75 miles (121 km) – Total so far: 127 miles (204 km)
For the Texas leg of our ride, we rented a pickup truck. There are some remote parts of West Texas where we were not comfortable with Beth being by herself, so the pickup allows us to ferry the bikes to and from stopping points while staying in the same place for more than one night. Everyone else has a pickup anyway, so Beth looks like a local. She got the cowboy boots today in El Paso after dropping us off in Fort Hancock–a cowboy hat is next. This part of the route parallels or uses I-10 the entire length from El Paso to Van Horn. When we left Fort Hancock, we were on Texas farm roads for most of the morning. They are some of the best roads we have been on yet, and had almost no traffic at all. About at the halfway point, we started to use the I-10 shoulder or the frontage road when it was available. The frontage road (pictures to follow) was like our own private bike path. Less than a handful of cars passed us for many miles. We did some climbing today and that proved to be more difficult than we anticipated. I kept waiting for the long slog uphill to Van Horn to end, but it never really did. It was uphill for at least half of the ride. It never got too steep, but it just kept going up and the crosswind / headwind got stronger as the day went on. We are in an old restored hotel called The Hotel El Capitan and it’s very nice. Our steak dinner in the hotel restaurant with a spinach salad and asparagus was a real treat. Tomorrow we are heading to Marfa. Good god I hope it’s downhill.
Here is a real picture I took of the mission church in Fort Hancock this morning.
A mobile dental children’s office in Fort Hancock. I would have gone inside if it was open. No Saturday hours for this dentist either.
Here is a cotton field.
One of nice farm roads before we had to use I-10.
The I-10 shoulder. It was load when the trucks went by. The speed limit here is 80 mph.
The frontage road was great.
The railroad tracks are next to the frontage road.
The trains are long and they travel fast.