Upsidedown and Backwards

Monday, April 18, 2011
Austin to Smithville
49 miles

I was wishy washy about getting on the road this morning, but I finally committed and said goodbye to Amy. We corralled Mr. Cat for a picture.

Amy and Mr. Cat, the snow leopard of cats.

Larry, her other cat was nowhere to be seen. Her outdoor cats were confined indoors for a few weeks following the move, and were busy complaining loudly, as well as exploring their new home. Larry was stubbornly refusing to go to the bathroom until he was let outside. Amy said he once (I think this must have been the last time she moved) held it for two days, and he was on his second day.

Amy has today and tomorrow to get settled in her house before she starts her new job on Wednesday. I’m so excited for her as she moves through all of these changes, and I’m so glad I was able to visit!

It was pretty windy today, and between the windy farm road and the wind switching directions, it was sometimes helping me and sometimes hindering me, but the 30-ish miles to Bastrop were fine.

I crossed the Colorado again today.

This road is officially called a “Farm to Market” road.

The most exciting part of the ride was all the trees! There was cactus in many areas among the trees, but it is such a relief not to be in the desert anymore. I’m sure I’ll be complaining about the humidity soon enough, but trees break the wind and provide shade and are just wonderful to see.

I had lunch at Taco Cabana, a local chain I’ve been to three days in a row, now, and then stocked up on provisions at Walmart. I had to get fuel for my stove, since I’d had to empty the fuel bottle to travel on the train. Of course, you have to buy a container much larger than what I need, so I filled up my bottle and was able to find someone in the parking lot who was interested in half a bottle of Coleman fuel. That made me feel better, because I was probably going to throw it out otherwise, and I don’t think that’s the proper way to dispose of flammable liquids, though I’m never sure what is the right way.

Two miles later, I got to the interesting, historic downtown, but by that time I had already done my eating, resting and shopping and didn’t feel like sightseeing. I know that chain stores are usually on the edge of town, and if I wait a few miles, I might like the downtown better. But many towns unfortunately have nothing useful in their downtowns anymore, and often, by the time I get to the first hint of civilization in miles and miles, I am ready to stop.

So the last part of my day was winding through a pine forest between Bastrop and Buescher State Parks.

The piney woods between the two parks.

The piney woods across the street from the previous picture. This burning didn’t look too recent, but there have been a lot of fires in west Texas, I hear, so taking the train was a good choice in that regard.

Park Road 1C added ten miles to my route today, compared to the google maps projection, had I taken the highway. The park ranger muttering, “Poor girl,” and the sign stating “windy roads and steep grades” weren’t enough to turn me back.

Just after I walked up it, a non-touring cyclist informed that last hill had been a 22 percent grade! Then a ranger stopped to check on me, and let me know that Killer Hill was coming up. The website had said both that this route was a pleasant ride, and that only experienced cyclists should ride it, but it didn’t say you’ll be sorry if you ride it fully loaded.

I should say, carrying 50 pounds of gear or more, by the way. I finally got on a scale at Beth’s house and confirmed I am carrying 50 pounds without water. So that would make it closer to 60.

I’m not sorry I took the long, scenic, hilly route to my campsite tonight. It was a challenge, but it was doable. I could have gotten to the campsite quicker, but what have I got to do all day? I might as well ride my bike!

Camped among the trees!

Saturday, April 16, 2011
San Antonio to Austin, by car

I didn’t expect Austin to have so much traffic. I’d definitely heard it described such that the description “Berkeley of Texas” fit, but I always imagined it as more of an idyllic, smaller, western place. But it’s actually a major city. And just as Andre was saying, “There are these famous bumper stickers that say, ‘Keep Austin weird,’ ” Beth and I looked to the left and there was a person in the passenger seat of the Mini Cooper next to us wearing a huge panda head! of course, everyone thinks I’ll like Austin a lot. Which is probably true.

When we arrived at the house where Amy is moving in with her boyfriend Tim, there was no more moving to be done! So we spent the rest of the afternoon having lunch and driving around in circles looking for ice cream, which we finally found.

