February 26, 2024
Day 6: Midland to Odessa
The adventure continues . . .
Jude finished the first leg of his trip from Florida to Arkansas. He took a few days off and was there for his brother Ben’s engagement. His second leg from Arkansas to LA started out with some cold weather, long days, headwinds and a mix of encounters with people from encouraging to scary. I was glad I had decided to join him in Midland, Texas, and we were both looking forward to sharing the miles together again.
My flight and logistics of traveling with my bike on Southwest from O’Hare to Midland was amazingly smooth. A friend happened to be going to O’Hare for a 7am flight as well, so me up at 5am and dropped me off at Terminal 5 - thanks Matt! $75 to fly with a cardboard bike box, and it was the first piece of luggage waiting for me after my connection. I put it back together in 15 minutes, then it took me about 30 minutes to pack my panniers with all the food I brought and bungee my extras to the rack. All in, it was over 90 pounds - we have a lot of eating to do!
I had been hearing from Jude about the mentally exhausting headwinds for days - I ended up doing 25-30mph no problem (with a tailwind!) after 20 miles, I caught up to Jude, I turned around, and we proceeded to make our way through Midland and at about 9 miles per hour. We stopped at a bike shop and Blake and Isaac did some quick maintenance on our bikes while we went to Chipotle. Jude had changed 4 popped tires that morning from the burrs from his campsite and was dragging a bit so we went another 18 miles down the road to a Comfort Suites. Dinner at Five Guys and grocery shopping at Walmart ended our day. We packed our bikes up anticipating an early start due to 45 mph winds forecasted for tomorrow.
It was so good to be back riding with Jude again, what a dream to be spending my birthday with him!
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Today's ride: 46 miles (74 km)
Total: 417 miles (671 km)
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