Day 24 - Sanderson to Langtry

Woke up in the morning to unsettled weather. I tried to take some pictures of the sky from the Sunset Siesta Motel, our lodgings for the night, but the camera just didn't capture the colors. Much more red in real life.

We ran in to a couple from Nevada doing the same route yesterday and they stayed at the same hotel. The five of us spent a lot of time this morning discussing options: should we ride now; should we take a rest day in Sanderson and see what tomorrows weather would be; should we wait an hour or so to see if the weather clears?

We decided to ride.

The weather was okay when we started. Michele ran over some wire about three miles after we left and it wrapped around her front wheel. That took about 20-minutes to clear up. After about 15 miles, only 5 miles to our first town, Dryden, a lightening bolt struck the ground not too far off to our right and the skies opened up. We got soaked. To make matters worse I flatted. I rode on with the flat for a little while hoping to make it to Dryden so I wouldn't have to fix the flat in the rain, but the rain stopped before too long and we stopped for repairs.

I've been having trouble with that tire for a few days, regular flats, but we hadn't been able to find anything in the tire. I switched to my spare.

In Dryden we ran into our friends from Nevada and another couple riding west, Canadians, one of which was riding an old Rivendell. She decided to look at my tire and after much searching she found a small thorn, we pulled it and set the tire aside. Maybe I'll switch back to it someday, but I'll continue on the spare for now.

Our Canadian friends decided to set up camp on the porch of an abandoned store front in Dryden rather than risk the rain and lightening. No more services until Langtry, 40 more miles. After coffee and much conversation with the locals, one of whom warned us of the dangers of javalinas, coyotes, gray wolves and bears (I'll give him the javalinas and coyotes, but wolves and bears? That's a but much), we pressed on.

Once again we rode onto headwinds all day, what a drag. After lunch we dropped the Nevadans sure that we would see them later that day as we were to stay at the same spot.

The rest of the day was uneventful, but exhausting. Wind, wind, wind. I'm starting to think Texas wants us to go back to where we came from.

One nice thing: we finally saw some flowering cacti.

After stopping at the only market in Langtry for beer, soda and snacks J&M pushed on to Keith's place. Jerry found Keith on Warm Showers. I stayed behind at the market for another beer and to wait for the riders behind us. I bought them some soda and Gatorade when the market closed, but they never showed up. A little worried, I left.

Keith has a trailer on his property and we stated there for the night. Nice, but crowded with the three of us. Keith sat down with us for drinks for a while. All in all, a very pleasant place to stay.

Dinner of camp food.