I’m so glad I got to spend some time in San Antonio with Beth’s family! I especially enjoyed getting to know Jacqueline and Madeline better. I’m excited to be able to spend some time with Amy here in Austin, and then to see Candy and Bill again in Kingwood. I have a pretty terrific family, and I don’t get to see any of them nearly enough.

Madeline, Beth, Candy and Jacqueline on the porch at Amy’s new house.

Friday, April 15, 2011
San Antonio, TX
No biking

In San Antonio, I’m staying with my cousin Beth, her husband Andre, and their daughters, Jacqueline and Madeline. I arrived just in time for the city’s Fiesta celebration, which has something to do with Texas independence and the Alamo.

This morning, Jacqueline and I got up, not that early, and made pancakes. She tried to teach me how to make shaped ones, using cookie cutters. It’s a little tricky, because they can get thick too easily and not cook all the way through.

Eventually, we headed downtown for the Fiesta parade. We arrived a little early and went to lunch right away. Even though I didn’t ride today, my body is still hungry all the time as if I were riding. I might need to be conscientious about not overdoing it the next few days when I am not on the bike. But of course we had to try the delicious desserts!

Madeline and Beth with our sopapillas and fried ice cream!

We got to the parade and watched marching bands,

beauty queens,

Clydesdales,

and other floats. Apparently it used to be traditional at this parade for participants to throw flowers at each other, but they’re not supposed to do that anymore. Each group does send a wreath, via the honor guard of a local private quasi-military academy, to lay in front of the Alamo.

We toured the Alamo.

The guide said the parapet that gives the roof the distinctive shape most of us connect with the Alamo was not actually on the building at the time of the battle, as shown in the movies. It was added later.

We stopped for snacks near the Riverwalk.

Beth and I hiked together in Rocky Mountain National Park when we were teenagers, so we know how important it is to have a backpack full of snacks with you!

When we returned home, we decided to take Beth and Andre’s new toy, a 1987 Porsche 911, out for a spin. The girls were understandably tired, and pretty crabby about being scrunched in the backseat. They’re over the Porsche. It just tangles their hair. Luckily, I don’t have enough hair to get tangled! It was fun!

I don’t know how much of the Texas hill country I’ll actually get to bike through, but it was fun to speed through in the Porsche!

Then we met Andre for Rudy’s Texas Barbeque!

The plates are big pieces of butcher paper and the creamed corn is to die for. We had coleslaw, too, so at least I had a few vegetables!

Thursday, April 14, 2011
El Paso to San Antonio by train

Anna was so generous as to drive me to the train station in El Paso at 5:30 in the morning so I could get there early to box up my bike. I will miss her!

They had a bike box reserved for me, since I spent quite a while on hold with Amtrak two days ago making sure that, if I showed up with my bike, I would definitely be able to get on the train. FYI, even the local train station number, which I had to get from the national operator, goes to the national operator. Then the national agent had to call the secret number, I guess, and speak to the El Paso office while I was on hold to verify they had bike boxes available. They put my name on one, so the agent was waiting for me when I arrived this morning.

It was super easy to turn the handle bars. I had wrenched the pedals off the night before. One came off easy and the other took brute force. Then you just roll the bike right into the box. You don’t even have to take the wheels off. I had a imagined quite a project, but it really would have been easy to ride up to the station, put it in the box, and go from there. But it was still nice to drive with Anna.

Waiting at the station, I met a wonderful couple. Joe, a retired customs officer with thick, eye-magnifying glasses and a stout cane, wheeled a cooler with his backpack in it. “That’s for all the fish he’s going to bring back!” Judy told me. He was on his way to meet his four brothers for a fishing trip at private lakes near Laredo. His wife, a retired ESL teacher from the University of Texas-El Paso, was seeing him off. Diminutive in a faded denim hat with an old silk sunflower pinned to the front, she exuded outsized joy.

They told me all about their five acres of land out in the desert. They have lived there in a trailer for many years, renting out their home in town, but for the last five years, Judy has been been building their house, and she is determined to be finished by June. Her next project is to tile the bathroom floor. She figures, after hanging all the sheetrock, she can do anything. Using a lift to put the sheetrock on the ceiling was one of the only things Joe helped her with.

