Ride Day 27

I woke up a bit sore this morning and got a late start for me. At a bit after 7AM, I headed down the road from Caballo to El Paso TX. I had a plan for the day. I would ride without pushing it and when I got to the outskirts of El Paso I would jump on a public bus and ride to the far eastern side of town. I hate riding my heavy touring bike in busy city traffic. It is dangerous and for me pointless. Sure there can be some site seeing but at the risk of getting killed. Not worth it.

So I rode down the freeway for the section they allowed bikes on which was a nice smooth safe ride. Then they kicked me off to a narrow two lane road with almost no shoulder to ride on and a dangerous drop off on the edge of the pavement. There were lots of big trucks going in both directions and I had a cross wind blowing me into traffic. How is that safer than riding on a freeway???? The states need to allow adult bikers on more of the freeway system. Maybe with a driver's license requirement or something because the freeway is way safer to ride on. Or they need to widen all roads so there is a safe place to ride a bike.

I stopped for lunch around 10:30 and ordered a cheeseburger, fries and V8. When I was finished I ordered another burger. The waitress did not believe me and I had to convince her I was serious. They were both delicious and I then ordered a third one. She almost died when I asked for that one. Then I told her no two was enough and she started having a laughing fit. I guess not many people in these small towns mess with their waitresses.

I had a head wind for a couple of hours which slowed me down from 17mph to under 10mph. It really killed my legs and my spirit. I only had one mile more to go to get to my bus stop that I had already looked up on the internet. Then the worst thing happened to me. A big sign that said DETOUR. I tried to go around and get through the closed part of the road but it was impossible to get through so I had to back track and take the detour. In the country a detour can mean a half mile or it can mean 50 miles. This one ended up being about 10 miles out of my way. My tired legs were complaining and my mental state was a mixture of anger and depression or something. When I finally got across the border into TX I could not make myself backtrack to get to my planned bus stop so I went ahead into El Paso thinking there would be a bus stop. I stopped and asked lots of people but nobody knew anything about the bus. I rode on another 10 miles which made my day's ride way too long. Finally I just gave up and checked into a hotel for the night.

I soaked in the tub and showered off all the crusty salt and sun screen. I am windburned which is the same as being sunburned. Not too bad but I was putting sun screen on frequently so it annoys me that I still got burned. If it is going to be this windy here in TX I am going to have to start using zinc on my lips and up my sun screen to spf50.

I feel good now. Did some stretching and realized I need to do a lot more of that. Going to have to work it into a daily routine. Tomorrow I will deal with getting out of the big city. Tonight just sleep sleep sleep...