she reminded me to take it one mile at a time which was great advice.  Soon, I had caught up with everyone and we all rode along together.  What a pleasure it is to ride with such a group of supportive women.

We had one sad moment along the frontage road where we came upon the scene of a truck accident.  A tractor-trailer was lying on its side and there was a body covered with a blanket.  We heard from riders coming in later that the driver had a heart attack at the wheel.  As scary as riding on the interstate can be for some people on this trip, today the frontage road wouldn’t have been any safer.  It felt so good to be on the interstate at the end of the day with the smooth shoulder and the gradual grades.

Now, I’m sipping herb tea I bought in Silver City, hoping my cold will be gone by tomorrow morning.  We crossed into the Central time zone today so dinner will be a little later than usual.  Early to bed for me…