She’s using low voc paint, and as many reclaimed materials as possible, both to be green, as well as to keep the cost down. She is making one bathroom sink out of an old Singer sewing machine table, the kind with the wrought iron. For another, she is hollowing a spot for the basin in an old tree trunk she found at the dump years ago. Some cabinets are out of condos in Vegas. They found the wrought iron staircase, which Joe buried seven feet into the ground and welded to metal beams in the ceiling, in the neighbor’s yard and bought it for $150. Judy chiseled off every last bit of cement the previous owners had used to repair the steps, and Joe built new, expertly fitted wooden steps to revive it.

The two by six framing keeps the house quiet and well insulated in the desert. The windows go low to the ground so they can check on their desert family, the wild animals they share the land with.

They told me about the two coyotes who used live under an abandoned van two lots down. The coyotes used to sit there and watch them. You could tell. They told how the quails run around with their tiny quail babies, and the babies run just as fast as the grown ones. There’s a desert cardinal, grey except for his red underbelly, who taps at the window when Judy goes into the house.

Joe built a bird hotel, with four holes on each side. Eight birds promptly moved in, and a territorial Thresher, with a long skinny beak, would pull their stuff out and throw it on the ground. A Thresher would go after a hawk! But when the fierce bird would go around to the other side of the hotel, the others would pick their nesting materials back up and stuff them back in!

The dancing rabbits, as they call them, jump into the air when they’re startled. They twist and turn, as if they don’t know which way to go. Sometimes they play, scaring each other on purpose. Some jackrabbits out in the desert stand as big as a dog.

Joe and Judy have tricycles out in the desert, and Joe’s been trying to motorize Judy’s to make it easier to get around in. Ben picked up a similar contraption recently, and it sounds like he can never get it to work quite right. Joe sent Judy’s back and forth to the manufacturer for a year to get the electric engine to work, and he finally gave up, and is now looking into a one-stroke gas engine.

Judy’s looking forward to being able to ride it the twelve miles to church someday, with a change of clothes for choir. If he can’t get hers to work, she says, maybe he can hook up a trailer to his tricycle, and tow her along!

Judy didn’t say anything to me about traveling alone, besides admonitions to be safe, but when I got up to throw out some trash, I’m pretty sure she told Joe to sit with me on the train.

Waiting for the border patrol to finish checking so the train can pull away, Joe points out which buildings we can see are in Ciudad Juarez, just over the border in Mexico. Anna pointed out how Juarez is the murder capital of the world. They average eight murders a day, more than any city outside of a war zone. Sometimes bullets bounce off the El Paso city hall, which sits close to the line between the two cities and the two countries.

Of course on the train I wonder who everyone is, where they’ve been, where they’re going. I imagine my friends Marie-Pierre or Kristin, both tremendous photographers, documenting their portraits, like the brown-skinned woman in front of us. Most of her front teeth are rotted away, and she’s nervous when the border patrol asks her questions. Later, when we’re moving, she’s friendly but belligerent when she finds they’ve left her suitcases on the ground, and a little unzipped. Joe asks her about the large tattoo peeking out above her collar. It’s for her favorite band, the Sevenfold Avengers. She’s slightly obsessed, she says. The one on her spine hurt the worst, and she has a star for each child.

“I have thirteen holes in my face alone,” she tells us, “and fifteen in my ears. One piercing for everything I’ve let go.”

“It lets it out?” I ask.

“It lets it out.”

A young woman with long blond hair and a dark black eye behind her glasses walks by. A large woman whose black pants taper down to her narrow ankles struggles unsteadily up the narrow stairs. “Is hard to get up,” she tells us, sitting at the top of the stairs, with a trace of an accent. Two boys with some kind of mega Lunchables box, stuffed with what looks like trash to me, pass the trash can and return quickly to their seats.

So much of their stories could be the same, but I know there are big different parts.

Joe mentions that his son hitchhiked from Houston to San Diego. “Dad,” he told Joe, who worries as he went along, “you wouldn’t believe how many friendly people there are!”

