There and Back Again

Goodbye, Texas, and hello The Land of Enchantment!! AKA New Mexico!

Amazing to have crossed such a HUGE state. We rode into Texas January 3rd. How long do you have to be in a state before you LIVE there? I think we pretty much can say we were Texans for a stint.

Our ride today came after a hefty breakfast of chili, chips, half a gallon of milk, salsa, and fruit. Good thing we stocked up because today we rode around 75 miles!

Many thanks to our new friend, Sanddango who greeted us in El Paso yesterday and tipped us off on a good spot to camp near Las Cruces.

Ryan made a Walmart run for essentials before we ate another hefty meal and are now crashing for the night. We are tired. We are full. Hello New Mexico, goodnight long day!

Route info for interested readers:

Highway 62 to a right on 375. From there an exit onto side streets that got us to Martin Luther King which we rode along for WAY too long after missing our turn onto 404. Backtrack and from 404 to the service road next to Interstate 10.

Holy cow. Ohhhh man. We had wind today. SO much wind.

We left our campsite around 9am and biked close to 8 hours to go just over 50 miles. This was with no long food breaks and a LOT of grinding away in slow gears.

A wise man once said (my dad, Trace McCune 😉), that headwinds build character. I reminded myself of that several times today and have to admit by the end of our 50 miles, I do feel stronger for it. We also had AMAZING landscapes today and saw a few round tailed horned lizards. Those guys can MOVE.

Ryan braved the grocery stores on the outside of El Paso for us armed with a face mask, hand sanitizer, and gloves to replenish our dwindling food supplies.

We are now full on chili, guacamole, cottage cheese, chocolate milk, and tortilla chips. I sure hope my gut bacteria can still handle vegetables after this trip. I am on the opposite end of the spectrum right now from my careful whole food quasi vegan diet that got me through 2019, but this eating sure is fun!

Camp tonight is just on the outskirts of El Paso suburbs. Tomorrow, we brave the passage past the city!

Route info for interested readers:

62, all the way. So so so windy today but amazing wild flowers. It was flat then got into some real hills and finally a long descent (the best part) into El Paso.

Goodbye dear Guadalupe and El Capitain! What a rare treat to camp two nights in the same spot. I have to agree with Ryan, it was starting to feel like home.

We took off after a nice morning complete with push-ups, pull-ups, planks, and plenty of stretching. The first seven miles FLEW by as we descended nearly that entire distance. Pedaling was optional thanks to all the hard work we had done getting ourselves up the mountain a couple days ago.

Sights set on Dell City, the nearest stop between us and El Paso, the morning and afternoon passed quickly. Rosita’s Cafe provided a delicious (to-go) lunch of beef enchiladas and chile rellenos for our hungry bellies before we hit the TINY grocery store for some much needed food. The secluded town charged secluded town prices… but we were thankful for the option to buy food since we were running very low.

Ryan got me through an afternoon slump when my body and mind were both asking me, not so politely to stop and lay down instead of pedal by making us both Cool-Aid and giving plenty of hugs ❤️ We rode a little over 20 miles out of Dell City and tucked ourselves away for the night about a mile down a ranch road.

Ryan made us ham, cheese, and salsa quesadilla for dinner while I set up the tent and practiced the harmonica. Battle Hymn of the Republic, I’m coming for you.

Route info for interested reader:

We went west on the 62 and turned at the sign for Dell City onto Ranch Road 1567. We left Dell City on Ranch Road 1437 and continued on Highway 62 headed west until turning onto Ranch Road 1111 for about a mile to set up camp in a more secluded area.

Hellooooo, Texas! We see you!

Hiking Guadalupe peak was a fun excursion where we saw many interesting plants and critters including Douglas Fir trees, Blue Agave, interesting lichen and moss, and plenty of beetles and lizards.

We were literally the highest people in Texas today…. except for people in airplanes. Let me rephrase. We were the highest people ON LAND in Texas today and it felt awesome.

We are bedding down in the same spot tonight as last and are splurging, renting The Lighthouse on Johnny Wagner’s recommendation for a dollar to watch while we are cozy in our sleeping bags.

Tomorrow, an urgent food run to a town 36 miles out of the way (we are down to only white powders foods, oatmeal, protein powder, and instant potatoes), then onto El Paso, our final Texas stop.

Early rising makes for a quick day! We got going at 9am and made it to our destination by 3:30pm, right at the base of Guadalupe Peak, Texas’ highest mountain at 8,749ft.

Ryan listened to the entire Fahrenheit 451 today as an audio book and I painted a big rock! This is El Capitain, just short of Guadalupe Peak which is hidden behind.

We are camped just below El Captiain’s base at a highway picnic stop and the clear skies are promising some beautiful stars tonight ✨ 🌟 ⭐️ Tomorrow we are taking the day off for a hike! 8 miles and a 3,000ft climb will put us on top of the entire state of Texas.

Route info for interested readers:

We took the 54 to the T in the road and went right on highway 62 to the first picnic stop the hills were very gradual or nonexistent until the 62, now we have some big ones!

We fell asleep last night halfway through watching The Lion King and slept close to 11 hours!! Hello refreshed body and mind 😊

After waking up, we browsed some high fashion at the Prada store and decided high heels wouldn’t be good right now, so we hit the road for Van Horn, 35ish miles away.

