Texan-Owned

March 6, 2016

More than a hundred semis sit around the truck stops and repair shops of Van Horn. Half of them leave their engines idling, which creates a collective plume of diesel exhaust that hangs in the air like a giant fart cloud. With stink filling my nose I ride under Interstate 10 and on the other side find myself staring at the end of Highway 90. The long road that brought me all the way from Uvalde, that Kristen and I first crossed paths with back in Florida, is done. From the simple but profound beauty of the landscape, to the diverse array of towns, the wide shoulders, and the pleasant weather, it's without a doubt one of the finest stretches of America I've ever had the pleasure of riding. Before, West Texas was just a spot on the map, a big chunk of a big state, remote and without depth. Now whenever I think about it my mind fills with rich, detailed memories. Kristen and I have plans to return next winter and I hope like hell they come to pass.

Frontage roads carry me a few miles to the west, but then they too run out. The only path that runs that direction is the interstate. There are a few stretches on this trip I've dreaded from the time we put our route together and this is one of them. It's not that riding on the interstate is more dangerous that any other road. In many ways it's safer, with the wide shoulder, the fact that the semi-trucks almost always move into the other lane when they pass, and the fact that seeing a loaded bicycle on a freeway is so unusual that drivers can't help but pay attention as they think What the hell's wrong with that liberal dumbass? It's the constant noise of engines and tires, the crap covering the shoulder, and the non-appeal of riding any busy road that get me. It's a tapestry of distraction.

But the road is how it is, not how it was. I head up the ramp and get to cranking.

For the most part I'm alone. Thank you, Sunday morning. Near the end of a rise I see a large green sign announcing the arrival of the Mountain time zone. In an instant my mind returns to the bridge over the Chattahoochee River that brought Kristen and I from Georgia to Alabama and dropped us into Central time. In our roundabout way of riding we've covered almost 1,800 miles since then. Daylight comes almost two hours later now. I've lost at least fifteen pounds and more than an inch off my waist. I crossed into Central time a single man and pedal out of it with a wife. The scale at which America is built and operates never fails to amaze me, but the vastness of passing through our broadest time zone at its broadest point feels like another level of grand entirely.

The interstate continues its not-awful ways. The shoulder appears to have just been swept, so no glass or chunks of metal or tire retreads block my path or try to puncture my tires. Wind funnels up through the canyon and I climb a low pass at ten miles per hour. And then there are those wonderful mountains. They flank my left and my right and would be stunning in any light. But the shapes and textures and shadows take on special brilliance in the golden glow of the low morning sun. For the cars and trucks and RVs the beauty passes at eighty or ninety miles per hour and fades as soon as it arrives. The scenic overlooks are empty but for trucks that idle while their drivers lie dead asleep in the air-conditioned cabs. It's as if I've landed in some secret place that everyone can see. I keep my head on a low-speed swivel for an hour and soak up all the fine details.

And then near the top of the pass it's over, miles before I expected. A frontage road appears on the right across a thin strip of gravel and I take it. I fly down toward the wide basin below on a smooth road that's all mine. To drown out the ever-present howl of motorhomes and tractor-trailers and rock band tour buses I throw on headphones and blast Alvvays. It's all "Archie, Marry Me" and "Next of Kin" and "Party Police" with no need to look at my mirror and no reason not to sing along as loud as I want.

For maybe fifteen minutes it's great. But then a crushing sense of repetition kicks in as the mountains recede and the road charges out in front of me like the belt of a treadmill come to life. It's the kind of riding where if I'm going across the country it's stultifying but necessary, a sort of physical paperwork required of going from coast to coast. Knowing that I'm only going as far as New Mexico makes the same stretch of road feel like unimportant, pointless work. I pedal wedged in the narrow gap between the freeway and the Union Pacific railroad line wishing I wasn't.

