So long New Mexico, Hello Texas

And so we left Tucumcari and the beautiful vistas of New Mexico this morning in bright sunshine with just a bit of a breeze. (And I'm willing to bet that at least half my readers never heard of either of those little metropolis's before.) A local in the lobby breakfast area had said it's a straight road, rolling with more hills than downs, and you might see some wind...You might see some wind? We turned onto hwy. 54 and it was like running into a punch. We had a headwind from mile 3 all the way to Dalhart and when I say all the way I mean ALL the way. And it was in our face all day. In a car you can run into a bit of wind and maybe feel it a bit in the steering but you put your foot to the pedal and keep going without thinking too much about it...On a bike you put your foot to the pedal and find yourself going about half the speed you want with twice the effort. The first 25 miles or so the winds were kind of moderate with gusts and it was annoying but we made decent progress. As we continued the force picked up along with the heat of the day and the winds got stronger and, of course, the gusts got stronger too. I kept looking at my computer (odometer etc) and seeing speeds of 11, 10/9 mph and those were going downhill, repeat downhill. You put your hands in the drops and try to cut down the sail area but these winds were simply relentless. It was like having a giant invisible hand pushing back with every stroke of the pedal....

And with all of this the scenery was, again, all ranches and cattle grazing land. For the second day in a row we had a cue sheet that reminded us a couple of times "no services for the next 29.5 miles. Even the SAGs had to set up at little roadside rest stops with no facilities other than a single picnic table.

So the bottom line on the day: about half of our number did not do the entire 96 miles finishing anywhere from 50 on up. And Tom and I were among that number...I am a bit disappointed but we did do 78 miles and by the time we conceded it was about 4:15 and we were doing about 10 mph into increasingly tough winds - simple math told us that we would not get to the hotel until 6:30/7:00 so we made the decision to accept reality and come back to fight another day.

Among the highlights of the day was crossing another state border and hence the photo at the border. I don't know whether you can see from the photo but apparently someone has emptied his six-gun at the sign. And with all the open range I thought it good to get at least one shot of cows...yes, we really are in Texas. And I will also tell you that Dalhart is known for having some of the largest cattle feed lots in the world and they are all right on the highway. I will spare you any attempt to describe the smell but I will say to any potential visitors to this fair city: stay upwind at all costs. And tomorrow we go into Oklahoma - I'm going to be looking for cowboys and tail winds, not necessarily in that order. Good night all.....