March 4, 2016
Life is How it is, Not How it Was
We're on the road forty-five minutes before the sun crawls its way up over the jagged line of mountains east of Sierra Blanca. The texture of the desert landscape around us remains one massive blur at eighty-plus miles per hour. It's an hour and a half to El Paso but the time passes at what feels like twice that speed. We hit the center of town just as rush hour traffic starts to build. A few days ago at this time our world was gliding hawks and swishing grass and the peaceful emptiness of Highway 90. Now it's drivers honking at each other, tailgating with aggression, and putting themselves and others in danger so they don't show up late to the job they don't even like. It's Burger King breakfast handed out from a drive-through window. It's SUVs swerving around the speed bumps in parking lots, like they're too delicate to handle such an obstacle.
We drop off Kristen's packed bike at a FedEx shipping place, then make for the airport. It's laughs and smiles and stupid-ass jokes until the very end. We talk a lot about how much we're going to miss each other. To most people it would seem like it's verging on dramatic, knowing that we'll be back together again in a week. But in the two years we've known each other we've never been apart for more than five days. In those two years we've spent more time within talking distance of each other than most couples do in a decade. We do just about everything together.
Driving back across the city on my own, I head to a sporting goods store to pick up a sleeping bag. There's no way on god's green earth I'm carrying around our eight-pound beast of a double sleeping bag without someone beautiful to share it with. I end up in a retail complex near the border. I notice how the license plates look different, and soon I realize that half the cars in the parking lot have plates from states in Mexico. Scanning the parking lot and the inside of the store it becomes obvious I'm the only person around who isn't Hispanic. The wild demographic swings that have become so common on this trip continue.
On-ramps closed for repairs mean I get lost in a maze of detours and frontage roads and one-way streets that drive me to the brink of a mental breakdown near the edge of the city. When I finally get pointed east I turn on the radio and listen to sports talk radio, even though I've come to really dislike sports talk radio. The land is flat and dry and harsh. Moments of interest come only when I pass other cars and when I try to figure out whether that thing I'm seeing in the sky dozens of miles ahead of me is a blimp. (Yes, it turns out. It's longer than the Goodyear Blimp, it's tethered to the ground but hangs 12,000 feet in the air, and the Border Patrol uses it for surveillance of airplanes entering America from Mexico.) Driving a car in the middle of a bike trip just doesn't suit me.
Back in Alpine I check into the only motel I've ever known where all of the online reviews gave the place one star and ended with the reviewer pleading for future travelers not to stay there. The second floor walkway wobbles a little under my feet as I walk toward my room. When I go to put in the key I see a chunk of wood missing from the left of the lock where someone once forced their way in with a crowbar. There are a non-trivial number of middle-aged dudes in tank tops hanging around outside not doing anything at all, one of whom is on the phone complaining to a friend, "I don't know what the hell's wrong with that bitch. I'm a good fucking person, you know?" Inside it's crusty carpet, bed sheets that feel more like they're made of butcher paper than cloth, and bathroom lights with no covers, just bare bulbs hanging in the sockets. The shower towel hangs not on a metal bar but a piece of packing tape strung across the space where there once was a bar. But my standards have fallen so low over many years of cycle-touring that I keep thinking to myself, Yeah, but I've seen worse.
I spend hours in the room looking at possible routes for the days ahead and worrying about what strong winds four or five days down the line might mean. I bounce from one little flash of thought in my head to another without end. I get nothing done but the construction of anxiety. I'm stalling and I know it. Without Kristen here with me the rhythms and patterns of this trip that have brought me so much joy and comfort have been upset. Everything feels slightly off. Then into my head pops one of the most sage pieces of advice I know: life is how it is, not how it was. A week from today I'll wind this thing down a few hundred miles west of here in Las Cruces, New Mexico. That's where I am. That means seven days to enjoy the hell out of what might be the last long ride I take until some time next year. It's not quite the same as being told you only have a week left to live, but thinking about the trip in those terms snaps me back to the here and now.
I grab dinner. I write. I get some work done. Then I set out around Alpine on foot. I head past the old movie theater that's been turned into event and apartment space, but where the tall old sign that reads Granada still hangs off the second story with the dozens of yellow-white bulbs around its edges all lit up. The theater that's still around plays really good first-run movies. There's a record store, a bookstore, coffee shops. The old hotel at the center of town still thrives. Empty storefronts are the exception. The influence of Sul Ross State University is everywhere, from the huge number of twenty-year-olds to all the bright red Lobos gear, the liberal bumper stickers, and the cheap bar specials. The art in the galleries and a lot of the gifts in the shops were made here, not on an assembly line half a world away. The chain stores and fast food joints sit at the edge of the town like outcasts. There are sidewalks and people on them. There are bikes and people on them. In this town of 6,000 people there's even a bike shop.
It's true that the food and the beer and the ice cream are more expensive. There's definitely a tourist influence. And this place could be like Portland or Seattle, where it seems like it should be friendly but people don't talk to their neighbors and instead keep to themselves. It's hard to know for sure. But from what I've seen in the last few days wandering around town I like what I see and what I feel. It feels vibrant, healthy, and thriving without being dependent on big city travelers. Out of the hundreds of towns I've passed through there are only a few I'd ever consider calling home some day. Alpine is one of those places.
I hear the mariachi music blasting in the motel parking lot from a block way. There are at least a dozen people standing or sitting around the front doors of the rooms, talking and smoking and drinking like they live here. It makes sense because at least half the people staying at this motel do in fact live here. To this soundtrack I pack and repack the bike for tomorrow, trying to find the best setup and balance for the gear of a solo traveler.
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