Day 67: Marfa to Wild Camp 30 km from Van Horn

March 12, 2014

We had left the window slightly open, and we woke up when it entered our consciousness that what sounded like passing cars was actually passing wind gusts. Not again!!

I went out to walk down to the Subway, to bring back a Breakfast Sandwhich, and found the wind to be the type you need to brace yourself against while walking. The question was, what truly was the direction. Pieces of tissue dropped in front of me headed off as this would be a tail wind, at least on this street. The only thing is, this street does not conform well to our general direction for the day. Our navigation department says the true fact on average will be a headwind, coming obliquely from our right hand side.

So again we thought, should we stick it out and hide here? Well, just as Grampies do not believe in going back, they are very reluctant to hide out. On the other hand, there will not be another Chia out there. There will be no one out there! Oh well, as I write this we are packing up. When we see a glimmer of daylight, we are off!

Meanwhile, on the wall of this rather elegant room is a poster for the movie "Be Here To Love Me", a film about Townes Van Zandt. The poster is here because Townes was a Texas native:

"Townes Van Zandt was born in Fort Worth, Texas, to a wealthy oil family. He was the third-great-grandson of Isaac Van Zandt, a prominent leader of the Republic of Texas and second great-grandson of Khleber Miller Van Zandt, Confederate Major and one of the founders of Fort Worth.[8] Van Zandt County in east Texas was named after his family in 1848. "

Townes was not successful as a music performer during his lifetime, but he has become a country music legend, with his songs covered by many. Here he is in person, but you may want to search the Emmylou Harris version of "If You Needed Me", for a somewhat more tuneful rendering (Dodie prefers the original):

Don't worry if there is no posting tonight, and maybe tomorrow. We will be out of cell range. If the wind drops enough to put up the tent, we will be at Valentine, or more likely the picnic site part way there....

OK! The wind let up and gave us a break. Now at 3 p.m. we are sitting at the library in Valentine. There are tons of spots here where we could put our tent! However, despite a mild headwind that has just spring up, we are going to head off for a picnic site that we see 30 km west of here. It only gets dark in about 5 hours, so if the wind continues to basically hold off, we're golden.

Townes Van Zante poster on our wall at the motel

Our road heads into dust, caused by the strong wind

The powerful wind that we faced in the morning was coming from the side, and just a degree or two behind. It's effect was a combination of slowing us, as a sidewind does, and occasionally giving us an oblique push. We found that we could make adequate progress with these conditions, and that Dodie could ride to the left, in my lee, fairly well.

The train tracks parallel the road here for a long way, and two trains came along as we pedalled. In each case we waved to the engineers, and they blew the train whistle. Yeah! The trains gave us a boost in another way. While they were there, they blocked the wind. The effect was dramatic, as our speed just about doubled! What we really needed was a train to come and roll along slowly, so we could draft beside it. No such luck.

Are these the same plants as the tall tree like versions?

The protection of trains made a big but temporary difference in our speed

We need to look this up and see what it is all about

With her Patagonia parka, Dodie looks more like she is in Patagonia than Texas

Last chance to head up into the Davis mountains, where ACA wants us to be, As if!

One of many tumbleweeds. This is quite a big one.

The tumbleweed is too thorny to pose with.

Something else adding variety to our cycle was the appearance in the distance of a large white blimp-like object, tethered to the ground. We watched it for a long time as we slowly approached. Most mysterious was why it did not blow around or blow away in the powerful wind. Finally we drew abreast of it and found it to be some sort of government radar thing. When we get more internet, we will try to find out more, unless a reader of this knows...

Around one oclock the wind moved in front of us, and then over to our left side. We thought it was taking the long way round, towards its forecasted position of behind us on the right. But around two oçlock it unveiled another ploy, and stopped altogether. We took advantage of all this shifting around of the wind, while never beng directly in our faces, to make it to Valentine, at 3 oçlock. The first thing we saw at Valentine was a cell tower and that is how we were able to post a blog update right then. The next thing was a lovely, though closed, library building. This building had a variety of chairs, picnic tables, regular tables and chairs, around it, not to mention an astroturf covered basketball area, and a working water spigot. In short, it was an ideal wild camp spot.

Because we had arrived so early we could consider heading out furhter, to the picnic site we figured was 30 km distant.At that moment the wind snapped back into action, trying out our old nemesis from yesterday, the wind from the front right. It did not seem too bad, so we set off. Again Dodie was able to draft fairly well, and we made acceptable progress.

Just a few km out of Valentine is the art installation known as the Prada Store. This has apppeared in several other blogs, but we never were clear on exactly what it was.In fact, it was not clear that this was art and not actually a store. The thing is a small independent building standing out in the middle of absolutely nothing. It is a simulated storefront and inside are several genuine Prada purses and many shoes.

We read that the installation had been vandalised in the past, and at this time we found the windows with remnants of adhesive, as if some paper or posters had been glued over them everywhere.We had read in the wiki article that people leave their business cards, weighted by rocks, but we found none. We only found various stickers affixed to the electrical panel around the back. Nonetheless, we left a Grampies Go South card near the front.

Beside the Valentine library, a shelter and basketball venue

You may be able to read some of the Valentine story if you zoom on this.

Yes, Valentine also had many abandoned buildings

A little ways out of Valentine, the Prada Store art installation stands in the middle of nothing

Just one example of a Prada show inside the exhibition

The defaced plaque of the Prada exhibition

No idea why they labelled it Marfa, which is 60 km away

Today's ride: 84 km (52 miles)
Total: 4,011 km (2,491 miles)

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