The Brothers’ Bike Ride

Today’s ride totaled 76 miles and included 1400 feet of climbing, starting at an elevation of 3400 feet and getting up to about 4800 feet.  Much of the time we were climbing, we had the wind in our faces.  We started out on TX 20 and then took TX 192 for a while, and both of these are so-called Texas Farm Roads, where all of the vehicles using them are basically farmers.  For most of the day, except when we were actually on I-10 East, we saw very few vehicles and the ones we did were U.S. Border Patrol vehicles.

We also had a chance to chat with some Border Patrol officers at a check point on I-10 East.  They are all nice guys, eager to speak with crazy bikers on the way to Florida.  I guess we mix up their otherwise fairly routine day.

The terrain on today’s ride was almost identical to what we’ve experienced in California and Arizona.  It was the desert with cactus plants and mountains off in the distance.  It is not at all tiresome to me because I find it very beautiful.  I have some photos of our scenery below.

We started off at just after 9am MDT in Fort Hancock and took until about 4:30pm CDT to get to Van Horn, so our 76 mile journey today took us about 6.5 hours.  We made about 4 or 5 stops, most of them short except we probably did take a 20 minute lunch break along I-10.

We were on I-10 for maybe 15-20 miles today.  It’s not bad – the drivers are almost all very courteous, the truckers in particular will move over into the passing lane so that the wind they carry with them doesn’t make it to us.  Once we made it to I-10, which was right after TX 192 and with a little more that 50 miles left on our ride, we were either on I-10 or the frontage road alongside of it, variously known as either I-10 business or TX 80 – they’re the same road.  So here are some photos of our ride today.

Mark at our 1st rest stop along TX 192

Prickly pear cacti along TX 192. I thought we might not see many after this, but fortunately we did! 🙂

Cacti and mountains at mile marker 95 on I-10.

We were surprised at how much green vegetation there was in the desert in October – much different from what we’ve been seeing in our March sojourns.

Several times today we saw signs saying “Watch for Water in the Road.” Apparently, when it rains here, it really rains. Here is a Flood Gauge sign along I-10 Business East, that can show how high the water in the road can get. There are some months of the year when you definitely could not do this bike trip.

After getting into Van Horn, we inquired about the Catholic Church and were told it was within walking distance.  But then Beth looked up the Mass schedule for us, and there were no Masses on Saturday evening!  Sunday morning’s Mass is not until 10:00 am, and we have too far to ride to leave at 11 am or so and make it to our destination before sunset.  So unless there are Sunday evening Masses at our next stop, our quick stop to watch the St. Theresa Feast Day celebration in Fort Hancock at the start of today’s ride, and Beth and my visit to Van Horn’s Our Lady of Fatima Church (see below) will just have to do.

Our Lady of Fatima Church, Van Horn, TX.

I took a couple of videos today.  Here is one of them.