I See the Story of Time

February 28, 2016

The ride back to the highway gives us a look at what pedaling to the east instead of the west would feel like at this time of year. It's wind that already blows at eight in the morning and combines with the rough chipseal to leave us going no faster than seven or eight miles per hour. The air rushes past our ears and drowns out all other sound. I know that seven or eight straight days of this would drive us insane. It would end in a dramatic climax with one or both of us stopping, throwing the bikes down at the edge of the road, stripping naked, and then running off into the vast rolling plains with our hands pressed against the sides of our heads, screaming all the while.

Instead we ride west at twelve to fourteen, happy and smiling, easy and free, with all of our clothing on.

A long bridge over the reservoir sends us toward landscapes that remain harsh and dry and bare. We start to climb up rolling hills surrounded in all directions by scrubland of mesquite and cacti and yucca, everything in some pale shade of green or yellow or brown. We see a few old windmills in the distance, but no cattle or goats graze in these areas now. Out here the country is so rough that the only stock animals capable of thriving are sheep. We see occasional flashes of white through the mesquite and we hear them bleating and bellowing, but that's as active as things get.

There's a tendency to look out at places like this and think, There's nothing going on here. It's so vast and empty and boring. I know that's true because I used to feel that way. I don't now. Instead I stare out at the folds of the hills and the countless colors and textures and the unimpeded sky spread before me and I see the story of time. This is what the region looked like thousands of years ago. There's no need to mentally delete the houses and resorts and power plants or imagine how the hills looked before all of the trees were cut down and hauled away. It's all there for me to see, same as if I stepped into a time machine and threw it in reverse. The spiders and antelope and wildflowers and grasses continue on with indifference.

To me, stretches like this are one of the great parts of riding across a continent on a bicycle. In a car they pass so fast they turn into a meaningless blur. Speed takes their awesome scope and shrinks it down into something concentrated, something capsuled. But from a bike seat the endless horizon becomes full of meaning and purpose and challenge. With so few of the comforts of modern life to distract and no worry about missing the next turn, the journey happens as much with the mind as it does the body. To cross through these remote places and come out the other side a little more capable and a little more aware of the world's incredible diversity than when I began makes the logistical challenges and brief periods of mental illness worth all the effort.

It's not all rustic. There's the huge Border Patrol outpost and checkpoint that appear in the middle of nowhere. We answer a couple of questions about where we're headed, pass an honor system-style check of our citizenship, and we're on our way. A few miles to the west we see a Border Patrol truck driving slow on a dirt path parallel to the road. It drags a metal bar on the ground behind it to wipe away any existing tire tracks, so that if a smuggler tries to pass through the area on a track away from the highway the Feds will know it.

Comstock is tired-looking little homes that the land seems like it's trying to reclaim, a Border Patrol station, and a post office. There are three cafes, all closed, one for the day and the other two probably forever. The gas station doesn't have much in the way of food, but it doesn't much matter. Knowing there's a chance we won't find anything else until we reach Sanderson tomorrow evening we load up on whatever canned goods and sugary garbage and water we can carry. We eat in the shade of the sheet metal-sided gas station on a concrete step with the faint sound of Indian music drifting out of the open window of the office of the motel across the street.

While coasting down the hill away from town singing a John Lennon song out loud to myself, I pass a strange object lying in the shoulder. In the half a second it takes to pass through my field of vision I can't figure out if it's a dead animal or an awful toupee that blew off the head of a passing driver or passenger. Before I can dedicate more mind cycles to it, a former tour bus painted all white with barred windows that I saw earlier in the morning rolls past again. This time it's empty after having returned a load of illegal immigrants back across the border. In the sky above, two dozen birds in flight all chatter at each other as they try to assemble themselves into something like a V shape.

The hills start to roll with more aggression, but the highway planners have dealt with it by blasting through the steeper sections with dynamite instead of going over them. Thanks to them we never have to push too hard. Soon natural splits in the earth appear – big splits, deep enough to be called canyons, with steep, ragged walls of gray and tan. They announce the impending arrival of the Pecos River miles before we get there.

I've heard the name before but that's all I know of the thing. I'm not at all prepared for what I see. In a landscape that has been so restrained it comes as a revelation. It drops hundreds of feet away from the cliff tops in jagged sweeps of rock that fall almost vertical. On its other axis it arches in huge sweeping bends both toward and away from the bridge that crosses hundreds of feet above. The water below reflects a milky blue-green. In the sky I watch hawks gliding on the updrafts, then see their shadows cast down on rocks into which the passage of time has been etched in elaborate patterns of color and texture. The Pecos has the look of a mighty, mighty river. It leaves me impressed and stunned and grateful all at the same time.

And then within a mile or two all trace of the thing is gone. I look back over my right shoulder and all I see are rolling hills and shimmering waves of heat.

At the top of the next rise I see another deep canyon. I think it's the Pecos turning back our way. But it's not; it's the Rio Grande. In a matter of miles the Border Patrol presence goes up by a factor of ten, with marked trucks and unmarked SUVs flying past on the highway and standing guard on nearby hilltops. Narrow dirt roads formed by the fall of so many heavy-duty tires snake into the hills on either side of us. I can't help but wonder how many millions of dollars the government pays every year to cover the gasoline burned by idling Border Patrol vehicles. Oblivious to all the firepower and high-tech surveillance are the tiny wildflowers, whose purples and yellows and reds provide the only bright splashes of color in an otherwise muted desert.

The store in the tiny town of Langtry is open. Not only that, the neon Budweiser sign in the front window is all lit up. Our hopes for a cold beer soar toward the heavens, but either for lack of sales or more likely a liquor license violation the place no longer sells it. Oh well, at least there's food. But then I realize they don't really serve food either, going by the handwritten sign that says Kitchen Closed in big letters. I ask the woman behind the counter anyway, and it turns out the sign isn't quite accurate. They serve a barbecue beef brisket sandwich and that's it. It's the only place I think I've ever seen where the menu consists of one item. Their chid is also bleak: a couple of cases of soda, some candy bars and potato chips, and a few shelves of random canned food with the prices written on top of the cans in black marker that's still visible through a layer of dust.

It's not ideal. But not much is in West Texas, so we roll with it. I get a sandwich and we spend an obscene amount of cash on Gatorade and candy bars and chips that we don't really want but whose calories and electrolytes will come in handy if we plan on getting somewhere that isn't West Texas.

We set up the tent on a patch of dirt and dry grass behind the town's community center. Wild turkeys gobble in the scrubland beyond. Freight trains rumble past on the rail line that parallels the highway. Border Patrol trucks sweep through town every so often both on paved roads and the network of dirt tracks that connect them. As night falls the wind dies and its rushing sound is replaced by the drone of crickets. Across the river half a mile south rise the unblemished hills of Mexico.

I sit around feeling tired, worn out, kind of deflated. I haven't been eating enough because there aren't many restaurants out here, and also because there's only so much gas station food a man can stand before his eyes fall on a sleeve of donuts and his mind cries out For the love of God, no more! I've been sleeping eight hours a night, but after days like yesterday, nine or ten would be better. Worst of all, the Brooks saddle I've sat on for the last five years and almost 20,000 miles is breaking down, and without going into awkward detail, that makes the long days of riding feel much, much longer. A day off in Van Horn is still half a week away.

Today's ride: 57 miles (92 km)
Total: 1,878 miles (3,022 km)

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