Pedaling for Patriots

This was one CRAZY day!  We started from Carlsbad, NM this morning and crossed back into Texas (where the sign said “no services for 130 miles”).  It was quite cold (about 50°) and we dressed in layers again.  We couldn’t understand why our legs were hurting so much, until we figured out that we were actually climbing into the Guadalupe Mountains.  We gained 2,600 feet of elevation over the first 12 miles of the ride!  It was slow and painful, but the scenery was beautiful!  Our pictures just don’t do it justice.  We saw lots of interesting critters, to include 2 tarantulas!

If the climb up was tough, the ride down was exhilarating!  We went 8 miles downhill at about 35 mph!  (and that’s because I kept putting on my brakes – I’m sure Rob would have gone much faster.  In fact, some of these pictures Rob took while we were riding down the mountain!)  We met Penny and Barb at the bottom of the hill, where they brought us sandwiches and drinks for lunch.  By then it had warmed up quite a bit, so we had shed most of our layers.  Unfortunately, we then had a rocky shoulder for the next 25 miles, which slowed us back down to 10 mph.

We stopped at the Salt Flat Cafe, where our phones kept changing from Central Time to Mountain Time, depending on where we were standing in the cafe.  The woman we met, and her husband, have owned the cafe since 1945.

We got the pictures from our meeting with President Bush!  They are in the album labeled “Austin to Dallas/Ft. Worth”.  Some people have asked where to find the photos.  Just go to the top of the webpage and click on “photos”.  It will take you to our Smugmug page, where the pictures are in folders by day.

Stats:

Live Animals:  Cows, Horses, Lizards, Tarantulas, HUGE grasshoppers (with cool red wings), Beetles that looked like green peanut M&M’s, Hawk

Dead Animals:  Snake, lots of tiny birds