Day 18

Van horn to Marfa

The wind was pretty strong when we woke up and was the opposite from the day before. A headwind rather than tailwind.

Our map had us going from Van Horn to Fort Davis which was 90 miles with no water or food between the two. The map also cautioned that you might need to camp alongside the road.

While picking up stuff for PB & J an older gentleman asked how riding was so far today. I told him we hadn’t started but the headwind would probably make it hard. He asked where I was going and I told him Fort Davis. He then asked which route I was taking. I told him I-10 to Kent then through the hills as our map suggested. He asked if I’d considered 90, which I hadn’t. He said it’s flatter and we wouldn’t have as much of a headwind but we could go either way.

Nick and chris rolled up and we consulted the google which said 90 was faster. Also we could take 90 to Alpine which was on our map after Fort Davis by skipping fort Davis altogether. It would be a long day but the winds were at our back and there were several towns between van horn and Alpine.

We started down 90 and the first 30 miles went very well with a bit of a tailwind. It was very flat. We saw the “Prada” art installation.

The next 10 miles to valentine the road and wind changed on us a bit giving us a slight headwind. We rolled into valentine and realized it was mostly abandoned. We talked with a woman who was nice to us but not remotely sympathetic to immigrants coming to our country despite the fact that she said she’d never had any problems she was still using racial slurs.

Rolling out of valentine the winds picked up a lot. Chris and myself already doubted being able to ride the whole 60 miles more to Alpine but the 34 to Marfa seemed like no problem. The winds just seemed to get stronger though. I heard a pop when shifting a while after valentine and thought it might have been a spoke but didn’t hear and spokes rattling so thought it was just a hard shift.

Three hours later we were still 10 miles from Marfa. It was the most discouraged I’ve ever felt on the bike. It was at most a slight grade up but with the wind we were averaging less than 10mph. Going slow uphill seems understandable but going that slow on what was essentially flat ground was very demoralizing. We stopped to switch water bottles and eat when I realized I had broken a spoke and my brake was dragging. I unhooked my rear brake since we were going so slow and I shouldn’t need it.

We eventually got to Marfa and went to the first place that looked like it had food. Convenience West https://www.conveniencewest.com did not look on the outside more than a small town general store. It turned out to be a pretty upscale BBQ place that looked straight out of Lawrenceville(Pittsburgh’s most trendy neighborhood). In a stupor we ordered food that was served up quickly. It was all really good. It didn’t make any sense as the rest of West Texas was very desolate and largely just ranches. The restaurant seemed very out of place. Some very hip people came in mixed with people who looked straight off the ranch.

After eating we started trying to find someplace to stay. No place had any rooms and only camping. The winds we were dealing with all day were the result of a cold front coming in. The temperature was dropping quickly. As we tried to figure out lodging that didn’t involve camping, we didn’t think chris’s tent would survive the winds after the Glamis incident and we didn’t want to pay $60 to be cold all night, the restaurant got packed.

We bundled up and sat outside trying to find someplace to stay. It was probably below 40 with 20mph winds at this point and we were getting pretty desperate. We talked with some people but no one had any better suggestions to at least just get out of the wind. Someone explained to us that Marfa was a artist colony of sorts that got very busy on the weekends, it was Saturday. We got a tip there was a place called the Marfa lights that we could camp at for free. It seemed like our best option but was 10 miles out of town. The one owner of the restaurant graciously even tried to think of somewhere that wasn’t exposed during a brief lull in dinner. Rose, Nick’s girlfriend, told us someone from Pittsburgh had moved to Marfa. Turned out I knew her and gave her a call after rose gave us her number. Unfortunately she wasn’t answering( I later found out she was camping herself).

Nick had misplaced his gloves so I went back in the restaurant to look for them. I asked the people who were currently sitting at the table we had ate at but they hadn’t seen them. As I was leaving the people sitting at the next table asked if we were riding across the country, I told them we were. The woman sitting at the table has two sons who have both ridden across the country, one even attempted RAAM! They asked if we camped a lot and I told them we did but explained that with three of us it was cost effective to get a hotel room most nights. RV parks regularly charge $20 per tent so hotels are barely more expensive. I elaborated that unfortunately all the rooms in town were full for the night. They asked if we needed a place to stay! They told me that they had that day finished a garage that had a bathroom with a shower in it. At this point we were just hoping to sleep in a garage out of the wind. Candid, Pam, and Ray told me they just needed to finish their dinner and they would lead us there.

It was very relieving to know we could get out of the wind. Candid, Pam, and Ray finished up dinner and lead us to their garage. The room that had the bathroom attached to it was completely insulated! Pam talked with me about how she was happy to help us out as she knew people were very kind to her sons on their cross country trips and she wanted to pay it forward. All three of them ride motorcycles and bicycles I believe.

(L-R Ray, Candid, and Pam)

We were all very grateful. This was the second time strangers outside of warm showers people had offered us a place to stay and the first we could take them up on it as the first time we hadn’t already secured reservations. They left us and we got a good nights sleep. I actually got too warm during the night and unzipped my sleeping bag a bit.

It was a rough day but the kindness of strangers really helped us get through!