Journal Stage 8
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Please Click Below to view Journal Entries from STAGE1, STAGE2, STAGE3, STAGE4, STAGE 5, STAGE 6, or STAGE 7.
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Several exciting things have happened on my journey over the several days since my last update. I have pedaled nearly 1,500 miles since Flagstaff, AZ, through some unforgiving terrain. Many motorists are uncomfortable with the vast distances between services and the harsh environment when navigating the roads of west Texas so you can imagine what it was like on a pedal bike traveling solo with consistent 25 mph winds out of the southeast = headwind! I am currently in Houston, TX, and will stay here through Thanksgiving visiting with family and friends before striking east for New Orleans.
The fundraising party on Saturday night went extremely well, with mounds of BBQ for all who attended! We successfully raised over $400 for the charities and I owe a special thanks to Monte Large, Monica Pope from Beaver’s BBQ, and of course my sister for all of their hard work organizing the gala. Rain forced us to make alternate plans from the original downtown roof-top location and so the party was held in the house pictured below! My parents drove down from NC to attend the fundraiser, the first time I had seen them in nearly six months!
I also owe a special thanks to Pastor Scott Bradford and the Uvalde, TX, UMW for their generous hospitality and their incredible donation to Why I Ride for the UMCOR organization!
Pedaling Texas!
Texas has been a pleasure to bicycle through for the last few weeks and I am not even out! I entered the second largest state in our Union in the far western corner at El Paso. From there I navigated my way towards Big Bend country making my way through Brewster and Presidio counties. To get a sense of scale, Brewster county has the same square mileage as the state of Vermont and Presidio the same as Connecticut. It would take me two days of averaging 75 miles per day just to cross county lines!
West Texas was a desert with some of the driest air I have ever encountered in my life. I would drink water and then more water but every morning I would wake up with a headache that only getting back in the saddle seemed to cure. Traveling such a desolate landscape gave me time to reflect on the trip thus far. I would catch myself drifting off the road as I remembered Alaska and the road down from Prudhoe Bay. I stopped asking locals about the road ahead because I would get forewarned about the huge mountain climbs of the Big Bend region despite my efforts to explain that I had ridden from Alaska. I would get a good laugh from folks who would tell me how cyclists often bike through “All the Way From California.”
In west Texas, temperatures would reach 80 during the day and drop into the low 30’s in the evening hours. After reaching Del Rio, TX, where the Pecos meets the Rio Grande, the weather began to change drastically. The days started to reach 90 with 100% humidity in the mornings. Nights would scarcely drop below 70, making it difficult for me to get much sleep. Small pools would form in my tent from the wall of humidity that seemed to stick to everything like a thick layer of glue.
My good friend Holly Chamra from Charlotte came to visit me in El Paso and we had the opportunity to visit Guadalupe Mountains and Carlsbad National Parks together. Carlsbad Caverns was amazing and well worth the visit despite its isolation from most everything!
Carlsbad Cavern is one of over 300 limestone caves in a fossil reef laid down by an inland sea 250 to 280 million years ago. The caves, some of which are the largest in the World, were formed when sulfuric acid dissolved through the limestone. The National Park contains over 110 caves, the most famous being Carlsbad Cavern. The cavern has many unique formations and is home to the famous Big Room. 6.2 football fields would fit into the Big Room of Carlsbad Cavern!
The night before exploring the cave, Holly and I had the opportunity to witness the bat program! This included a one hour program from a park ranger as you were seated in the park amphitheater located at the natural entrance to the cave. It is a waiting game, as no one knows when and if the bats will actually fly out at dusk, but it generally is between 5 p.m. and 7 p.m. in early November, if the bats have not already migrated for the year.
About 2,000,000 Mexican Freetailed Bats live in Carlsbad Cavern during the summer months. The bats weigh about the same as two nickels and have a wing span of about six inches. Each night they consume half their weight in insects. Nursing mothers regularly eat their full weight in insects each and every night! Freetails fly higher and faster than any other bat and have been sighted at 10,000 feet using tailwinds to fly over 60 mph. The creatures are truly fascinating and it was an amazing reward to witness them flying out at dusk in the hundreds of thousands! A big black cloud continues to pour out of the cave for several minutes as the bats exit and fly for the river over 20 miles away! They return to the cave each night just before dawn until Winter approaches, when the bats migrate south for Mexico.