When the rock runs out I put on the sparse sound of Sufjan Stevens' inimitable Carrie and Lowell album and sing along despite having a voice not at all meant for singing along to such an album. It's a work of death and loss and redemption that's beautiful in its scope and tenderness, but one that also has the tendency to overpower with emotion. And so it goes, out on the frontage road of Interstate 10 when track seven, "The Only Thing," starts to play. More than just about any song I know it turns my mind toward the ones who are no longer with me. It has this inescapable ability to transport me back to the feelings and state of mind that follow death, the feelings that bring with them such intense volume and weight that they consume all the free space in my mind, block out the processing of any event that might lead to joy, and create this constant ringing sensation that changes the tone of every sound I hear.

I always think it'll be different, that one day that effect will no longer exist. Today is not that day. My voice wavers and it feels like tears are about to well up in my eyes. It's not the sort of thing you're supposed to admit to, not least of all if you're a thirty-three-year-old American man. But trying to obscure it doesn't mean it isn't there. And finding myself all alone in the wide open spaces east of El Paso when the feelings seem like they might overtake me means there's no reason to hold any of it back. It's a good choice, because among the competing waves of sadness there's also the undeniable lift of appreciation. I can't help but think about how much it means to be able to feel this way at all, to have loved and lost, but to have the power of that love so vastly outweigh the pain of the loss. It's the reason why we spend so much time with our families and seek out partners and get married and have kids and adopt dogs, even though we know that just about all of them will die at some point far or near within our lifetimes. The joy of life we draw from them is simply too profound to push away.

As the song winds down to its end I stop, open the music player on my phone, and play it again.

A huge Border Patrol building sits at the edge of Sierra Blanca, just like huge Border Patrol buildings sit at the edge of every town of meaningful size within a hundred miles of the border in West Texas. At the gas station down the road I stop to grab lunch and consider my options for the days ahead. It's thirty-five miles to the next place to stay, at least half of them on the interstate. The weather forecast calls for fifteen to twenty mile per hour winds with gusts over thirty in the afternoon. As far as I can tell there's nowhere to bail in between. And even if I make it that far, the town of Fort Hancock looks more like a freeway stop than a town. I also know that wherever I end up is probably where I'll be tomorrow when huge winds from a storm blowing in from out west will make most of the day a total mess for bike riding.

I pushed my luck yesterday and barely made it. I decide not to do it again. With work to be done, I make it a motel night instead of camping in the town park.

Riding west through town I see a billboard that advertises a motel as being Texan-owned. I've seen a lot of reasons given to choose a place to sleep for the night, but never this one. It seems silly on its face. If you own and run a motel in Sierra Blanca, that means you live in Sierra Blanca. If you live in Sierra Blanca then by definition you live and work and pay taxes and vote in Texas, all of which makes you and every other motel owner in town without a doubt a Texan. But of course that's not the point at all. What they're really saying is, Hey, everyone who's kind of racist, come stay here instead of those other motels in town because you won't have to interact with a person who has an Indian or Spanish accent during the five minutes it takes for you to check in.

I head to the competing motel and spend five minutes talking to a kind older woman with an Indian accent while I check in. Neither me nor the country is any worse off for it. Then I shut myself up in my room for the next seven hours, going between working, napping, inspecting my saddle sores, and then right away regretting that I ever thought it was a good idea to inspect my saddle sores.

When at last I work up the will to put pants back on and walk to the gas station down the road to try and sort out something resembling dinner, I walk out the door of the room, look to my left, and see fifteen feet away a shirtless man with a massive gut shotgunning a beer, the bottom of the silver can pointed straight up to the sky. I've known it all along, but in that moment it hits me hard. If I continue west along the corridor around the interstate this is my future: sleeping in motels, eating from gas stations, avoiding eye contact with people who drink in public half-naked and alone. If I do this, my reward is riding through the sprawling middle of goddamned El Paso.

I can't do it. To the endless sound of passing trains and semi-trucks I make plans to find some way – any way – to avoid such a fate.

Today's ride: 34 miles (55 km)
Total: 2,164 miles (3,483 km)

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