March 8, 2014
Day 63: Wild camp to Sanderson
A wind flapping your tent, maybe to pieces, is not the best lullaby. But 12 hours of cycling helps you fall asleep nonetheless. The thing that did penetrate our consciousness though, was the arrival beside our spot of two eighteen wheelers, stopping for the night.
W;hile illegal in Canada, the common practice is to idle these things all night. This provides ventilation, heating or cooling, radio, TV, or whatever else is going on inside. For us, it was a constant loud noise just a few feet away.
Our alarm woke us at 5, so we must have been asleep then, anyway. The wind had dies completely in the night, which would help in taking down the tent.
The first trucker was also awake, and checking his load. Dodie wandered over and casually asked "Say, why do truckers idle their engines all night?". From there we found out the reasons mentioned above, and that on low idle it uses about 1/2 gallon of fuel per hour. So an 8 hour night would use 4 gallons. At $4 per gallon, that's $16 - way cheaper than a motel.
This particular truck was carrying one complete disassembled electric line tower. It had been made in Mexico, shifted over the border to Laredo, and now was headed for Oregon. Our new friend, the trucker, mentioned the care he takes when passing cyclists. He knows he can possibly blow them over, or suck them under, and always gives a wide clearance. He said he will force an oncoming car over rather than squeeze the cyclists. And he denies cyclists are invisible, given the bright clothing they normally wear.
Not only had the wind dropped, but it was dead calm when we left. We cruised happily along, for a whole hour or even two. Then the wind woke up. The forecast had been for 20-30 mph North winds, and the wind got right down to business. It was thew old story of wind so stiff that you have to strain on the pedals to make almost any headway.We tried drafting, but it seemed impossible to find a good enough spot behind me for Dodie to obtain much benefit. Going along at dodie's top speed of about 5 kph, I also had trouble keeping a straight line in the wind gusts.
About this time we got a big pick me up by encountering Tom and Dick We had expected to meet three fellows, because we read about them in Bob Zylstra's blog. Tom and Dick told us that their third member, Roy, had broken three spokes and had taken a lift from the Sanderson motel owner, into Del Rio. Wow, this poor Sanderson Motel fellow had also given Bob Zylstra a lift . Tom and Dick said they had come from Sanderson and were headed today to Comstock. That is a fantastically long distance from our point of view, but of course they did have the forceful wind behind them.
After leaving Tom and Dick we continued to slog on. We reached the picnic area where earlier we thought we would have breakfast, but instead it was lunch. Sort of. There is no way to cook in that kind of wind. Instead we ate some of our baking from Langtry.
After "lunch", we passed a sign that gave the distance to Dryden as 10 mi and Sanderson 30 mi. Three hours (yes, three hours) later we reached Dryden.
On the way I had been thinking that picnic sites and the fact that we have a tent are not actually a solution for many of the possible problems on this stretch. First off, the picnic sites are great, but you do have to get there. and you can not stay indefinitely, because they have no food or water. The weakness of the tent is that looking carefully at the ground here, we see it is rock hard, thorny, and rocky. You could not set up just anywhere. Plus, in a wind, the tent could easily collapse, assuming you found a place to put it and got some pegs into the hardpan.
So that makes wind our perfect nemesis, more so than hills, and possibly more than rain. With wind, you may not be able to reach your destination in time, and then you more than likely can not put up your tent to provide shelter where you were forced to stop.
I was counting on Dryden as the solution to this our latest desperate situation. At the very least, if there would be even one building, we could in principle set up the tent in the lee of it. The Adventure Cycling notes listed grocery as a "possible" thing in Dryden. That meant there was something there. As it turned out the store was not only there, but fairly well stocked!
There was no cell service, but we were able to use a landline inside the store. Keying on what we had learned from Tom and Dick and Bob, we phoned Sanderson, and reached Roy Engeldorf the owner of the Outback Oasis Motel. Roy agreed to nip over to Dryden to collect us. Otherwise, had we carried on, I was projecting it would take until 9 p.m. to make it!
Roy had to get someone to watch the motel, but he made it to us within a half hour. We loaded our bikes into the pickup, the third time they have lost their dignity in this way on this tour!
Aside from rescueing cyclists, Roy is a self taught herpetologist, and has a large collection of snakes and other reptiles, plus spiders and scorpions. Adjacent to the motel office, he has quite a few on display, and he gave us a nice tour. Some of the snakes, usually poisonous to very poisonous, he collected right along our route! I think most are hibernating right now.
Roy is a most ernest and honest man, and we appreciated his review of what rooms he had available - what they were like and what aspects we might like most. This, and the lift, is so different from what you usually get at a motel. There are competing motels in town, but we hope everyone will only come to Roy.
The room we did get has great rustic furniture and solid stone walls, heavy tile floors and a decorative Mexican sink.
Tomorrow, we will bang our heads against this again - planning for a wild camp at one of the picnic sites. We are recharging our batteries, not only on the flashers, but our internal batteries. Get this, the handimart across the street has a fruit salad bar - really fresh and good fruit - fill up a giant container for $3.49. We just ate our first one. A few more and we will be really ready to go!
| Heart | 0 | Comment | 0 | Link |
| Heart | 0 | Comment | 0 | Link |
Today's ride: 46 km (29 miles)
Total: 3,798 km (2,359 miles)
| Rate this entry's writing | Heart | 0 |
| Comment on this entry | Comment | 0 |