LEFT: Chris, at rest in his natural habitat (a diner near a trailer park)
Hi all,
Back from the ADK and kayaking. Thought for continuity's sake I would finish up the XC bike story, and then move on to the recent trips. So, on with Volume 5 of the story...
DATELINE: Tuesday
Cliff gets up before dawn and attacks the climb out of the valley. He rides nearly 2 hours before the sag finally reins him in. What a stud. We make some exchanges and pull into Roswell (of alien fame). It’s a most curious city – alien billboards, alien postcards, alien yo-yo’s and more moron tourists than you can imagine. After our most wonder experience with the Apache’s the night prior, it’s disheartening to see the level of trailer trash here today. Chris however is very excited for his mating prospects…
Tom’s new nickname is “The Alien” after 5 people in Roswell stopped him and wanted his autograph. 3 also gave him donations to his chemo fund (Ed Note: he's clean shaven at this point of the trip after 130 degree heat in AZ).
Our first order of business is to go see “Louie”. Louie owns the small engine repair shop in Roswell, and we’ve blown our RV generator. Not a big deal unless you want light or A/C when it’s 115 degrees out. Louie is quite the character – looks kinda like Chico of Chico and the Man fame. He and Cliff begin to bond, talk motors and such, and we all get frightened. I go in to meet the neighbors, and have a lovely conversation with David, one of Louie’s assistants. Seems Dave’s not a four stroker yet if you catch my drift. Dave and the other ask about our trip, and Dave offers me $100 to go to Nashville. I tell him that we’re not going that far north, but he keeps forcing the offer. I ask him does he want souvenirs from dollyland of something. “No,” Dave says, “my brother lives up there and I’ll give you $100 if you go KICK HIS ASS!”. I offer to take $50 if I can just run him over with the RV, and Louie’s 70 year old mom thinks that’s an acceptable solution. Louie gets the RV fixed, and we’re back on our way.
As we’re riding down the highway, after just crossing into Texas, there’s a semi driving at us in our lane. After a few light flashes and beeps, we have to move almost all the way onto the shoulder to avoid him running us over. I guess it was “just his road”. Thus, our introduction to Texas drivers, and their introduction to spandex.
Tom and Cliff are executing an exchange when a truckload of cows come by. They start mooing at something (we think Tom’s butt), and Cliff jumps about 10 ft. I guess they don’t get many cows down in Phoenix.
We also have a chance to execute our attack dog plan. A dog takes a bead on Jerry while he’s out, and starts running him down. We in turn accelerate the chase vehicle directly at the dog and lay on the horn, chasing him into the field. The dog turns and runs like crazy, scared for his life. He’ll never attack another cyclist again. We get to replay the scene and refine our technique several more times that evening.
Cliff again wins the quote of the day with this exchange. It’s an uphill and the winds has picked up at an exchange point, and Cliff asks if we can just “drag him behind the vehicle”. I offer to do so. I guess cliffie hasn’t been reading the news lately. We ARE in Texas after all, and approaching Jasper (Ed Note: Some redneck morons had dragged some poor black guy to death behind their pickup truck the month prior. Hopefully they're dead now, and a horrible death at that. Rednecks are frightening)
While executing our last exchange for the evening, a Texas sheriff swings up as oh, say, 160mph. He gets out, dons his cowboy hat, and is at least as big as Hoss on Bonanza. Despite his imposing appearance, he is as nice as can be, and wishes us well on our trip. I make a bunch of New Mexico jokes, and he’s in our corner – seems everyone needs someone to look down upon. We ask him about the next town for dinner, and he tells us “I don’t know much about tekula, never actually been there”. This is the NEXT TOWN that we’re talking about, like 10 miles away. Probably the mayors son. Nicest guy however, just didn't get out much.
We finish the night in Tekula, Indian for either “bad water” or “shithole of a town”. The place stinks of sulfur, the one motel (6 rooms) is all sold out to Mexican farm laborers, a diary queen that closed at 8:00 is the only restaurant, and the place looks like the Bronx. We do however meet “Joe”, the old innkeeper who takes pity on us and gives us the use of his own shower to clean up. We swap stories with him for a while – he’s quite entertaining. He’s owned this motel for 30 years, and has watched the town die. His wife is in the hospital with a broken hip, and it’s too far for him to drive very frequently. When asked what the town has, he point upward and after thinking says “well, we have a water tower up over yonder..”. Very funny guy, but very sad in a way. A dying guy in a dying town.
We do our first (of the trip) group dinner, and Chris continues with his video documentary. Gill’s semi-annual maternal instincts rear up, and she blazes though some pasta, cleaning, and, of course, whining. At the trip start, we all choose one state to whine in – we gave Gill Texas by default and she’s certainly running with it today. Big mistake on our part, as we spend roughly 1/3 of the trip crossing Texas. But, Gill's more than capable, and she never misses a day of whining for her segment. We swap stories for ~ an hour, then close up shop for the evening. I drift off to the soft undertones of Jerry’s snoring, an occasional farm implement going by, and my sweat hitting the floor (we’ve suddenly rediscovered wet heat”).
Tomorrow, we make the half way point in aspermonte, likely ~ noon. We’re riding stronger by the day now, and the biggest issue now becomes the weather. We all get a good night’s sleep tonight.
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