Happy birthday week Tad!

I will pick up right where tad left off. So about 9 hours after tad fell asleep in his hammock under those van horn bleachers, we all awoke to the sounds of about 50 kids running up and down the bleachers. Happy birthday tad! They apparently are doing their part to fight childhood obesity in van horn, Texas as this was a pretty serious Workout. We packed up all our things as quickly as possible and tried to sneak on out before any gym teachers yelled at us. whew!

We rolled on to the first gas station we could find ( our favorite type of breakfast joint). While drinking our coffee that morning we had 2 separate people who, after they found out what we were up to, asked us if we were carrying a gun. They were shocked and very worried for us when we said we were not. Although, with the 2 water guns I it tad for his birthday, perhaps we will be alright.

That night we were lucky enough to happen upon a star party at the McDonald observatory, so cool! They told us all these tricks on how to identify constellations and then we got to peer through the telescopes at things like saturna rungs, craters in the moon and the Orion nebula. We had a big slumber party in the floor of this man johns home ( a kind man who works at the observatory and loves cyclists). We met a great couple headed west on a tandem together...wish they had been heading the same way as us!

The riding hat day was simply lovely. Down down through horse pastures and rolling hills. And eventually out to the desert where we found marathon, Texas.

Marathon is a place that seems like nothing from the outside but man are there a lot of treasures. One of which was the hostel we stayed at. They let cross country bikes stay free, have all this crazy artsy architecture inspired by using things that otherwise may have been trash like bottles and old trailers. We had a great night with all the other guests there and felt so enchanted by the place it took us until 12 the next day to pull ourselves away. one of the many things we discovered was a bed and breakfast made of paper Crete and painted wild and beautiful colors. They also had a beautiful garden inside...lovely pictures will be uploaded when phone service is a little better.

From marathon we moved on to Sanderson. We did not make it much past the stripes has station before stopping for a lunch/dinner with some of our new friends from the hostel. We decided to continue on past Sanderson to camp in the metropolis of dryden. It appeared to be almost completely uninhibited. It did have a lovely sunset and sunrise and a whole lot of Mosquitos- maybe that is why everyone left!

Yesterday the wind gods made sure we were not getting too weak with all those sweet tail winds and threw in a serious head wind. Somehow we made it 60 miles in this thing. I don't know that I have ever needed to use the granny gear to pedal downhill to get up to speeds of 7 mph, whew! Definitely
an experience of endurance and tolerance. Tad fought it out more than the rest of us with those panniers.

We got a little less wind today and have landed in bracketville. As far as we can tell it is most notable for a drive through everything store and the sweet dugout and baseball field where we are currently camped. Happy Easter everyone!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Location:Bracketville, Texas