While in the cave, I took several dozen photographs. Most are long exposures lasting about 30 seconds. I have compiled a special slideshow just on Carlsbad Cavern and I hope that you enjoy them! Please CLICK HERE to view the pictures.
While traveling from Van Horn to Marfa, TX, I passed 24 tarantulas on the road! After I passed the tenth one, I thought well I just have to stop and take some pictures of these things! I zoomed in for a good shot on the brown beast and began to realize I was upsetting the tarantula and his mission to cross State Route 90. I took a few more shots and then got back on my bike for the remaining 40 miles to Marfa.
Marfa, TX, is one of the most interesting places I have been on the trip. The town of about 2,500 folks, is a ranch town turned into a mini NYC. In 1970 a minimalist sculptor named Donald Judd began revitalizing the dieing town buying much that was remaining to be transformed into permanent art installations, galleries and offices. Today Marfa is internationally known in the art community. So what does all this mean for a long-haul cyclist just passing through? Not very much, although I did get to use the Internet in their nice library. In the library, I met a gentleman who had ridden to Marfa 25 years ago by bicycle and never left. He was interested in my ride thus far and invited me over for dinner, a shower, and a place to stay! I accepted…
After showering, I was shown to a building in the back of the adobe home that housed one of the only radio stations in the town. The building was older and had broken window panes with a small twin mattress above stacks of books. I was told that I was welcome to sleep here as we walked together back into the main house. I told the host that I had been sleeping in my tent every night and that if he didn’t mind I will set it up on his property. I began constructing my tent and realized that all of the ground around Marfa was severely overgrown with goat heads, very prickly cactus like plants that grow in with grass and other vegetation. The goat heads easily penetrated my ground cloth and tent floor and were sure to ruin the life of my inflatable mattress pad. I asked the man if it would still be ok if I slept in the back building on the bed after packing my tent. “Of course it is ok, sleep well young man.”
I climbed up into the loft and zipped myself tightly in my sleeping bag. It was only 9 p.m. but I was tired after a long day of pedaling. I was hoping to drift off to sleep early, as I always do, but tonight was an exception. I turned on my headlamp and began to see dozens of old cobwebs just feet above my head. I began to think about our dinner conversation where we had discussed how many spiders, including black widows and brown recluses, are out this year since Marfa has had unseasonable amounts of rainfall. Then the tarantulas began to crawl through my mind and I couldn’t help but think about how many I had seen on the road today! “Pull yourself together A.J., and get some sleep,” I yelled silently to myself. Finally I drifted off to sleep.
I woke up in a cold sweat and only one thought came to mind as I peered out into the dark through a broken window. Please be 5 a.m., please be 5 a.m. If it was 5 a.m., I could safely pack up and leave for the road, knowing the sun was an hour from rising! I climbed off the loft and grabbed my phone. The screen read 11:15 p.m. “No,” I gasped. I paced around the room a bit and then climbed back into the loft to try and get some sleep.
As I lay there wide awake, I began to visualize a spider on the pillow to my side. The spider in my imagination was vivid enough to make me turn on my headlamp. Then, to my astonishment, about eight inches from my head was a brown spider on the pillow. The spider was at eye level and did not move. I thought, this can’t be real, as I began to rise up from the bed. Then the spider moved. That was the last straw, I am leaving. There was no way that I can sleep in this place, no way on Earth! I needed the protection of my tent around me, and so I packed my things. I went back for a second look at the pillow, just to verify that there was indeed a spider on the pillow; the spider was still there. I packed my bike and rode off into town and pitched my tent behind the Catholic church at around 12:30 a.m. As I pedaled back into town, I couldn’t help but think that this was karma in the spider world for taking close up pictures of a tarantula earlier in the day!
Since leaving Flagstaff, I have had several long days in the saddle. I recorded my longest distance day from outside Lordsburg to Las Cruces, NM, pedaling over 130 miles in one day fully loaded! I continued to average 80-mile days with a few centuries until I reached Del Rio, TX, where I met the famous gulf winds! The wind consistently swirls out of the southeast in central Texas as you continue east for Houston. There is nothing a cyclist can do but pedal a little bit harder and hope to cover the 60 miles that may stand between you and the next Tex-Mex!
