Valley of the Rio Grande

Morning came cloudy, if you can call it morning before it’s light enough not to need battery-powered lights.  The gibbous moon shone through a hole in the clouds. 

Undulant wind--gusts flavors

away into hands of light.  Slow

blaze of [sunrise] throws spears

up from the sea. 

     Russell Salamon—Parallel Voyages 51    

After eighteen miles of easy riding with hardly a car to interrupt my solitude, I came to the town of Tornillo, which stretches from the river up to Road 20, from Mexico to American farms.  I rode south through the town, nearly to the border with its high fence, and came back to the café, where no English is spoken.  Ironically, all the signs in this little Spanish town are in English.  My poco espanol got me a good breakfast and suspicious looks.  Is she undercover border patrol?

Most of the traffic is either farm tractors or farm blackbirds as I pedal toward El Paso.

In Fabens I met a Spanish-speaking man on a bicycle who asked me where I came from and where was I going.  I gave him the place names, and he grinned broadly.  We were stopped in front of this barred-up building, which he told me was the café of his mother, Noreen.  He stared fondly at it as he said, “Good times then, mas bicicletas, now nada.  Sometime I ride to California” 

Honey, did you water the lawn?

No, but I flooded the pecans

I don’t think you should have done that.

This evening I am on the north edge of El Paso, trying to miss most of its traffic.  A thunderstorm just broke loose over the Motrel6, and I am happy not to be out on the road. 

One small objective I have set for this endeavor is to lose ten pounds.  The easy way would be to eat as usual and use up the flab with pedaling.  I am neither dietitian nor athlete, but I know when I am hungry, and I usually know what I’m hungry for.  I just returned from a Chinese buffet restaurant where I had three heaping plates, and they lost money.  I’m not sure this objective will be met.

The Other Side of the Desert

From Van Horn, Texas, there’s a straight road heading west, called Interstate 10, and no other road, except in some places, a frontage road along it.  As I rode the frontage, many big rigs passed me on the main highway to my left.  This one, like several others, honked as he passed, and I raised my hand to him, thankful for a little human interaction.

Sierra Blanca is mostly boarded up or falling down.  It’s not the strong community it was when Tom Ellison went to war and returned a hero.  At age eighty-eight, he still opens the big sliding door to his mechanic shop, but doesn’t get much business anymore.  He cuts and polishes rocks for sale there too, and both of his wives wore his jewelry on the ears, their pictures prominently displayed.  His most recent wife died in February, and Tom mopes around the shop, happy for a listening ear, someone whose father made tools like these, and who grew up watching people come with broken things. 

It’s not uncommon to see a holstered handgun in rural Texas, mostly worn by Border Patrol, but also by most anyone.  “The reason al qaeda won’t attack this country is because citizens arm themselves.  We do it legally when we can.”  And then he asked if I carry a gun.  

I left Sierra Blanca, riding past this old house in early light.  Something about it speaks of old ideas about land and habitation, of using local rock, topped with store-bought lumber, keeping warm, and cool, and enjoying the hills and the sunset.  

my shadow

in the morning

I follow it home

it reaches ahead

tugging  

I set out with some fear back in Del Rio when I started onto the west Texas desert, into its vast windy interior, from the place where I gave up last summer.  And today I came to its edge.  In this hazy view, you see the valley of the Rio Grande River, and Mexico beyond.  From here I dropped a thousand feet into farmland, a world apart from the high desert I’d been pedaling for the past ten days.  The monster that defeated me last year is conquered.  

I rode within a mile of the river, and never saw it.  These farms with their families living within sight of Mexico are turning ground, planting cotton, filling their irrigation ditches with water from the Rio Grande.  

the wind is my horse today

he runs through the sky

and over the sand

all the way to the edge

of the great desert.