Judy teaches a creative writing class to seniors, and that made me think of the main themes of literature I learned in high school: man vs. man, man vs. self, man vs. environment. We organize our world by telling stories, and when we organize our stories around conflict, of course we see conflict in the world.

Is there a difference between a problem that needs to be solved, and a solution that needs to be found? Could we distill themes into new categories, such as friends, family, society, nature, or communication, responsibility, stewardship, creativity? What would our world look like to us then?

Joe tells me he saw the woman with the tattoos taken away in handcuffs when she got off the train.

Patti, my roommate from my China trip, and her husband Dick, are voracious travelers, and every day on the road, she tells me, they like to see who is the most interesting person they meet. In truth, being kind of shy, I thought I’d probably keep to myself, that meeting people would not be much of a focus on this trip. But today, I met two incredible people, and before eight o’clock in the morning! Every day, I meet more amazing people, and this journey wouldn’t be the same without it. Astute observers are particularly fascinating to talk to. A customs agent who can pick out the body language of a smuggler in a crowded train, and a writer. What a bounty!

Wednesday, April 13, 2011
Las Cruces
20 miles around town

I started out the day with a trip back to the bike shop. My odometer was still working sporadically, as it wasn’t affixed quite right and would fall out of place, which also tended to cause an irritating knocking sound with each rotation. Everyone remembered me. Pablo, a droll hipster looking type with white framed glasses bigger than mine, listened to me vent as he pulled the transmitter off to do it right this time. He pointed out that the cadence magnet had clean fallen off, and he didn’t know what I needed it for anyway. The mechanic in Wickenburg thought cadence was useless for touring, too, and I explained to Pablo as I explained to earplugs how Ben and I used the cadence to collaborate on the tandem, and I was used to paying attention to it. Though, after two and a half weeks of being the only one on the bike, I was starting to be comfortable that I could manage my cadence by feel rather than by number. He didn’t bother to replace the magnet, convinced he had turned me against cadence tracking, I guess.

When I grumbled that I had never had any trouble with my old computer with wires (until I lost the headset), while the bike shop in San Diego assured me that everyone loved this wireless set up and it never gave anyone any trouble, Pablo said he used a wired one on his bike. Later in the day I had the chance to call the San Diego store and complain, and they were surprised to hear it and would take mine back, except I was calling from New Mexico. So it’s fixable in the future. I hope it works well enough for the time being, because I’m not really interested in buying a new one at the moment. Enough complaining, though what I’m mostly trying to get across is that I really like this bike shop.

They sent me on my way with directions to the post office and the nearest frozen custard, with wishes that they not see me again before I leave. Unfortunately, the frozen custard place was out of business in that location, probably due to some embezzlement issues another mechanic had mentioned the day before. After a pretty pitiful burrito, just to tide me over, I headed out to Mesilla, a historic little town on the edge of Las Cruces.

Mesilla consists of a few blocks of old style adobe homes surrounding an old town square, currently inhabited by a big church, a big gazebo, and tourist restaurants and shops. Most of the shops seemed to be carrying the same trinkets they were twenty-five years ago, from Arizona to Florida, when my sister and I could think of nothing better than combing every single one of them for the perfect souvenir. I recognized the fudge, the rocks, the Indian dolls and the jewelry made in China. The postcards and the magnets looked the same. There were some new stuffed animals that were round, unnaturally colored, and labelled as specifically for throwing. There were more animal-shaped purses than I remembered, too.

On the corner was an upscale furnishings store, something I sure don’t need. But I eyed the chocolate shop and ducked into a smaller jewelry store.

Barbara had peridot green eyes (they have to be contacts!) and was pricing a box of new jewelry. She had recently returned from the markets and was excited about her new finds. She had been in Las Cruces since she drove out in her van thirty years ago and stayed, riding a bicycle everywhere she went. She says when she told her sister’s kids about that time, they gasped, “Aunt Deborah! You were homeless!”

She said back then people were worried about her, a woman traveling alone. I said I get a lot of that, too. She scoffed. I mentioned that I seem to get it a lot less in Las Cruces than everywhere else I’ve been.

“That’s because that’s how everyone else got to Las Cruces!”