After leaving Antelope Island near Salt Lake City 45 days ago, I have not had a drop of rain fall on my head until Saturday in Houston. Blue sky was something that I was beginning to take for granted. Every morning I would simply assume it would be sunny and clear. The stars were plentiful each and every night and the Milky Way was nearly always visible!
It is incredibly easier to bicycle tour when the weather is favorable. Rain makes it difficult on your gear, forces you to carefully seal items, and adds weight to your tent and pannier bags. The worst is when it rains all night and you wake up in a pond with rain drops falling on your head as you pack up a ten pound tent that weighs three pounds dry. Then you pedal through the rain all day before reaching your camping destination in a light sprinkle. Now you have to set up your soaking wet tent and climb in for a fairly uncomfortable night.
As I pedal east along the Gulf of Mexico, I am sure to run into rain and some uncomfortable camping nights! Hopefully I have not cashed in all my blue sky days as I traveled through the southwest.
Several people around Houston got the word about the Why I Ride fundraising party, and many came! Vanessa White was one of the people who attended the party on Saturday night. She rode from Austin, TX, to Anchorage, AK, last summer with the Texas 4000 organization, a non-profit who is committed to cancer research, hope, and awareness. It was nice to have a fellow long-haul cyclist present and we exchanged stories from the roads of western Canada and Alaska. Vanessa is hoping to ride out of Houston with me for a few days this weekend and I look forward to having her company!
In 2005, I bicycled the entire Blue Ridge Parkway with a few other cyclists, one of which was Dean Read, a retired bank president from Bar Harbor, ME. It was both of our first long distance loaded touring experiences. The trip went great and a few months later, Dean joined me in Vermont and rode all the way across northern New England with me to his home in Bar Harbor, ME! Two years later he organized a ride of the Natchez Trace Parkway, which runs from Natchez, MS, to Nashville, TN. That trip took place in May 2007 and we had five cyclists complete the 730 mile journey! Tom Jamison was one of the riders on the Natchez Trace tour. Tom is a retired engineer from Chattanooga, TN, who is the only person I know who has more miles on his Trek touring bike than me, although I have far more loaded miles (sorry Tom)!
Both, Dean and Tom, plan to join me in New Orleans on December 1. From there we will ride east along the coast before turning north at some point for Chattanooga. We plan on arriving in Chattanooga by December 13 and from there I will pedal southeast around the Smokies. I will then turn north and ride up to NC winding my way over the passes towards Cullowhee for an expected arrival of December 21 or 22! Between here and there I will ponder the next chapter in my book. A good friend is encouraging me to “keep pedaling, because when you are done, you are done. You know.” I can promise everyone that I will at least stop my wheels from spinning long enough to do several quality presentations and fundraisers upon completion of my North America Tour.
Everyone I met east of Del Rio warned me about Houston and the aggressive drivers that patrol its many streets. This warning was echoed by my sister and all of her studio friends who tried to find me a suitable entrance into the fourth largest city in America. I rode in on Alternate 90 and was riding down a city street with a speed limit of 35 when a 2007 Acura TL decided not to stop and pulled out into me.
I yelled and she swerved left and I cranked forward. Despite our efforts, physics brought the silver sedan into the rear of my bicycle. The impact kicked the rear of my bike about 45 degrees to the left. I somehow stayed upright. I put my trembling leg down on the pavement and yelled for the lady to pull into the parking lot. She explained that she was late for work and that she was so sorry and how she did not see me. I bestowed upon her the dubious honor of having been the first person to hit me on my bicycle on my 7,800 miles from Alaska to Houston. And then I congratulated her much to her dismay. I asked her to be more careful and took down her insurance information since she was in to much of a hurry to give me a chance to inspect my bike wheel and rack for damage. Fortunately, my body and bicycle are okay, but I do think I will contact her to see if she would like to make a donation!
This Thursday I will be sure to give thanks to the Earth and her mighty landscapes as I enjoy Thanksgiving with Phillip and Cathy Poe, their daughter Yvonne, and most of my family!
I hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving.
As Always…Ride On, Right On!
