March 5, 2014
Day 60: Uvalde to Wild Camp 15 km west of Bracketville
It took four or five km to pass back through the centre of Uvalde, reach our police station, and head out into the wilds of the Pecos region. Actually, the Hill Country nominally hangs on until just before Brackettville, but as we saw yesterday, the Hill Country is already done for.
The Pecos country is not West Texas - that is coming later. Rather, it is named for the Pecos river, that runs north of here.This was the land of the Commanche, who came from the north in the 1700s. Once the US-Mexico war of 1846-48 was done, the American frontier moved to West Texas, and the natives here were pretty much toast. They fought a rear guard action, though, into the 1860's.
In the motel room last night, we tried to scope out where our nightly stops could be in this region. To say the least, the towns and cyclist resources will now be thinning out. The days of choosing which motel to crash in will be replaced by choosing the best wild camp. Also running out is the calendar, since we are well into March. It also means we will have to manage longer daily distances. To do that, it would be good to have fewer hills, less headwind and smoother road surfaces. Barring that, we will have to start earlier, quit later, and push harder!
The wind, road, and hills cooperated fairly well as we shot out of Uvalde, and we began to have ambitions of hitting del Rio today. Soon, though, a light headwind popped up, the famous Texas chipseal road surface clicked in, and the road began a series of ascents and descents of low ridges. We began to wonder if we would have to stop at Brackettville.
The land here is dominated by low scrub. It's not too interesting, except that all landscapes are interesting. We spotted horses, and a kind of sheep with black heads and shoulders. We even spotted apparently wild Guinea fowl. Much of he land continues to be high fenced by ranches, whose apparent deal is to enclose range animals like deer and antelope, for the purpose of being knocked off by paying customers. It seems a strange use of such a large amount of space. Each ranch continues to have elaborate gates, with metal cutout images of the animals you can presumably shoot within.
As we cycled along, two beautiful antelope ran along the fence. we had a downhill, and almost caught up with them. At the critical moment I drew my (Nikon) weapon, and would have shot them had they not veered into the bush. I think it would have been a better policy for them to stick by the fence, since presumably (hopefully!) no hunter would shoot toward them and out to the road.
Aside from the invisible ranch buildings, there is little habitation out here. The one or two dwellings we did spot were definitely not Better Homes and Gardens material! One installation, though not a habitation, belonged to the Border Patrol. They only seemed to be inspecting traffic heading East, but an array of cameras presumably had a look at us. We must look like some kind of Aliens, but I guess not the Mexican kind!
Along the road at intervals are memorial crosses, with various forms of decoration, and the dates of one or more deceased. They never seem to explain what happened, though we naturally try to guess. At one, the decoration included mangled car parts, so clearly a vehicle was involved. There were also beer cans, so it either was or was not alcohol related.
Another semi-homemade roadside site belonged to the Border Patrol. Again, we do not know how the officer died.
About 10 km east of Brackettville we came to a picnic site. Any sort of public facility in this gated, posted land is rare, but this one had lovely stone and concrete tables under generous roofs. We stopped and ate our lunch, comprised of bread and jam librerated from the (totally inadequate and nutritionally laughable) motel breakfast, and apple, and half a Snickers bar from our chocolate bar stash. The site was so nice we felt it should be on the ACA list of potential camping places. We, of course, needed to move on. We would hope for a good wild camp west of Brackettville and necessarily before Del Rio.
Brackettville is just a little off US 90, so we didn't visit the town itself. We did visit the Valero station on the outskirts, though. Here we bought water in one litre bottles. We will be making room for at least four of these in our packs, bringing our total water carrying capacity to ten litres. We hope this will be enough.It's not just for drinking. A wild camp also uses water if you think you are going to dine on luxury dishes like hot macaroni and cheese! This is also a luxury because it uses rare camping gaz, but thanks to (daughter-in-law) Sabrina for the trick of not boiling away until done, but rather letting the pasta sit for 10-15 minutes in previously boiling water until it slowly cooks. Works every time.
Also at the Valero was a freezer of various Blue Bell ice creams, and a freezer of a sort of Mexican ice pops. Needless to say we left in the direction of Del Rio feeling quite happy.
About 15 km west of Brackettville, we ran in to the twin of the picnic site we had found on the east side. It is at Pinto Creek. We looked longingly at it and recorded its location carefully for the benefit of anyone coming behind us. Then we headed off, because there was still at least and hour of good cycling time left in the day.Half way up the next hill, we stopped and turned back. This was just too good to miss, compared to our likely alternative, the ditch.
Dodie was the one with the rationale. We'll do the blog, cook, and turn in just after dark. Then we will set off again tomorrow at 5:00 a.m. We will then arrive in Del Rio in time for second breakfast and for the bike shop to maybe be open.If they have them in our size, we would like more tubes against the chance of running into the notorious goathead thorns.
So here we sit, eating our Sabrina style macaroni. The box says our two servings each will provide 620 calories. Not bad, but still inferior to a Big Mac Meal. The box also says to refrigerate leftovers. Hah, what refrigeration? What leftovers?
Please note we are told that cell service is going to be even flakier after Del Rio. So far we have managed to update the Blog every evening of this tour. We may not be able to do that as we move further West. Keep checking though, because we will be keeping on trying. Please also keep sending Guestbook messages. We may see them but not be able to respond, and we will certainly eventually see and respond to them. The Blog and Guestbook are very important to us for seeing this through. We won't quit, so please don't you quit!
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Today's ride: 80 km (50 miles)
Total: 3,594 km (2,232 miles)
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