Deborah said her Indian friends made fun of her “whitebread mayonnaise body.” She loved visiting the artists at the different reservations. The Zuni, in her opinion, did fine work, while some others were to rushed to do too much detail. She felt like she was supporting local craftspeople. She also felt she had been Native in at least one other life. She also mentioned how she smudged the shop quite often. You never knew what kind of people would come into the store, and what kind of energy they would bring, so she had to smudge pretty often.

She told me how her building was built in 1854. You could still see some of the original parts.

She pointed me to the courtyard around the corner, where the landlord had erected a shrine to his deceased wife.

Deborah recommended the homemade ice cream across the square. It wasn’t frozen custard, but it was made with local pecans. I might have enjoyed lunch at one of the Mesilla cafes better than the convenient store burrito I had wolfed down earlier, but for once I wasn’t hungry.

I headed north to take the meandering way through town, rather than the way south to the next town of Stamen. It was hot and dusty, and there were pecan groves both directions. Instead of irrigating them, they flood them. It is a bit disconcerting to see so much standing water in the desert. Anna and I both wondered how efficient that was, but she had been told it was cheaper than installing irrigation pipes, so growers continued to do it.

It got hotter and dustier and I was happy to turn back towards town. I had a great bike map that marked how suitable any give road was for biking on. But the scale was also difficult to tell, with many small roads left out, so I only had a general idea of where I was.

I wandered through more modern neighborhoods, still mostly adobe.

Tan adobe, red clay adobe, some more well-cared for than others. One with a bright orange muscle car in the back. Salmon pink adobe looks goofy, as does a rock wall with turquoise mortar. Brown painted rocks with white mortar look like a giraffe wall. Chocolate brown adobe looks too 70′s. Suburban adobe duplexes are divided by subtly differing shades of adobe color. Wrought iron decoration looks pretty sharp on adobe.

I passed a brightly tiled gate on one corner, and stopped to take a picture.

Two houses down, a man standing by his own gate, made of rusted debris, waved me down and told me about another town gate a few blocks away.

His own yard was much more compelling. Bobby Hudson, a ceramics artist, now a jewelry maker, had been assembling bits and pieces of things he and his wife found in the desert or in the trash. Bleached cow vertebrae, lavender glass bottles, rocks, faded doors and assorted metal things, among others, decorated his home.

He gave me a rundown of some cultural events happening soon in town. He was proud of Las Cruces’ burgeoning arts scene and seemed pretty involved in several civic projects. I felt like I was disappointing him by leaving the next day!

It was awfully nice to ride around with no gear again!

Later in the evening, Anna and I went out for Indian food. She was another wonderful person to stay with! She’s hiked the Pacific Crest Trail and is looking into bike touring in the future. She’s been a ranger at Sequoia. I’m so glad she was able to take time from her busy schedule working and going to school full time so we could compare adventures! And I’m so grateful for her driving me around to make my trip move forward. I continue to feel like I am in the right place at the right time.

Tuesday, April 12, 2011
Las Cruces, NM
(I rode 100 miles in a car yesterday to get here.)
8.5 miles aroun town

New kickstand and brakes checked out, $21.46

New battery for odometer and headlight that attaches to my helmet, $16.66

Fresh veggies, coconut milk and lentils to make soup in a kitchen and eat leftovers the next day, $11.52

Mango Dango frozen custard sundae with salted pecans and a waffle cone bowl, $5.79

Four-inch piece of velcro to modify the headlight so it actually attaches to my helmet, and for the lady at the quilt shop to sew it up on the fanciest sewing machine I have ever seen, $.94

Riding around with no gear on the bike for the whole day, priceless!

Apparently this is the kickstand the police use on their bikes. My new favorite bike shop, Outdoor Adventures, says it is lightweight and tough!

Here is the new light before modification, in the wrong place on the helmet. No more holding the headlamp in my mouth!

Strangely, the waffle cone bowl wasn’t that good. Guess I’ll go back tomorrow to try something even better!

