Humidity

Mike's laughing at me for my idea of weather. The rain we experienced wasn't truly rain yet, not as he's known it, just as the humidity in the past two days isn't something most people who live in the South would notice. But I picked up on it right away. 

Before this trip started, one of my concerns was heat radiating off of the pavement. That hasn't been an issue at all. Humidity, that's a sort of heat that radiates from the grass next to the road. It's alive. Riding, you get a feeling for the stark contrast between the inanimate asphalt and the life force of the woods just to the right. Cold on one side, rising warmth on the other. 

The humid air feels like life. Sweating, you're alive, active, in motion. Thoughts of the last time I've felt like that: a baby sleeping on my chest in the summer, hot breath on my skin, hair matted down; but I wouldn't move him for the world, even if I was sitting in a puddle once he stirred. Summer nights too warm to sleep, you want to hold somebody close but you know the stickiness of bodies touching would lose it's magic pretty quickly because it's just too much. 

People wave at us on the road often in Texas, but it's hard to notice because they're in their climate-controlled cars with the windows up. They can't feel it the same way. They miss the bugs chirping, the squirrels rustling, the sheep bleating behind the trees. These sounds of life, sustained by that moist air. 

As we head deeper into Louisiana, I'm sure I'll have more of this "real" humidity and rain to feel. But I think it will still feel like life. 

Ironman

It was pure coincidence that our third 100+ mile day was the same day of Ironman Texas. It was particularly interesting to see our milage for the day ended up being the exact distance of 112 miles. 

The best part? We actually found ourselves on the race course that morning. Rolling into Richards on Friday, we saw a few "race in progress" signs posted. We knew we were going to have a long day getting into Kountze, so with an early sunrise start, we didn't get to see any of the action, but I'm sure we entertained many of the volunteers at the water stations on the farm roads. 

Dawn at the ranch in Richards, TX

7am start, 20 miles to breakfast, another 50 to lunch, then 42 to the hotel for the night. Actual time on the bike: 8 hours, 13 minutes. 

I did some quick math in my head: you get 17 hours to finish an Ironman race. Mike and I just finished the bike distance in 8 hours on heavy, steel frame bikes with at least 20 lbs of stuff packed in the least aerodynamic way. 

2 hours would be generous for a 2.4 mile swim for me. 

That leaves me with 7 hours to do a marathon. 

Theoretically, I could finish an ironman triathlon. I mean, of course I knew it was possible, but now I had actual facts to back that up. 

That's pretty amazing. 

Making memories

 "My dear, what are you doing?" 

"Making a memory! All my life, when I'm quite grown-up I will always remember my grandfather and how he smelled of (sniffs) tobacco and peppermint."

- The Parent Trap

The scents of the outside world are often missed by travelers driving by. The few cars we see that are off the main road have the windows up and the air conditioning on. When it's 102 degrees out, I don't blame them. A hot car is a miserable place to be. On a bike, the wind helps it feel 10-15 degrees cooler, even if it feels a bit like a hot blow dryer at times. 

But each place on the road has scents that will always be parts of this memory. East of El Centro, farmland of alfalfa and onions. Arizona had a lot of sage brush. New Mexico, juniper. The Interstate 10, diesel trucks climbing up and down the grade outside the town of Sierra Blanca. Families cooking their dinners as we roll silently down the side residential streets. Dairy farms and family farms. New flowering trees that I can't identify. Most recently, deer carcasses rotting as the buzzards feast. They're not so bad if you pass them on a downhill with the wind in your favor, but a midday climb at 5 miles an hour, that deer stench hangs around. And we ride on. Expecting rain soon, which will bring more fragrance to the dry countryside. A winery or two down the road, identifying all the complex aromas in a glass. More unknown territory as we move east. 

Remembering the scents of all that's behind us. I wonder if Bryan remembers his mother smells of coffee and stale milk. 

I'm sure he does. You never forget your mother's smell. Soon enough this adventure will be a memory. Enjoying every part of it. 

Day 13, 14, 15: still Texas

Valentine, Texas. Everything is closed except the post office. 

Mike and I talk often about what it means to have adventures. One theme that resurfaces from time to time is the idea of keeping yourself uncomfortable. Doing something that keeps you stretching your limits, something foreign, something that makes you think, that shakes up your routine. Texas is doing that. 

