Day 17

We rode from Fort Davis to Alpine to Marathon and on to Sanderson, TX. The total miles of 111, and 2041 feet of bicycling elevation gain were achieved by riding an hour after sundown. We both have headlights and taillights. Route 90 from Alpine to Sanderson was rarely used from afternoon to evening. The front run flat tire on my bike started losing to much air, so we went to the American Legion Post 79 in Alpine to convert the tire and wheel for a tube and install the tube. My cousin Duffy’s expertise and strength was helpful in this process as the power in my hands have diminished from riding. Alpine seems like a nice college town. We were successful with new tube insertion. On to Marathon, we started facing serious winds, the kind that brings you to a stop while you are going downhill. At the Marathon post office, which closes at 2:30pm on weekdays, I met a man named Eric who recommended “Angie’s restaurant for our dinner meal at mid afternoon; Eric also was going there for dinner; I met Angie the proprietor, cook, and server, who made probably one of the best meals we had since starting the trip; it was grilled chicken, on a bed of rice, topped with grilled vegetables. The fascinating part of the meal was learning about Eric who lives on a 42,000 acre ranch in the next town over; yes that is right 70 square miles, which we understood included a mountain; Eric is also a gun collector, showing us his 50 Caliber videos. He offered us to stay at his ranch, but we politely indicated we had a schedule of riding we were trying to keep. When we left for Sanderson at 4:30 we faced strong headwinds again. We made it to Sanderson at 9pm and found three motels, but no restaurants, we made the best out of a Stripes convenience store well run and managed by Russell. Russell said that he would be opening the store at 0600 tomorrow for us to start our journey to Del Rio, 120 miles away. Tonight we decided on a motel called Outback Oasis Motel;Lia the clerk showed us that the motel office was co-shared with a collection of snakes, especially rattlers😊