Monday, April 11
Lordsburg to Separ
20 miles on the bike

After all that figuring, I got an email from my cousin Amy, and much of the Bowman family is gathering in Austin to help her move this weekend. That motivated me to get to Texas on the Thursday train rather than Saturday. So I took off east on the freeway to Deming, into what soon turned into a vicious headwind. Luckily, I had salvaged an email from Sadie’s friend Anna in Las Cruces. She said she’d be willing to come pick me up. I’d see how far I could get. As of right this second, I’ve made it just shy of 20 miles in four and a half hours to a trading post in the middle of nowhere. Well, technically at the Separ exit off the 10. 20 miles up, there’s an exit with a Dairy Queen, but I don’t know if I can make it that far today.

This trading post is the kind of place with lots of billboards. From almost ten miles out, I started seeing them. Dolls! Fireworks! Jewelry! Snacks! Mexican imports! Leather! I was just glad for someplace to get out of the wind. I caught sight of the building as I reached the exit sign, and then I started worrying it was out of business! That was a long mile. I decided I’d stop anyway. At least it could be a wind break.

It was open.

On the way out of Lordsburg this morning, I met two recumbent cyclists heading to Savannah, Joe and Alex. They had google mapped themselves a route off the freeway. I wonder how that’s going.

On the interstate, I waved at a lone self-support cyclist heading west. I wonder if that person was on their way to the end of their route, or just gave up for the day. It’s lovely riding heading west today.

At Bowlin’s Trading Post, the cashier told me about a man who stopped in last year that was bicycling cross country backwards, literally pedaling his bike backwards! He had two big mirrors and enjoyed watching the cars almost wreck when they saw him. I do not feel so crazy at all when I hear about that kind of nuttiness. Why would you even do that!?

After about an hour at the trading post, Joe rode in. It seems like he’s moving at least a little faster than me, but still having a heck of a day. They never found the off-freeway route, but the freeway does have a nice wide shoulder. I felt guilty and kind of wimpy telling him I was waiting for a ride. If Anna shows up in a huge vehicle, maybe we can pick him and Alex up, too. They have a long day yet ahead of them, as there is no where to camp before Deming, still at least 40 miles away.

But, as I’ve said before, I’m going where the road takes me. If it works out that not every inch is by bike, that means something else interesting is happening.

For now, that means hanging out in the rocking chair in the moccasin department!

Sunday, April 10, 2011
Duncan to Lordsburg, AZ
36 miles per google maps

The last check of weather reports before I left no longer said anything about gusts up to 40 mph, so it seemed like the worst of the winds had passed for now. Still, I left at 6am, because it tends to be calmer in the morning. I had a message from a possible couchsurfing host in Lordsburg who said bad weather was coming my way, but it looked beautiful out, and the wind was at my back, for once! Though it was 34 degrees out when I took off. Brrr.

With the wind and the relatively flat terrain, I could spin in gears so much higher than usual. This actually made today’s ride more aerobically challenging. Still, due to the temperature, I didn’t really get warm til I was nearly in Lordsburg.

I crossed the New Mexico state line about five miles out.

Since my odometer still isn’t working, it was nice to have the mile markers set back to zero. It made it very easy to keep track of how far I still had to go for the day. And as the wind stayed behind me, the mile markers continued to pass more quickly than I expected.

The mile marker signs are a mixed blessing, though, because it helps not to to dwell on the distance. The more you think about how far you’ve come or how far you have left to go, and how long it will take, the slower it seems to go. It’s hard to really look at the scenery when you’re cycling, especially when you’re moving fast, so that doesn’t really work as a distraction.

For me, it works best to stay present in the movement. Sometimes I just count to ten over and over, which is a meditation technique I learned recently. (I was glad I had a chance to go to the Zen center before I left!)

Often, I also make little lists of what I need to do the next time I stop. Lip balm, sunscreen, snack, take off my coat, put an electrolyte tablet in my water bottle, take Arnica, stretch, pee. It seems to work better if I am aware of what I need rather than making a plan. Also, now that I don’t just need to take saddle breaks so often, I find myself planning to stop at, say, the next mile marker. However, when I reach the appointed spot, more often than not I keep riding until I really feel compelled to stop. Unless I come across somewhere really excellent for leaning the bike, like a guardrail. These have been fewer and farther between lately, so I almost always stop when I come upon one.

Hallelujah! A guardrail!