A Friendly Wind

looking west, 10 miles east of Marfa,
after crossing mountain

Five o’clock in the morning, full moon high in the west over Alpine, Texas.  Twenty-five degrees-F, wind calm.  I wear every bit of warm clothing the bike has carried all these miles, including three pairs of socks, ski mask, sweat-band over my nose, thick gloves, jacket, rain jacket as a windbreaker.  I close the motel room door and start pedaling west—destination, Van Horn, one hundred miles.

looking east before sunrise,
10 miles east of Marfa

I usually don’t start before seven when there’s enough dawn to avoid using the lights.  But making it to Van Horn today depends on one thing, as far as I can predict the things such rides depend on.  I depends on the wind.  If wind performs according to forecast, I should have tailwind after twenty miles, so I set out to do twenty miles in moonlight.

There would be a breakfast stop at Marfa, after crossing a small range of desert mountains, one-fourth of the distance to Van Horn.  My fingers and toes were numb when I locked the the bike to a post in front of Stripes convenience store.  Customers looked at the strange creature, all bundled up, in their store, stripping off layers.  But Stripes has good food and a table and coffee, and I answered some of their questions.  I stayed there long enough to get warm and for the day to warm, and for the most gratifying thing of allto happen—wind began to rise from the southeast, just as the forecast said.

Even less vegetation sprouts from this part of the desert than on previous days, less objects to slow the unrelenting wind.  Ininhabited only by huge ranches, unfarmed, sand so sparsely watered and permeable that even the deep roots of mesquite keep out.

Wind increased to a steady gale of about 20mph.  That would have stopped me had it come headon. But from behind, I rode at 20mph feeling no wind, except when it occasionally shifted for a few minutes.  I rode with less effort than I had on a previous day at 4mph in headwind.

The miles rolled on easily.  Open space gave way occasionally to an isolated oddity.  The US Air Force, Tethered Aerostat Radar Site, whose primary mission is surveillance along the southwest border of the United States.  This helium balloon can rise to 15,000 feet while tethered by a cable. 

Valentine, Texas

Valentine Post Office

I came to the dying town of Valentine where 217 people still live live, and where hundreds come on Vaslentine’s Day.  They want their love notes postmarked “Valentine, Texas.”

Miles of road like this with a pleasant tailwind.  I arrived in Van Horn last evening, happy for what I have, and happy for all the good wishes many of you have sent.

easier it is

with the wind

to pedal one hundred miles

than thirty

against it

How good and how pleasant  it is to pedal 100 miles on a day like today, through a small portion of the great open expanse of the Southwest.

Please note that I have added a link to Michael Angerman’s Map of my journey at the top of the blog.  

Whims of the Wind

Town of Marathon taken the day before

I started early from the strange little enclave outside of Marathon.  It was an hour before the first glimmer of dawn, and I wanted to beat the wind.  Riding through Marathon, there was sleep in the little town, and I soon left its lights and passed once again into solitude.  Within a few miles, its last flicker disappeared into the overcast sky that hid both stars and town.  I was happy because there was no wind.  I had done something right.  

Alpine in the distance

Alpine

The evening before, I had met Bob at the commune (not his real name) who has a smart phone.  He has no car and no money, but has ridden his bicycle 100,000 miles, he says.  “I’m at La Loma for a while to catch up.”  I mentioned to Bob that with no internet or television, I could not check the weather.  “May I give you tomorrow’s forecast?” he said.  And with a few touches on his pad he had the wind forecast from the west at 20mph, starting around seven or eight in the morning.  A more fearsome forecast I could not imagine, unless it was 40mph, which is possible out here.

Denny's Diner in Alpine

With only thirty miles from Marathon to Alpine, I figured I had beat the monster once again as I pedaled in the silent night.  Then, just as the cloudy sky turned bright enough so I could turn off my lights, it started—a gentle puff.  Within an hour, it rose to a steady, strong gale.  I rested beside the road and considered my position—fifteen miles to go.  I could ride at 5mph on the level, but on the upgrades, I slowed to four.  I can walk the bike at 3mph and with less effort than riding.  So that’s what I did, walked when it was uphill.  I got a break when the wind decided to slow for an hour, then the final five-mile push into its controlling whim. 

