Westward-ho We Go

We arose pretty tired and sore from yesterday’s hill climbing. Our task for today was daunting- 83 miles to Del Rio. It seemed almost undoable if there were lots of hills. We were in luck! We had beautiful scenery and mountains in the distance but the route was fairly flat. Things were looking different than before, more like the way west Texas is depicted in pictures. We were cooking and averaging 13-17mph. Then we hit chipseal. What transpired next was the chipseal game: we would ride on the track where cars and trucks had worn the chipseal smooth. When we’d see a car approaching in our helmet mirrors, we would move over to the bumpy, broken chipseal shoulder. This went on for miles. Early in the ride, we came to a spot on the road where the Nueces river was flowing across the road. We knew from experience to walk our bikes across the water. Just as we were about to take our shoes off, we saw another cross country cyclist on the other side. This cyclist, whose name we neglected to get, was riding across to raise funds for her library. She seemed flummoxed on how to proceed until she saw us take off our shoes. Soon she was doing the same, and we met in the middle. We reached Ft. Clark around lunchtime, so we stopped at a local church with a picnic table and heated up the rehydrated dinner we should have eaten the night before. Just as we were leaving, a woman came to ready the church for Sunday services. She offered us cold water and a chance to use the facilities. Before leaving the area, we toured Ft. Clark and swam in the refreshing spring-fed pool on the grounds. We made it to Del Rio before dark, ate dinner and went to Wal-mart to get new cooking fuel and a few other necessities. We awoke the next morning eager to get to Seminole Canyon, as they lead guided tours of the 9000 year old pictographs there. As we were leaving the hotel, a gentleman asked about our trip. Bill then gave us a generous donation, and warned us of some threatening weather. The ride to Seminole Canyon offered beautiful views of the distant hills and Mexico. It was gloomy and spit rain on us from time to time. We went through our first border security checkpoint. We got to the campground just as the big storm came. We got all our rain gear on and covered our bikes. We sat under the picnic shelter while in rained for quite a while. We were cold and drenched. Once the rain ended, we hiked for over 10 miles through the canyon. They canceled the guided tour, but our own tour was spectacular! Aside from breathtaking canyon views, we saw several cactus varieties- many blooming because of the rain! It was worth getting soaked earlier! We had a really hard time cooking our supper because it was so windy- it kept blowing our stove out😬! After supper we walked up the hill to watch the spectacular pink sunset over the desert.It was a perfect end to our day! Total cycling mileage: 83+41=124 Total hiking mileage: 4+10=14