So I arrived in Lordsburg around 9:30. I stopped at the Kranberry family restaurant to eat and reconnoiter. Soon I realized I was now in another time zone, so it was actually 10:30. The next camping place was 60 miles ahead in Deming. The tailwind made me feel like I could keep going, but 96 miles all together? Plus, after the last few days I didn’t trust the wind not to shift and start slowing me down. There’s a large margin of error in a 60 mile ride. It’s a lot of time in the saddle, and I certainly don’t want to be riding in the dark again.

It was hard not to take advantage of a great tailwind that’s not supposed to be there tomorrow, but I stayed put. My couchsurfing host wouldn’t be back until early evening, which made it harder not to move on. I lingered at lunch and then spent several hours hanging out at the laundromat, reviewing maps.

There’s not much in Lordsburg, but there is a park. It would have been nice to go there and do yoga, but it was still so cold and windy out. At least the laundromat was out of the wind!

Here is my original flat desert route to Las Cruces:
Lordsburg to Deming, 58 miles
Deming to Las Cruces, 52 miles
This route moves almost directly east, and is highly susceptible to gusty winds.

I started rethinking the mountains. This route would be slightly more scenic:
Lordsburg to Silver City, 50 miles
Silver City to City of Rocks State Park, 35ish miles
City of Rocks State Park to Rockhound State Park, 40 miles
Rockhound State Park to Las Cruces, 50 miles
This route includes one climbing leg and one windy leg.

Then Sadie, a cyclist friend I had spent a lot of time with in Seattle, and who had lived in Las Cruces for a while, suggested this mountainous but beautiful route:
Lordsburg to Silver City, 50 miles
Silver City to Gila Cliff Dwellings/Gila Hotsprings, not sure of the mileage, but two big climbs
Gila to maybe Kingston
Kingston to Caballo Lake State Park, 8,000+ foot pass
Caballo Lake to Las Cruces, 60ish miles

These numbers are based on campground to campground routes, basically. I also have to make sure I know whether the campgrounds have water. Many National Forest Campgrounds don’t. Then I have to know where the nearest stores are. The shorter the distances I can carry food and water the better.

Then I started checking the train schedules. Maybe I could even get on a train in Deming! Would I want to? Well, it turns out that I can’t, because I have to check my bike, and you can’t get on with checked baggage at Deming because it’s only a whistle stop. And, actually, there’s no station in Las Cruces at all. Glad I checked. Looks like whatever route I choose will have to add the day of riding from Las Cruces to El Paso, I think about 40 miles.

I also found out that the train only goes three times a week, but several routes could get me on the Saturday train. The shortest, windiest route could get me there by Thursday. Sadie’s scenic route would miss the Saturday train, probably, but I could modify it.

Dan, my couchsurfing host here, is a cyclist, so he should have some helpful insights. However, he’s also a competitive cyclist, so we likely have different ideas about bike travel.

Good there’s not to much to see here in Lordsburg, because I’m too busy trying to figure out where to go, anyway!

Dan was a great couchsurfing host! He has a huge three-bedroom home that he has rebuilt himself from a fire-damaged shell. You can see the burn marks in much of the wood floor, though it’s been refinished. He wanted to keep the history of the house. He checked out my bike shifters and explained something new to me about how they worked that got rid of irritating clicking noises. I’m sure stopping the chain from rubbing on the deraillieur is more mechanically sound as well! He fed me lots of carbs and fresh vegetables in glass pie plates rather than regular dishes. He thinks the sidewalls work better for chasing food around, especially when you eat a lot, as a bike racer in his spare time does.

Dan cooking the vegetables!

He also has a lot of great art, like this Fleur Debris!

Since he’s in to bike racing, we watched the Paris-Roubaix race he had recorded during the day. This is a one day race in France nicknamed “the hell of the north” because much of it is on cobblestone streets, on road bikes. Not only do the winners have to ride fast, they have to not fall or get caught in a mess of other riders going down. Bouncing over the cobblestones also makes mechanical issues more likely, but riders are often separated from their team support cars due to the narrow lanes they ride on. The end was really exciting, but you’ll have to look it up elsewhere, because it would take to long for me to recount.

