The holidays are over, at least, that is what I hear. We put down another 367 miles and landed ourselves in Texas. Along the way, we popped into Mexico for outstanding people, delicious food, and budget tequila.
As we’ve rolled on our tires, pushed with our feet and calves, I am slowly awakened to the vastness of our country and this earth. Sure, we can jump into a plane or a car and be brought to some edge of what we know. But, in-between, there is the vastness. These unnamed roads, innumerable hills and mountains. Sights rarely seen – really seen. Lonely places in the vastness of known space, unknown to you or I.
We enter a new year. Here is to seeing, traveling, and knowing all the things we’ve missed.
Cheers,
Latvian Alaskan Family
Ophelia, Augustine, Ance, and Forest
Dec. 21st – Silver City to City of Rocks
32 miles. Walked over to the Bike Works to meet up with Dave. Ance’s bike got a new chain, new rear wheel, cassette, tires, and tubes. Augustine got a new chain and rack bolt extracted. Mine got a new cassette, chain, rear derailleur cable, front and back racks, as well as a re-wrap of my handle bars (so nice). All the bikes also got their rims reamed out to accommodate schrader valves – just to make our tube buying lives a bit simpler. After 2,700 miles of minimal maintenance on my part, they all needed some tender love’n care.
Schoolwork, breakfast doughnuts, and sandwiches and pack-up. Got our cabin deposit back and rode out of Silver City at a 4 MPH clip up the rolling hills. After 3 or 4 miles the uppity hills abated a bit and a faster pace broke out. Following Bayard’s minor hill, we then unleashed ourselves into a sprint. Stopped in at a glum looking Hurley gas station / store / restaurant for a lunch on the cracked sidewalk – like upstanding citizens.
About a mile or two back on the bikes, I got a truck tire wire wrapped in my front wheel spokes. As it whipped around making a racket, I pulled down on my breaks too slow and yank the offending wire out. I was in front and didn’t signal my intentions. Augustine rammed into the back of the trailer and crashed, followed shortly after by Ance. Oh, boy. Other than some shaken nerves, a broken mud guard on Augustine’s bike, a couple of scrapes, everyone came through alright.
Rode 15 miles in 1 hour 6 mins, which is Indy 500 speeds for us. Got to the turn off to the City of Rocks. A 5 mile slow peddle to the park. Descending into the bowl that cradles the rocks, its as if giants were playing golf with misshapen balls that never quite made the hole. A strange plane of barren desert hills with shapely rocks whose silhouettes on sun down appear to be strewn about body parts from those giant golfers.
The sun went down in a slow motion spasm of color and the overcast cover of clouds parted as the bluish silver of the moon opened its clever eye on the moor of ancient boulders.
Dec. 22nd – City of Rocks
0 Miles, couple miles around the park unloaded. Since we have time to kill before our holiday vacation (in a heated building) in Deming, we rocked out in the City of Rocks for an extra day. The original plan was to stop in at the nearby hot springs, but the resort never answered their phone and trying to use their website was something like programming a 1950’s spaceship for a trip to the local grocery store to purchase quantum mechanic processing chips.
We took this day for schoolwork, reading, lounging, and generally eating and snacking like ravenous sloths on holiday.
Dec. 23rd – City of Rocks to Deming, NM
27 miles. Busted out of the City of Rocks around 10:30 AM. Short 1 mile hill out of the strange mortar holding the slowly eroding volcanic rocks. Bit of a headwind to the turn off to the highway. Then a steady and relatively easy scoot at 8 to 12 MPH. No lunch break – 27 miles in one bang. Showed up at our AirBnB for a couple days off for Christmas celebrations.
Took a family unloaded bike ride (after showering) to the stores to get gifts for each other, then back to the hut for eating and sleepy time.
Dec. 24th – 25th – Deming
0 miles. Christmas Eve, slow morning, Christmas decorations, fake tree, one last trip to the stores. Latvian styled dinner of black beans, ham, and sauerkraut. Opened one present in the evening.
Christmas morning – Ophelia up at 6 AM. Opened up one present, lego sets for each of the kids. While they worked to set those up, Ance and I made a Christmas breakfast of eggs Benedict. Unwrapped the rest of the security holdings after cramming our gullets.
Games and toy play for the rest of the morning into the early afternoon. Watched Encanto once, and then twice. Crowd pleaser. Off to bed late – for the Kvasnikoffs.
Dec. 26th – Deming to 9 Miles West of Las Cruces
45 miles. Shook off our holiday laziness with a day of awesome tailwind. Checked out of our bungalow at 11 AM, stopped into the store for a grocery resupply and off we set. The tailwind is a steady 20 to 30 MPH and the road is relatively flat or downhill. So, for the vast majority of the day, we soar like the crow flies.
Pulled off for a quick lunch snack just off the interstate. So much trash strewn about. It makes you want to burn humanity down. At that point we were 34 miles in.
Trucked on for another 11 miles to Bowline’s Trading Post. We were tentatively planning to make it to the Las Cruces KOA, another 9 miles away, which would have made for a 54 mile day. However, Augustine was a bit pooped, so we pulled off a dead end road near a gun range for the night.
Dec. 27th – 9 Miles West of Las Cruces to Las Cruces
15 miles. Short day on a Frontage road into a Las Cruces RV park – Siesta RV park. Woman at the front desk informed me that she recently had Covid, so she was keeping her distance. Fantastic. $20 bucks for the night – we took it up. We arrived relatively early, so we set off to go watch Sing 2 (a movie the girls have been clambering to watch since they saw a preview back in Missoula, MT some months ago). Unloaded bike trip some 5 miles to the theater in the late afternoon.
