Out in West Texas, how far you travel on a bike is dictated by how far the next town is. The towns are generally spaced about sixty miles apart, about as far as a person would want to travel on a horse in one day, and there isn't much between them.
East of Fort Stockton, the next town is Iraan, unless you count Bakersfield which, according to Mike (the guy I met two days ago), consists of a single gas station/convenience store - and no place to sleep. Iraan is slightly more than sixty miles from Fort Stockton.
When I left this morning it was cold and overcast, so I put on a couple of shirts and my rain jacket over that. Within two miles the top shirt was off.
As you can see, although this is I-10, there really isn't that much traffic. At least, not on this section at this time of day.
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| From Mark on a Bike 08 2 |
The morning was uneventful... just pedaling through the cold and occasional misting rain. It wasn't bad, though, because the wind was coming from behind.
Just as I was about to pass the only rest stop for miles, the steering started feeling weird. I looked down and saw my front tire was almost flat. By the time I stopped and got off my bike, it was completely flat. The rest stop was only a hundred yards away so I just walked it there so I could get out of the wind.
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| From Mark on a Bike 08 2 |
Generally, when I have a flat, I just pull out the punctured tube and replace it with a fresh one. Then, when I'm stopped for the evening, I'll patch the punctured one. That way I don't have to stop for as long.
After switching tubes I went through my normal procedure of inspecting the tire (not the tube – that's for later) to make sure whatever caused the flat wasn't still there. The outside of the tire looked okay, but when I ran my fingers along the inside of the tire I almost cut my finger.
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| From Mark on a Bike 08 2 |
There was a piece of glass still embedded in it, just waiting for me to put the tire back in and pump it up. I would've had another flat within half a mile.
I pried the glass shard out with my pocketknife, rechecked the inside of the tire, and replaced the tube. Pumping up a tire with my tiny bicycle tire pump takes a long time, but I eventually finished.
When I tried to roll up the punctured tire to put it into my pannier, it just wouldn't get very small... it was like there was something inside it. After a few tries, I finally realized that it wasn't going to get any smaller because there WAS something inside it. Puzzled, I worked the stuff towards the valve and squeezed some of it out. A huge amount of white, viscous, liquid came out - it looked like the stuff that comes out of a pimple (or so I hear).
And it just kept coming out... The more I squeezed, the more it kept coming out. I had no idea what this glop was.
Eventually, I saw the writing on the tube, "Self-Sealing Tube." ahhh.... so THAT'S what it is... sealant.
The wind was nice when I was riding, but after stopping it got cold fast. It was a tailwind, but it was cold and full of mist.
Here are some pictures I took along the way.
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| From Mark on a Bike 08 2 |
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| From Mark on a Bike 08 2 |
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| From Mark on a Bike 08 2 |
I stopped in Bakersfield for lunch. Mike had told me it's the only place to stop between Fort Stockton and Iraan. As I mentioned earlier, it's not a town, just a gas station.
After settling into the only chair at the only table in the building, I started eating my lunch.
About twenty minutes later, the cashier came over and started chatting.
Her name is Mary. She was raised in the area and currently lives in Girvin, a town about twenty miles away. It once had a population of 45,000. Now it has one building, a bar. It seems most of the rural towns in America are dying away as the children grow up and move away to find a job or to go to school, never to return, although Girvin had a more dramatic change than the slow, insidious decline most towns see.
Girvin was featured in National Geographic magazine about thirty years ago. I'm planning on looking it up after my trip is over.
Bakersfield, where we now were, once had 4,500 people living in it. Now, no one lives there.
After a while, Mary told me a little about herself. At the age of fifteen, she met a guy on a Harley who was passing through town. She really liked him, and week later she caught a bus to Florida. When she arrived in Pensacola she called him up and asked, "How would you feel about me being in Florida with you?" He said, "Uh, I don't know." "Well, you have about eight hours to decide." She lived with him for a while but, "It didn't work out."
Upon moving out, she got a good job with an insurance company and ended up staying there for fifteen years until coming back to Texas.
Upon her return to Texas, she moved in with a relative near Dallas who "turned into a terrible bitch when she got drunk, which was pretty much every night." Ultimately, "it didn't really work out," and she moved out.
At about the same time, her mom was having some health problems. As if she wasn't getting enough attention from the medical community, she also somehow managed to run over her own leg with her car. Mary decided to come back to this area to help take care of her.
She moved in with her sister but, "it didn't work out" because Mary has a Chihuahua and her sister has three cats.
So, Mary loaded up her car to move back east. When she stopped by her mother's house to say goodbye, her mother saw the loaded car and exclaimed, "Oh, Thank goodness! You've come to live with me!"
Mary didn't have the heart to tell her otherwise and she's been there ever since....
I hope it works out for her.
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| From Mark on a Bike 08 2 |
Off and running again (but not like a few days ago), I made good time with my rarely seen and greatly appreciated tailwind until I turned north for the last ten miles.
There are a lot of windmills in this area.
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| From Mark on a Bike 08 2 |
This gives you and idea of the steepness of the road.
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| From Mark on a Bike 08 2 |
Iraan is off I-10 a little ways. I exited on Highway 193 and made my way towards my evening stop.
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| From Mark on a Bike 08 2 |
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| From Mark on a Bike 08 2 |
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| From Mark on a Bike 08 2 |
In Iraan, I walked into the convenience store and bought something to drink. As I frequently do, I asked the cashier where the best place to eat in town is.
She glanced around as if she were about to tell me where the Dutchman's Lost Mine is, then gave me the name of the place. When you live in a small town, you can't play favorites.
Most people, when they find out I'm on a bike trip, ask a few of the regular questions, then start talking about themselves. There's nothing wrong with that; I like it that way and, as you should know by now, it's one of the main reasons I'm rolling across the country.
Not so with Chrystal, the cashier. Fifteen minutes later I didn't know much more than I did when I walked in the door, except that she was smart enough to realize that she needed to leave her life and lifestyle in San Angelo. Not knowing a single person in Iraan, she moved here and started a new life.
Watching her work was like watching a conductor at a symphony. The store was intermittently very busy and she was able to make every single person laugh or smile while she effortlessly juggled all of her other duties.
We were able to talk some during the slow times. Probably more than any other person I've met so far, she seemed genuinely interested in the bike trip.
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| From Mark on a Bike 08 2 |
I checked in to the only hotel in town, took a long, hot shower, then ate at the place Chrystal recommended.
Back at the hotel, I patched my tube, then looked at the map and made my riding plans for tomorrow. Like I said earlier, planning isn't too hard in West Texas. You just look at the next town, usually about sixty miles away, and hope you can make it that far.
63.40 distance
15.4 average
35.6 max
4:06:42 time
1174.7 total
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