Saturday, April 9, 2011
Safford to Duncan, AZ
41 miles per google maps. My odometer freaked out and only recorded 30.

I got up early to take advantage of the morning calm, and Libby saw me off.

When I got to Safford, I had to make a choice between continuing on the slower scenic, mountainous route, or taking the potentially quicker, flatter, dustier desert route. After gathering the opinion of every one who would talk to me in town, I decided on the flatter route, mostly because I just didn’t want to climb a 6,000 and an 8,000 foot pass. I feel like I could have, but I could possibly get to Las Cruces in three days instead of six, get on a train to Austin, and move on to an entirely different part of the country.

As I have been relating, the wind seems to not have agreed with my choice. Should I be paying attention to this sign? Was I meant to go into the mountains? I guess I’ll never now, because I headed into the desert anyway. Though I have released my time expectations for getting to Las Cruces.

I was so happy to get past the point where I had turned back yesterday! By then, the wind was blowing across the road, about 40 degrees shy of a tailwind. It wasn’t helping, but it wasn’t the worst headwind, either. And it wasn’t really gusting like the day before. At first.

I rode on, pretty slowly. Not that that’s unusual for me. I wondered if Libby would just come pick me up and drive me to Duncan. I noticed my pedal stroke and my breathing were a little uneven. I stopped and put on my jacket. Maybe I was too cold. It did seem to help. Riding distances like this, especially in less than ideal conditions, is often more of a head game than a dramatic physical challenge.

Ideally, I’d ride 70 miles to Lordsburg today, but that seemed unlikely. I watched the clouds roll over the mountain. Would I get rained on? I have a great raincoat. As long as it’s not a torrential downpour, I’m more worried about wind than rain.

As the day wore on and the wind shifted and the road wound, the angle between me and a tailwind decreased tantalizingly, even as they sky grew darker with clouds. And it looked dustier up ahead.

Every once in a while, I would catch a tailwind for a bit. Once, I had a tailwind and about three miles of downhill at the same time! That was tricky, though, because every time I’d reach a break in the rock walls lining the road, a gust would blast through crosswise.

Then the road would turn or the wind would move, and I’d be riding against the wind again. It took about 5 hours to go 40 miles. The only seriously blowing dust I encountered was from a construction site in Duncan, though I could see more dust blowing in the distance.

Duncan is a dying town, but they do have an RV park and a B and B. The RV park was not ideal, as it expected you to bring your own bathroom. They really did not have the facilities for tents! (I saw the shower house at the one in Safford! It was visible from the road.) The owner thought it would be fine if I pitched my tent in the town park. There was a bathroom there, and she figured no one would be around to check on me on a Saturday!

I asked a man walking by what he thought, and he offered me the use of the RV in his yard!

It was great to get out of the wind. It definitely got stronger in the afternoon after I arrived. Gary introduced me to Deborah, who runs the B and B, which backs up to his yard. He brought me a dvd player so from the house so I wouldn’t be bored. He told me (and so did everyone else with whom I spoke in this town of 600) that he thought Hilda’s had better food than Joe’s Grill.

I went to both groceries in town just to see. The shelves were sparsely populated with random things. I had a friendly but uninspiring turkey sandwich at Hilda’s. Some teenage girls came in and ordered the fried zucchini, the fried mushrooms, and the fried mozzarella sticks. I think that was the bulk of my diet when I was a teenager, too.

There were several closed shops, but a small shop featuring local crafters was open, and had also recently taken on the responsibility of being the visitor’s center as well, since they were open on a daily basis. I was happy to find some homemade lip balm. My lips and nose are pretty chapped from the wind and sun, so I’m hoping it helps! The helpful artist taking her turn staffing the store fretted about the boys following her niece around and looked at the New Mexico map with me. She gave me a lot of accurate sounding information about the road ahead, but so have many other well-meaning people, and car information is just not always the same as bike information. But it’s a start.

After exploring the two blocks of Duncan, I retired to my cozy RV to write and do a little yoga. I also watched the goat run back and forth across the yard on its stubby legs as the church bells chimed. I think they played “Edelweiss.”