We planned to meet at a free breakfast at our hotel at 6:30 and get on the road by 7 am. Slight problem–when we switched to Central time coming into Van Horn last night, we didn’t realize sunrise wouldn’t occur until 8 am. OOPS. So we killed another hour before we left Van Horn. Good thing–it was freezing for the first hour or two of our ride until the sun warmed things up.
I found the ride very enjoyable for the first half. When we left Jeff Davis Co. we also left a smooth road and found ourselves on a rough chip seal road. Then a head wind picked up making our ride tedious. Today I had energy and set the pace, sometimes too fast, and had to be coaxed to a slower pace. We met Beth in Marfa and split a pizza before loading the bikes in the truck for our drive to Marathon. The next two nights we stay in another historic hotel called the Gage Hotel.
The road paralleled train tracks almost our whole ride, so we occupied ourselves counting cars on freight trains and one Amtrak train. We also picked out lone trees and antenna poles and one stationary blimp in the distance and quessed how far away they were from our present location. Things are a lot further away than we thought in this wide open country. What can I say–it passed the time on a long ride.
Tomorrow is a 60-mile ride from Marfa to Marathon. We pass thru one decent size town called Alpine which has a state university called Sol Ross State Univ. Can’t say I ever head of it.