Saturday, March 18 - Clint, TX to Van Horn, TX

 Clint to Van Horn TX. We started the morning at 39 degrees with sleet and snow showers. 18 mile an hour winds coming straight into our face. The wind and temperature continued all day. We could only average about 10 miles an hour. It took us almost 6 hours to travel 52 miles. As we went along, we would jump into the sag van every 10 miles to warm up. At 52 miles the tour director called it and said we were done. He treated us to lunch, and we warmed up. The first day we had cut short a ride. We were supposed to ride 105 miles today. No one argued to the contrary! We drove back in the van and had to go through a border patrol check. We arrived at our hotel still very tired. We will get ready for 29-degree weather in the morning.

Friday, March 17 - El Paso West to Clint, TX

 El Paso West to Clint, TX. Only 51 miles but the hardest day of the cross-country ride for me. It was St Patrick’s Day and I think a Green Leprechaun got into the works. We started the day at 55 degrees with a 5 mile climb out of the box at 6-8 percent. We had a 35 mile an hour crosswind up higher in the pass we crossed. In the second picture you can see the mountain we climbed up to. We climbed to the base of the mountain and then we headed up into the divide between the two peaks. The third picture shows the wind blowing us to the side where we had to lean into the wind; before that picture was taken and lower down we just had a guard rail to our right and a 1000 foot drop off. Kind of freaky. At the top it dropped in temperature to 28 degrees. We were not prepared for that. As we went down the other side we froze. My core temperature got to such a point that I got the shakes and could not stop. The van that sags us did stop halfway down and we climbed in for a while to warm up before finishing the decent. I never seemed to recover completely the rest of the ride. We also had a headwind the rest of the course. A day to forget. We have had some great days so far so I will forget this one.

Thursday, March 16 - Columbus, NM to El Paso, TX

 We left Columbus NM this morning. We had a tailwind most of the day. Got the highest average speed for 68 miles that I have ever gotten, 21.7 mph. It was all wind assist I can assure you. The landscape is more of the same as the last two days. Nothing really striking. But nice, nonetheless. I included a picture of our lunch table and our chairs we sit in when we take a lunch break. Part of the lunch thing is letting everyone catch up and get together as a group. We just have the usual lunch fixings of meat or peanut butter sandwiches, cookies, chips and nuts. We passed into Texas near the end of the ride; our fourth state.

Wednesday, March 15 - Portland, AZ to Columbus, NM (Century Day)

 Portal AZ to Columbus NM. 100 miles today. More riding in the southern plains. We crossed the Continental Divide today. We had a fantastic tailwind most of the afternoon. Zoomed into Columbus. Saw the ”Wall” several more times today and came to our scary hotel. Ha. It is actually not all that bad but that is what you get in the middle of nowhere. Finally, a map of what we have done so far. More bumpy parts (mountains) to come according to the map.

Tuesday, March 14 - Bisbee, AZ to Portal, AZ via New Mexico

 85 miles in the books. Bisbee to Portal AZ via New Mexico. We had to go in and then back out of New Mexico to get to our hotel. We will be back into New Mexico for good tomorrow, and we will say goodbye to beautiful southern Arizona. We also stopped at the spot where Geronimo surrendered to US troops about halfway today. We rode mostly on the wide-open plains today with mountains in the distance. Very beautiful but hard to capture in pictures. We ended up tonight in Portal which is pretty much nowhere! Not much here but I’m glad to be done today and have a bed. Tomorrow another 100-mile day.

We were in New Mexico, just for a few miles today, but had to curve back to Arizona for a place to sleep.  We will be back in New Mexico tomorrow.