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Day 20 Van Horn


 Texas gifted us a beautiful view of the sun coming across the mountains in Mexico when we woke. We hoped it was a harbinger of the day to come. 

And so it was, for the most part. Our first 20 miles was a long chip seal but the road was on trafficked and very scenic. The miles melted away easily.

The advent of the interstate seems to have all but decimated some of the small towns here. It was not unusual on the back roads to see abandon buildings. There were signs of life – a pan of goat sat next to a ruthless building – but little sign of human Existence.




We stopped for a break and had a rancher pull up to see if we were OK. We were in front of his ranch, his several thousand acre ranch, and he had us look across the field to a small white building in the distance. 


According to him, it was El Chapo‘s headquarters in Guadalupe Mexico. He was quite a character and showed up at the travel center (where we enjoyed a lovely second breakfast) to give us more history and suggestions for lunch.



Before long we were riding on I 10 along with every truck in Texas. The speed limit was 80 and it was a job trying to avoid detritus in the shoulder. We soon found our way to the frontage road,which, while bumpy due to chip seal, gave us virtually no traffic.

We stopped 35 miles in at Delfinas and Sierra Blanca for lunch. They had handprints on the wall and it’s a thing to add your own great fun and great food. 


From there it was 40 miles along side I10 to VanHorn. 40 long head windy boring unchanging scenery miles. This could be a repetitive theme for the next few days. At one point there was traffic on the right and the train on the left. Thank goodness for headphones and podcasts.

Texas didn’t want us to be bored the whole time and as soon as we got back on I 10 we had a traffic jam because a truck and trailer carrying ammunition caught fire. We thought we’d be out there for hours and were congratulating ourselves for still having sandwiches when things began tomorrow. We rode alongside the traffic right past a trailer that was now down to nothing but the ribs. This provided the break and excitement we needed to power through the last 10 miles.

Things I learned today: 

  • A Chile rellenos burrito sounds better than it tastes.
  • When the pavement gets rough, slow your roll. It was smooth out eventually

Comments

  1. AnonymousOctober 16, 2022 at 10:36 AM

    Good to hear from our girl! I loved your quote "when the pavement gets rough, slow you roll. It will smooth out eventually."

    ReplyDelete

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