Showers, clean clothes, and interesting conversations with fellow travelers awaited us at the Van Horn RV Park where we spent the afternoon. We also made a stop at McDonald’s and stocked up on some more pop tarts and crackers for water break snacks when we need a pick me up in the middle of a long day.

We are headed off route from here to the north to hike Guadalupe Peak, the highest point in Texas! It is 66 miles away from Van Horn with a 3,000 ft elevation climb, and we carved 11 of those miles out today. The scary part is, it was pretty flat so far… Tomorrow is going to eventually be a CLIMB!

The beautiful hills around us had us in awe. Tonight we are nestled in beside the road with just enough cover to avoid detection. Ryan has been doing a fantastic job picking our campgrounds each night while I get to admire the nature around us ❤️

Route info for interested readers:

90 to Van Horn then 54 north!

An early start today gave us a nice fresh 20 mile run from Alpine to Marfa before the afternoon. My legs felt very fresh, probably from the gigantic meal we had at McDonalds the night before!

We had a lunch of ramen, milk, wheat thins, and jerky while restocking at Dollar General in Marfa and pedaled off into a 74 mile dry stretch to Van Horn, Texas. Too bad this County is so shut down due to the virus because Marfa is a really interesting town with lots art and tasteful restaurants. Oh well!

We camped tonight behind a Prada store. Yes you read that right. Thank you, art world, for providing a safe resting place! (And thank you Smokey, Ryan, and Jackie for the permission to stay on your land)

Stiiiillllllllll on the 90!

THANK YOU Angelo and Diane!!!!

What are the chances, that we wake up outside of Marathon, Texas, a town so secluded it’s a class one stargazing site, and we meet two other touring cyclists headed East who tip us off about Angelo, a bike guru living in Marathon, then that we find him by asking around, arrive arrive at his house, and he helps us find the EXACT right size spoke Ryan needed from an old wheel hanging on his wall.

Incredible! What a weight lifted to have a working and complete wheel now without the hassle of finding a bike shop or trying to order a new spoke. We feel so thankful and lucky!

It was such a pleasure to meet these two cool tourists, Ivar and Hector, this morning outside of our make shift camp site. It’s fun to see why others are touring and check out their set ups. Ivar was on a conference call when we met them! Talk about working remotely! Hector was also riding a nice Trek and said he has done some touring with his wife and is now doing the big cross country trip. Best of luck to you both in your travels, and may the wind be ever at your back!

More on Angelo and Diane. Ryan described them perfectly as a wizard and his wife. They reminded us of desert mystics (without the craziness, they were very fun and sharp) and had SO many cool cacti and desert plants. Angelo gave me some wild growing Italian Arugula picked right off the plant and took me for a tour of their coolest cactus.

Diane showed me her beautiful and thought provoking artwork and we hit it off discussing art making, home owning, baking, and motivation.

We left Marathon with fully furnished bikes and so much gratitude.

McDonalds was on our mind too since we were headed through Alpine today, the biggest city in the area with a population of around 6,000. This huge population meant they had a McDonalds which meant we were stopping. It also means we are both very full and feeling a strong urge to drink tons of water after all of the salt and sugar.

A short refill on water and couple miles of biking later we are set up for the night beside the highway, hidden behind some small trees.

Goodnight Chihuahuan desert! We will see you again tomorrow 😊

Still 90!!

We woke up in the Outback Oasis Motel which left us full and well rested. To any other cyclists going through Sanderson, we highly recommend! The owners Roy and Ruth were very kind and even extended our checkout time and let Ryan use their awesome workshop for some bike maintenance.

Ryan tried to true his bicycle wheel (straighten it out by tightening spokes) only to break a spoke, and then discover all of the spokes we have were a quarter inch too short for the new wheel we picked up in Del Rio! He went all around Sanderson (Which is teeny tiny) looking for spokes and ended up doing some creative reweaving. Hopefully it holds because there are probably no bike shops open in the country at this point… So far, so good!

All of the bike issues meant we didn’t get on the road until 2pm. Thank goodness it was a very cool and overcast day! Our ride was flat and we covered 50 miles with frequent water breaks (we are aiming for two gallons each a day with the heat) and a stop for ramen noodles by sunset.

Tonight we’re camped under the ONLY three trees for literally miles. What a beautiful vast landscape!

Still on 90 west!

We did it!!! We made it from Comstock to Sanderson, an 88 mile stretch with no available commercial water stops. Thank you to the kind woman in Dryden (the name is appropriate) who let us use her well water when we realized we had undershot it just a tiny bit.

We have learned we should carry eight more liters on top of the 11 we had. Better safe than sorry. It’s going to be a heavy next leg.

Ryan and I celebrated our long trek through nothing with a little motel room at Outback Oasis and lots of gas station food. My favorite was the cottage cheese 😍

An interesting disruption to our upcoming plan was encountered when we met a motorcyclist, Paul, who informed us that the next few counties have banned all travelers from stopping there. We really don’t have a better choice than to still go through and are hopeful we can find some discreet spots to park it for the night.

This means we will also be skipping Big Bend which we were looking forward to, but I must admit I feel a little relief getting to bypass another 88 mile stretch with no water getting in and out of the park.

More desert pictures!

Still pedaling away on the 90 😊