The city of El Paso threw us into some uncomfortable cycling situations: urban traffic, road construction, narrow lanes that we, as cyclists, had to exercise our right as a vehicle on the road, to take the lane. Riding on highways with morning traffic, and even a little navigational mishap that had us looking at the border fence from the southern side. We were politely escorted out of the "restricted area", and then I asked the construction crew if I could use their port-o-potty. (They said yes).  Downtown El Paso is not in any danger of gentrification any time soon. Our lunch stop required me to remember every bit of my rudimentary Spanish to translate the menu and order our lunch at a true hole-in-the-wall taco shop. There's a true sense of accomplishment from rising to the challenges thrown at you. 

The long stretches betwen towns in West Texas have been something. A 74 mile stretch of road of nothing, just what we left at point A, our destination at point B, hoping all of our supplies in the bags are enough to get us there. On a day ride at home, most routes are usually an out-and-back or a loop. You know when your uphill climb will be a downhill coast. Out here, at the end of your second day of nothing but uphill, you really hope that the downhill will come tomorrow. And it did, but it was negated by a strong headwind. That was frustrating. That was testing some limits. 

Small town Texas. You take what you can get. One motel in town. One diner in town. In many cases, nothing left of town- too far off the main roads, too close to a bigger city. Traveling by car, it's not a big deal to drive on another 30, 40, 50 miles down the road. By bicycle, 30 miles is 3 more hours. But I don't think the few cyclists will keep these way station towns around much longer. 

Sanderson, Texas. The hotel manager cooked us a hot Indian breakfast of some sort of grain (barley?), lemon, peanuts, yellow curry and a thermos of chai, because there is nowhere to eat in the morning. The next place with food was 60 miles away. 

Day 11, 12: Texas

I've riden my bicycle from California to Texas in 11 days. 

That's amazing. 

In another 11 days, I'll still be in Texas. 

This is new to me. The landscape has changed. Gone are the mesas of Arizona, the scrub brush of New Mexico. Farmland everywhere. There are different bird sounds. I'm pretty sure I won't be able to get the Hatch chiles much longer (but I'm planning on getting elote corn for dinner!)

The slow fade out of urban El Paso to rural border towns of Fabens and Fort Hancock told many stories of this corner of the state. Old and new pecan groves, old and new border fences, old and new railroad lines. Our ride took us along a local highway with Interstate 10 on the eastern horizon, Mexico on the western horizon, and agriculture on either side, criss-crossed by the train tracks. 

Traveling at 11 miles an hour on the road with farmers driving diesel pickup trucks and tractors is a world away from the 75 mile an hour pace of the Interstate with truckers and travelers. On the Interstate, it's easy to go another 60 miles to the next Big Town. What's another hour of driving, really? On a bicycle, 60 miles was  our entire day's ride. 

60 miles of Texas down, 740 more to go. 

Day 8,9,10: New Mexico

New Mexico sky. 

New Mexico greeted us with the evening scents of juniper and roasted chiles, and sent us out with the taste of the earth carried by the wind. 

The original route of the Southern Tier had us climbing into Silver City, near the Gila Cliff Dwellings, and down through Hatch. Instead, we went on the I-10 through Lordsburg to Deming, Deming to Las Cruces. It was a long night of map-reading and discussion to reach that decision. That route would have been acceptable, had we planned to camp. But camping wasn't the plan. That route would have had some different sites to see, but sightseeing isn't the plan. 

Cross the United States. Dip our toes in the Pacific, ride east, dip our toes in the Atlantic. End each day as you started it-alive. And enjoy what comes along the way, whatever road that might be on. 

So, we opted for the quicker route out of the desert. The wind was not kind to us. 20, 30, 40 miles an hour headwinds. Watching the speedometer, I saw our speeds dropping as we pressed on. 7,6,5,4 miles per hour was as fast as I could make the bike go on flat land in the wind. I may as well have been riding into a wall I couldn't see. The wind would lift and it was a short sprint until the next gust came down from the east. 

Mike reassured me (us?) that no storm ever lasts. No wind will go on forever. It always passes. And the worst storms make the calm day even better. When I was hugely pregnant and uncomfortable in the summer heat, I found hope in remembering it was only a temporary state. I wasn't able to run or ride my bike, but there was an end in sight. A better weather forecast for tomorrow. This made it easier to press on. 

Suffering from postpartum depression was different. The brain ruminates, spirals into a negative cycle where it is so hard to really believe that the storm will end. That it won't last forever. And I'm so grateful for finding Katherine Stone's website, Postpartumprogress.com, which told me just that. Hang on. The wind will let up. You will get stronger. 

Today, the wind was gone. It was delightful.