Ride Day 28

I took my time this morning leaving the motel. I enjoyed a Starbucks coffee and bagel before I hit the road. The weather forecast was for sunny 84 degrees and a light breeze SSW. The forecast was close but I think it was hotter than that or at least it felt hotter to me. I lathered myself in sun screen before I left but at the end of the day I found I had missed a spot with the sun screen or I rubbed it off because I got sun burned just in that one spot. I will be much more careful in the future with the Texas sun, it is very strong. Once I got out of the big city of El Paso the riding improved. Traffic disappeared and the road was fairly good even though it did not have enough shoulder if there had been more traffic. It was smooth and flat so I hauled ass at 17 to 24 mph depending on my mood. There was not a lot of change in scenery other than city to country. I saw a lot of abandoned buildings that were falling apart. It looked like most of them were booming before the freeway was built 50 years ago. Lots of small farm houses were falling apart also. Now it is mostly larger farms spaced further apart and they look corporate to me. A changing world takes its toll. I did meet up with some other riders that I last saw back in California. It turns out we stayed in hotels that were right next to each other last night. It is a small world sometimes. We talked for a bit and stopped off to get some drinks together before I took off for the road again. Once I left my friends I flew down the deserted highways in top gear. I really had some speed going and was eating up the miles. After two weeks of mountains as high as 8000 feet this ride seemed like a cake walk. I enjoyed pushing myself hard today. I had one hill to climb of almost 1500 feet but it was a slow climb and was not that bad. A trucker stopped and gave me two small bottles of iced water which was very nice of him and which I seriously appreciated in the heat after almost a hundred miles of riding. After going through the border stop at the top of the mountain (which is famous for Willie Nelson and many others getting cited for possession of drugs) I entered Sierra Blanca and started my nightly pig out on food and drinks. I try to keep it as healthy as I am able to but today I went for pizza. Now I am going to kick back and rest until day break tomorrow. More later.