Today, Monday, is a day of rest in Alpine.  I just returned from Denny’s Diner, for coffee, breakfast and conversation with locals, where few insights struck me about small towns.  That’s Stephanie you see walking fast, doing the chores of two waitresses.  The other two are Babbs, the cook on the left, and Marjorie, the manager on the right (not their real names or titles). They have learned that indispensible small-town skill—accommodate, don’t shun.  In a big town, Babbs might tell the union boss that Stephanie is a quota-buster and has shorter longevity.  And Stephanie might say she deserves more money for her greater productivity.  Marjorie might give Babbs a warning to shape up or be fired.  But these citified actions are not possible where everybody knows everybody and you don’t have the option of replacing employees or quitting for a better job.  You don’t have the option of not knowing your neighbor, or even not knowing the eccentric who lives a mile away. 

Back in Sanderson, Danny knew that the motel in Comstock is rundown and overpriced.  He knows the blind man there who says he is the richest man in Texas.  And in Alpine, a certain resident who quit her job to work at the Gage Hotel in Marathon,  now regrets it because of the commute.  And it’s not like you can go to another café for your morning coffee because of some dislike.

The Rising Wind

I have done enough of these long bicycle treks to observe patterns in the ways they develop.  The first few days are for getting in shape and for arranging all my things so that everything has a known place and is accessible according when I might need it—day things, evening things, emergency things.  Eventually, there comes a time, perhaps on the fifth day out, when a rhythm settles in.  I’ve been gliding along, taking in whatever lies along the view—the lightning-shape of mesquite branches, the shapes of sharp deterrents on barbed wire fences at the right-of-way lines, for example.  And I’m caught up in the cadence of my feet on the pedals, unaware of any conscious thought about it all, perhaps like a mantra brings meditation.

Boundaries between self and world dissolve.  The movement of clouds and my movement merge and become parts of the same flow.  Some call it oneness, for there is suddenly no you that exists apart from the world around you.  And as soon as I start to describe it, as if trying to measure both the position and momentum of a quantum particle, my separateness returns, and I lose the thing I began to describe. 

Gage Hotel in Marathon

Famous Burro Restaurant in Marathon

I find satisfaction in dealing with something as neatly bounded and cozily finite as a bicycle where everything has a place and I know where it is.  So it was that for three days I ignored the wind and settled into conditioning for the long haul, either because the wind was non-existent, weak, or coming from behind.  But on the fourth day, the sixty-mile stretch from Sanderson to Marathon, a span of desert without shade or habitation, save an occasional distant ranch house,  the wind came forcefully to my attention.  Coming from the west, it slowed my speed to half.  Pedaling on the level seemed like uphill.  I dragged into Marathon, slid into a chair in the Famous Burro and ordered coffee and food, then nearly fell asleep before the drug took affect.

I still had a short ride out of town to an interesting-sounding place I’d heard about and hoped to spend the night. La Loma del Chivo (Knol of the kid?) is an eclectic assortment of buildings, chickens, dropouts, and an energetic host, Ingrid.  I had called her the day before, told her of my pedaling, to which she said, sure, come and stay, no charge.  

She showed me around and explained that all the buildings are made out of papercrete—Portland cement and paper mixed together like concrete, but much lighter weight.  I stepped inside one of the buildings and it must have been ten degrees cooler inside.  It’s the insulating effect of the papercrete, she said.

She put me up in this little house trailer that hasn’t trailed in many years.  I used my own sleeping bag and was quite comfortable.  I could have stayed in a larger building with some of the others, but when I told them I wanted to get up at 5am to try and beat the wind, their expressions directed me back to the trailer.  

In a pit under this dome building is a tree, or what used to be a tree.  There’s a stairway going down, and the inside is otherwise mostly vacant. It must have been used for some ceremony or ritual, but nobody seems sure.  I have slept in an assortment of quarters on this trip so far and have no complaints about this one. 

