Day 49: To Yorktown

April 14, 2012

I'm not really looking forward to pedaling from here to Corpus Christi. South into a 20 mph wind with stifling heat and humidity and probably flat boring terrain.

I left the motel and headed south on highway 123, just west of Seguin. I never went through town.

A parade of gravel trucks drove by, maybe 3 per minute. Later I learned that the gravel is used to build drilling pads in the new oil fields further south. I didn't know about any oil fields...

Last crossing of the Guadalupe river. Here it's a small reservoir called Lake Seguin.

To escape the gravel trucks I turned southeast on Farm to Market road 1681. Much better. Almost no traffic. Nice farm scenes, with almost continuous wild flowers. Too bad I can't bike all the way across Texas on FM roads.

FM 1681 ends in Nixon, where I stopped for lunch at a Mexican restaurant. Not much evidence of an oil boom in Nixon.

From Nixon I went east a few easy miles on highway 97 to Smiley, then turned south on Farm to Market road 108. South of Smiley I got into buggy wetlands and oil fields. Traffic wasn't heavy but most of the traffic was oil related trucks.

I noticed a vivid orange flag in the ditch on the side of the road. It must have fallen off a wide load. I picked it up because it can improve the visibility of my bike.

Before lunch the headwind was only 15 mph. But after lunch the headwind rose steadily, up to 30 mph by 3 PM. FM 108 has gentle terrain but it was slow going. With the headwind it seemed to be uphill all the time.

The oil and gas development in this area is because of the Eagle Ford shale formation that is deep underground. It's similar to the Bakken shale that created an oil boom in North Dakota, except at an earlier stage of development. Both areas rely on new hydraulic fracturing technology to profitably extract oil and wet gas from deep shale formations. Until recently this process was only practical for dry gas.

As I approached Yorktown it was obvious that both motels were filled for months with oil workers. I was not sure what to do. I could find a place to camp, but I mailed my camping gear home and it's too buggy to sleep outside without an enclosed tent. After about an hour of wandering around in desperation I found the Golden Days Villa bunkhouse that might have a room available. I waited inside for more than an hour before the manager showed up, and paid $40 for a bare bones bunk room. No air conditioning, no fan, built in 1903. It was hot and humid outside. My room was even hotter. At least it had a screen on the window.

The manager gave me a bit of local context for understanding this area. An exceptional drought in 2010 caused total crop failure. Farmers were facing bankruptcy. A year later the oil boom started and farmers began getting million dollar checks for mineral rights. From the abyss to prosperity in only a few months.

Most of downtown is still boarded up, but Yorktown has boomed in the last year. Hundreds of new high-paying jobs for truck drivers, equipment operators, welders, etc. The boom is expected to last 5 years or more.

At 10 PM the room was 80F with 100% humidity and no airflow. By morning it dropped to 77F with 100% humidity and no airflow. Most miserable night of the trip. I'm not adapted to this climate.

My Verizon phone somehow is connecting to the AT&T network here. Kind of flaky. Throughout Texas, my Verizon phone has had poorer service than AT&T phones. For the first time I called ahead to a motel in Refugio to ensure that I have a place to stay tomorrow night, when a storm comes in.

Today was a difficult day because of the wind. Tomorrow will probably be the same.

Distance: 66.1 mi. (106 km)

Climbing: 1641 ft. (497 m)

Average Speed: 9.7 mph (15.5 km/h)

Today's ride: 66 miles (106 km)
Total: 2,639 miles (4,247 km)

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