Ride Day 32

I stayed at the hostel last night in Marathon TX. I enjoyed my stay in Marathon both the city and the hostel were interesting and different. I met another biker going West that found a live deer stuck in a barbed wire fence while he was riding yesterday. He cut it free but it could not walk away so he just left it where it was resting with the hope that it would recover and live another day. I am glad that did not happen to me. It would be tough dealing with it. He was upset by it. Today I left a bit later than I normally do. I ate another great meal at the same café as yesterday before I left town. I stocked up on water in the café because she offered me iced water. I know it warms up fast in this heat but while riding I got a couple of cooler hits before it got too warm. The ride today was 54 miles of mostly downhill or flat. I started out from Marathon at 17 mph. By the time I was two miles out of town the wind was again blowing hard in my face. I took a different approach to it today. Yesterday I was trying to muscle past the wind and it killed me. So today I geared down to mountain climbing levels and just started spinning my legs. It worked better than yesterday’s method. I got less tired and I still went about the same 7-9 mph as I did yesterday with a lot less effort. The fifty miles went from high arid desert to a greener desert as I went down the hills. I enjoyed the return of wild flowers and green trees. The Texas drought has seriously impacted the desert plants. The fires that burned because of the hot dry conditions can still be seen but the recent rains are returning some life to the landscape. I saw lots of wild turkeys today as I rode along. They were in the scrub near the road and sometimes even running around on the road. There must be a lot of them around for me to have seen so many. I also saw some deer in the washes that had a bit of water in them and some fresh new green growth for them to eat. If I stopped my bike they would race off so I was not able to get pics of the deer. I arrived in Sanderson feeling pretty good despite the fact that my 54 mile ride took me about seven hours because of the strong headwinds. A county worker stopped his truck and we talked for a few minutes while I guzzled some of his ice water he offered to me. He was a nice friendly considerate guy and I enjoyed talking with him. Once in Sanderson, I ate a lunch and checked into a cheap hotel to get caught up on my rest for tomorrow’s tough ride of at least 70 miles or 95 if the wind lets up on me a bit. More later…