Border Crossings

It was a calm morning with a comforting primordial smell.  The few lights of Langtry diminished in the tiny mirror attached to my glasses as I rode west in darkness.  The moonless sky glittered with tiny lights in the otherwise absence of light, except for my headlight glowing on the pavement ahead and my flashing red light warning drivers approaching behind.  But there were few drivers, and most of them in big trucks, the most courteous I’ve found.  Within an hour, the great light began its glow behind me, and I turned back often to bathe in it. 

     at the top

     of the hill

     stopping to gaze back

     behind me

     the day's ride

            poem by Benita Kape on facebook—tanka poets on site

Along the sixty miles that I pedaled to Sanderson, stands hardly a structure—a few distant ranch buildings, a few windmills, and a tiny store in a place they call a town, Dryden.  Most of what I saw is typified in these two pictures.  On the left is what drivers see; on the right is the way it looks when I lay the bike down for a rest. 

These vultures may have
crossed the nearby border
with Mexico.  Their passports? -
Wild Innocence

An advantage of riding slowly on the shoulder is that I sometimes catch a glimpse that drivers miss.  So it was that under a mesquite tree, this lovely flowering cactus.  Of course, drivers see the vultures eating last night’s rabbit-kill, but the birds are gone before they can get a picture. 

Art by Gary Blankenship

I feel as if floating through Texas in a blur of imaginary things that are floating past me.  The miles roll on into the hot afternoon; mind drains to feed the legs.  Thoughts turn to images as I drink water, happy to have its life-sustaining flow. 

Danny, Manager of Budget Inn

Sanderson arrived at about four in the afternoon to a cowgirl on a tired horse.  I didn’t come with high hopes for a good night, after the marginal motels in Comstock and Langtry—Comstock did not have running water, and Langtry was just dirty.  I rode to the Budget Inn, and there standing in yard, I met Danny, the manager.  He showed me a room that had everything that matters—wifi, non-smoking room, air conditioning, ensuite bath, and running water.  The price was so low and I was so tired that I took it for two nights.  

Danny said there is only one tiny store in Sanderson, and that the only restaurant is seldom open.  Since the store was over a mile away and hard to find, he said he would drive me there.  He talked as he drove, of this little desert town, said that most businesses have closed.  “I am vegetarian,” he said in a heavy accent, “My mother and I order our Indian food mostly through the mail.”  I told him that I love Indian food, the spicier the better.  After some conversation, he asked if I’d like to join them for dinner.  One thing about the work of turning pedals all day it that you do get hungry, and it didn’t take me long to say yes.  But what he meant was that he would bring his mother’s home cooked Indian food to my room.  The food was good, andI thanked him profusely when he came back to get the dishes.

Danny is not a Texan in the usual way, not a beefeater or smoker, does not pack as far as I know, and has no drawl.  But his Texas hospitality is unsurpassed.  It is morning now, and he knocked on my door to ask if I would like some Indian Breakfast.

I have been riding near the Mexican border for three days now, and some thoughts come to mind about border crossings.  The vultures I saw yesterday may have crossed the border, and Danny surely crossed borders in coming here.  Plant seeds blow from one side to the other.  Clouds and butterflies fly back and forth.  All have something to declare, and what they bring might not be duty-free.  Nothing respects borders except us.  International boundary and cultural boundary, a boundary between earth and self.  Maybe the erasure of a boundary, of distinction, comes about in the way the distinction between prose and haiku is erased in haibun.

Rio Grande River

the boundary

bound to my side

and yours

bound for the ocean

If you followed me last year from Florida to Del Rio, Texas, you probably remember the map prepared by Michael Angerman.  He plotted my course each day as I rode.  And he is doing it again this time.  You can zoom and pan on his map and see where I have been and what is near me.   http://goo.gl/maps/e2fS5