Day 32: Dryden, TX to east of Marathon, TX

Daily Miles: 59.4 Total Miles: 1765.9

Today's landscape. All day long...

Today was an absolute horror show in every regard. I woke up early with the best intentions and by 8:15am Mary and I were out the door in search of breakfast. Once again, nothing was open, so we had to get breakfast from the same gas station we got our corn dog + ramen noodle dinner. The not very good chorizo eggs, refried beans, and mexican potatoes made me long for anything else. I supplemented the gas station breakfast with a Clif bar and then we headed back to Dryden to start my journey. Mary dropped me off and then headed back to the hotel and I set out, figuring that I would still have yesterday's tail wind, and would be back in Sanderson (~20 miles away) in less than 1.5 hours. 

... except for the occasional cactus

I could not have been more wrong. nearly 2 hours and 15 minutes later I rolled back in to the Budget Inn parking lot after battling a 20+ MPH headwind the entire ride. I ate a snack and rested a bit before heading back out, realizing that there was no way I could ride the entire 75 miles to Marathon today. Once again the headwind was fierce and the hot, dry, dusty desert air was just blasting me in the face all day. I stopped two more times, once to eat a grilled chicken sandwich that Mary somehow procured once a restaurant finally opened in Sanderson. The scenery stayed exactly the same all day, high desert, as I climbed over 2600' towards Marathon. 

The agony of defeat

My average speed for the day was a painfully slow 9.0 MPH, well over 2 MPH worse than my slowest previous average. I was on my bike for over 6.5 hours today, more than 2 hours longer than yesterday and I clocked a pathetic 0.5 miles more than yesterday's ride. Finally at around 6:30pm I had to give up the fight and call it a day. Mary and I drove the remaining 15 miles in to Marathon and I will return to my stopping point to start tomorrow's ride. I can only hope it's better than today's. Tonight we had very limited hotel options. Mary found a tourist information book and it listed 4 hotels. The first one said she had no availability, but could get us a room with one king bed for $120. We said no thank you. Mary called the next two hotels and the same woman answered! Finally she told us that we could rent a trailer from her friend Juan Gonzales for $120. We said definitely not. So now we are stationed in the Gage Hotel, a very nice boutique hotel with 2 beds for slightly more than we would have paid to stay in Juan's trailer. We are both looking forward to making our way out of the desert and back to civilization ASAP.