Saturday March 23, 2013

A long and successful bike ride day

Today I rode 88 miles from Kingston NM in the mountains downhill and uphill to Las Cruces NM further south. It was a ride of mountains and distant vistas at first, then a wind came up and began blowing at me from different directions. When it was at my back, I was doing almost 20 mph without much effort. When it blew from the front, I did 8 or 10 mph with a lot of pedaling. Then it veered round and began blowing wildly from the side, whipping up quantities of brown earth and sand, which is what New Mexcio, and blowing it horizontally across the highway.
      Sometimes the cloud of dust and sand was so thick you couldn't even see half a mile down the road, which is always a bit scary. However, for me, wind is easier to deal with than hills, so I wrapped my yellow cotton kerchief around my face and pedaled on as best I could, trying to avoid being blow off my bicycle at sudden unexpected guests.
      Along the way, there were farms, open land, small towns, a few cars and an air of places that time and prosperity had forgotten. I saw a farm with goats in pen, several beautiful horses standing in bare pastures gazing out because there is no grass to eat, and some sheep in a field with grass. Three of the riders swear they saw a camel standing in a field. Could be. It's ideal weather and country for camels who don't need much food or water.
      I was riding with Judi, who rides about my speed, and we did it in 20 mile segments. The first Sag wagon stop we filled our water bottles, decided we felt fine, and rode on another 20 miles. We still felt fine and so we did another 20 and there was only 28 more to do. We rode on - and that was when the wind kicked in. But we both rode on and finished in good time - and felt very proud of our accomplishment since a few riders had to be rescued from the wind.
     I have a room at the Days Inn, and it has extra plugs for computers and they give you the number to sign on to the Internet with your key. Times have changed! They allowed Linda to serve dinner in their breakfast room because it was way too windy to eat outside in the parking lot. It's a nice big room, and I took a bath to ease out the aches and a shower to wash my hair. The more dedicated among us have cleaned their bikes but I think I'll do that in the morning.  Or wait till we get to the bike store in El Paso our next destination, about 68 miles away.
      There's a Walmart next door which a couple of dedicated shoppers rushed over to see but since I now have extra toothpaste and a stronger lip protector, I am fine. 
       Every evening, Linda whips up dinner for 30 and tonight we had poached fish, an excellent and unusual salad, and  quinoa to eat - plus chocolate brownies for dessert. IT was delicious and filling and she is most conscious of balanced diets and healthy foods and chooses the menus to keep us going for the next day's biking.
       Tomorrow we cross the state line into Texas - so it's margarita time. And then we'll be in Texas for three weeks - Texas is Big. Last night four of us sang "The eyes of Texas are upon you" and find all the words online and I'm sure we'll find some occasion to practice that in our time there. I first heard that at my grand-daughter's graduation from UT Austin and I waggled my fingers with the brest of them. It is a distinctly memorable song. And so to bed, as Samuel Pepys used to write at the end of his lengthy diary entries.