bettina, ozona, four people

October 16, 2008

Day Twenty Five

"There are no uninteresting things, only uninterested people."
- G. K. Chesterton -

"The cure for boredom is curiosity."
- Dorothy Parker -

"I like boring things."
- Andy Warhol -

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On the way out of town I stopped at the post office to mail two SD cards with pictures back home. I just haven't been able to find the places or the time to upload them so I'm sending them to Heather, who will be able to upload them much faster than I can. For the record, she's been really helpful, and if it weren't for her you would be seeing even fewer postings than the occasional dribble you've been getting.

While I was at the post office I talked to Bettina, one of the postal workers. She's a bicyclist who knows the area very well. She told me about the two routes to Ozona... One of them is down I-10, and the other is down Highway 190. The I-10 route has a lot of trucks. The 190 route is hillier and more scenic. I took 190 because I wanted a challenge.

Not really. It's five miles shorter.

A couple of miles out of town I found the biggest hill of the day. Here are pictures from the bottom and the top.

Some random pictures along the way showing what the scenery looks like.

It was about 50F/10C degrees and overcast when I left. I was traveling east and the wind was from the NNW. Actually, make that NNNNW. I averaged about 11 mph until I turned the corner 30 miles later.

The temperature never got above 58F/14.4C while I was riding and I stayed cold most of the day. It was supposed to get up to 69F/20.5C today but I don't believe it ever did, at least not while I was riding.

Because of the distances between towns, I bought some food to make sandwiches for my lunch today, but I never saw a satisfactory place to stop. My definition of "satisfactory" is anywhere out of the wind. Unfortunately, I never found even the smallest windbreak.

Most of the time I'm okay with the wind. If you're going to ride a bike any distance at all, you're going to experience wind. Although I'd rather pedal uphill all day rather than face a headwind, most of the time I'm okay with it. However, there are times when, please, I just want a small respite, a brief few minutes of silence and stillness. It made real the stories I'd heard about the wind causing someone to go mad and reminded me of Larry McMurtry's novel, Lonesome Dove, in which a woman kills herself after living on the prairie most of her life, leaving a suicide note with the words "Tired of the damn wind."

So, not seeing a windbreak, I continued riding, scanning the horizon for someplace to hide from the ceaseless wind, the roar in my ears, the dust in my eyes and on my skin.

I was almost warm enough while generating body heat from riding, but when I stopped pedaling a chill settled in quickly. Consequently, I didn't take many breaks, so by the time I rolled in to Ozona 52 miles later I had only eaten two Clif bars and an orange. For some reason (that reason probably being that I'm not very smart), it never dawned on me that I could just put on more clothing.

A couple of pictures from along the way….

Someone pulled apart the barbed wire and stuck the bottle there. I wondered how long it had been there, because I was out in the middle of NOWHERE, miles from anything, and also because it looked old.

I arrived in Ozona (pop. 3225) at 2:30. By 3:00 I saw the sun for the first time today. By 3:15 there wasn't a cloud in the sky. Apparently, I left Iraan too early.

Or got out of bed too early. If I had slept later, then I would've seen more blue sky and sunshine.

I asked the first person I saw where the best place to eat in town is and was directed to Pepe's Cafe. On the way there I passed my motel so I checked in, took a hot shower to warm up, then went to the cafe for a very late lunch.

Back at the motel, I pulled a chair outside where I was able to sit in the sun AND out of the wind while I answered some long overdue emails.

Not much happened today. I warned you at the beginning that bicycle touring isn't really that exciting. You climb on a bike and ride. Sometimes, at the end of the day, that's about the only thing that's happened.

When I looked back at the events which occurred today, I realized that I had interacted with a grand total of four people: Bettina, the random person in Ozona who recommended a cafe, the motel manager, and my waitress at Pepe's..... and I really didn't even have conversations with the last three.

Some days are just like that. I'm sure there will be more interesting days ahead.

(spoiler alert: there absolutely will be).

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distance: 52.9 miles
average speed: 12.2 mph
maximum speed: 31.4 mph
time on bike: 4:49:14
cumulative mileage: 1221.6

Today's ride: 53 miles (85 km)
Total: 1,221 miles (1,965 km)

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