Yesterday had us pretty beaten. I think it had a lot to do with waking and riding in near freezing temps. Be that as it may, we got up and went to work today.
We got rolling around 9 after a hearty meal at the Chuck Wagon. We know, that sounds late, but due to the fact we are on the west end of the timezone, it does not get light until nearly 8.
First 25 miles was a hoot - lots of downhills with either no wind or wind at our back. We got to Alpine Texas (again with the Alpine thing) in what seemed like no time at all. Alpine is a dang nice place - seriously. Surrounded by amazing scenery, it is a real town - university and all.
As we wondered why it is we always seem to stop in the uncool town right before the cool town, we came upon Gil Jones. He stopped his 77 El Camino and told us that we were welcome at his "crib" in Marathon 30 more miles down the road. Immediately I sensed something fishy about Gil. Marty said I was just being crabby. But for Cod's sake, you have to follow your instincts, right? Well the salty Marty convinced me to swing by Gil's just for the halibut.
Gil... actually Guil, runs a wacky commune in the Southwest corner of Marathon - check out the pictures. Oh My COD (credit to Kip Adonis). Guil was not there but Buffalo Springfield was blaring as we pedaled away and set out to make Sanderson... another 55 miles away.
On the way, we met John (in the pics) who quit his job to go 80 days from San Diego to Maine. Kelly and Sue - at least we kept our gigs!! He was driving the route backwards to scope stuff out. Nice guy, chronic over-packer even compared to us.
Anyway, despite a crosswind/headwind ever since Guil visited us we stayed out there for 10 plus hours (including lunch and snack stops) and made it to Sanderson. 110 MILES - our first century!!!! The lame pic of us is on the exact spot we finally crossed 100.
Sanderson, what a cool place... we are camping in an RV park wedged between the only main road in this entire area and and a railway. We will sleep like kings. How do we manage to do this? This is unbelievable - Alpine was cool, Marathon was cool, Sanderson makes Palatka look like Coconut Grove.
Not to jinx ourselves, I will say we will do what we feel like doing tomorrow -- right now I feel like having a beer.
Thank you Thomas for the Irish Blessing
Jake
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So, I did a little internet searching and Guil Jones of Marathon, Texas is looking into producing low cost housing. He is working with paper-crete which is a mixture of concrete and recycled paper... more paper than concrete. Debs and I were doing the googling and found a family that had toured his place. This family of four (familyonbikes.org, I think) is in the process of riding their bicycles from Alaska to Argentina and bringing global awareness to underprivileged schoolchildren! 20,000 miles... Mom, Dad, and two young boys. When finished the boys will be in the Guiness Book of World Records for being the youngest to complete the journey.
ReplyDeleteIt was either going to be the Irish Blessing or an Indian Curse. I'm glad I went with the Blessing cause based on the pictures it looks like you may have stumbled into a rare colony of 'WITS'. I have never heard of them living in hives before so those photos may be valuable to NatGeo or Discovery.
ReplyDeleteNice beard Jake! How come Marty looks better shaven? You are running into some interesting characters. Bet you can't wait to get back to the "normal" folks in FL! Continued safe pedaling! Was your beer green yesterday?
ReplyDeleteRM