Ride back in the dark with a stop into Wal-Mark. The wind whipped into a frenzy with the onslaught of night. Game of unfinished monopoly. Then Ance kicked my ass in chess. Then sleepy time.
Dec. 28th – Las Cruces, NM to Anthony, TX
27 miles. A day of pecan groves stripped of all their leafy clothing, looking forlorn and in need of a hug, or a stiff drink. Bumbled along out of the busy streets of Las Cruces. Broke off into smaller roads and towns where massive mazes of perfectly aligned pecan trees, dizzying in proportions, stretched out beyond the reasoning of sight. Hundred of signs ask you to report pecan thieves and chastise you not to pick them.
Turned off onto the road into Anthony for our hotel stay for the night. We quietly passed into Texas and made our own fancy Ramen on the camp stove in front of our hotel room door, smiling a waving at our neighbors.
Dec. 29th – Anthony, TX to Juarez, Mexico
24 miles. Being so close to Mexico, we popped in for quality tacos and cheap tequila. The roads through El Paso were stupid angry and busy and the sidewalks just decided to end without any rhyme or reason. It was an urban jungle brawl for most of the day. Stopped in at our first Church’s Chicken fast food restaurant for greasy chicken and limp fries. Serving the world since 1952.
Meandered our way into Mexico. No one checked our passports into Mexico, the boarder patrol ran through 3 or 4 of our bags and called it good. Bienvenido a Mexico. Scooted along on the Mexican side. The traffic is just as insane, but the drivers are much more gracious, providing you plenty of space and slow for you – this is really not the case in most American urban areas.
Got to our AirBnB, where Raul showed us our digs for the next couple of days. He returned not too long after with Pan Dulces, welcoming us. After showering, we set out walking the city. Picked up some supplies at S-Mart grocery store and stopped in at Los Molcajetes for some astounding tacos El Pastor, coming in at just under a buck a pop.
Dec. 30th, 2021 – Jan. 1st, 2022 – Juarez, Mexico
0 miles. While we did ride our bikes around Juarez for the 3 days we stayed, they were unloaded and we were pretty lazy through our duration. We spent our New Year’s cycling vaction overeating, purchasing way too many underpriced goods, and watching too many movies.
New Year’s eve was a cold deluge of heavy rain that we listened to from the comfort of Raul’s departmentos. On New Year’s day, we set out for a bike ride to Burger King playground and washed some clothes at a nearby laundromat. Last night indoors was a splurge of food, warmth, and movies.
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Jan. 2nd – Juarez, Mexico to San Elizario, TX
16 miles. Short day to get back into the U.S. of A. Crossed at Putente Zaragoza. As expected there was actually a line where actual boarder control checked our passports and asked us questions about what in the world we wanted to do in America. The pedestrian crossing at Zaragoza is also setup anti-cycle tourist. There are two flights of stairs and a single narrow queuing line roped off. We did a clown show of shuffling our bags down along with our bikes.
I lent a hand to an elderly woman with a large metal luggage basket down the stairs having some tribulations. As I went back up the stairs to grab more of our gear, she began loading our bags in her cart as a gesture of her thanks. I had to try and explain, in my terrible Spanish, that we were just going to load all the bags on our bicycles.
At the American boarder control alter, we had our bags and bikes dog sniffed for illicit materials. We had our Mexican oranges and other vegetables confiscate. Surprisingly, however, the boarder officers were quite amiable. All together and in one piece, on the other side, we ventured into some stores – our sweaters got shrunk at a Mexican lavenderia and we need a food resupply.
Trekked onto San Elizario to David’s cyclist only camp. Met David (the owner of the property) and Peter (a fellow cyclist). We setup our camp and sat in a circle drinking wine and making dinner as the 21 degree evening decended upon us.
Peter has traveled all over the world on his bicycle. He is boisterous and wise and full of practical nuggets on managing life on the road. David is soft spoken with a knowing smile. He is a volunteer serving on the local city counsel. Something tells me not to get on his bad side.
Jan. 3rd – San Elizario to Fort Hancock
33 miles. Cold night. Woke to a dazzling sparkling blanket of frost dancing in the morning sun. Our bones creak slowly with the cold. Chit-chatting with Peter and David while sipping coffee and making breakfast. Took awhile to get ourselves together – Peter enlighten me to the fact that I am way under pressurizing our tires, so I spent some time ruining one tube and pumping up the rest to the proper pressure.
Had to stop at the laundry on the way out of town – Ophelia seems to have developed some phobia of accidentally peeing in a sleeping bag, which inexplicably results in her wetting hers.
Didn’t get on the road until 1:30 PM. We pounded out the 30+ miles to Fort Hancock without a break. Had a granola bar snack on the side of the road. The day held onto the frosty crispness of the night before.
Peter had set us up with Chuy, the Pastor of the Fort Hancock Baptist church. He was out of town but coordinated for us to meet up with Craige, who opened up the fellowship hall for us. He showed up with his pickup truck and gallon hat. Unlocked the church and turned up the heat with charm and good humor. Before meeting up with us he mentioned he had Covid, so he wore a green medical mask. After asking him how he was feeling, “Feel fine, got onto ivermectin as soon as I could. The government doesn’t endorse it, but it is cheap and it works. Had a few friends of mine get on it in the early stages of Covid, and they got through just fine.” He went on his way.
We took showers and cooked a meal in the fellowship hall. After being cold since the night before, the warmth of indoors makes our cheeks blush and brings on an incessant yawning. Fell into a warmth induced sleep that weighed approximately 10,435 pounds.
Jan. 4th – Fort Hancock to Traveling Tiger Truck Stop
21 miles. Vacated the church, leaving it hopefully cleaner than how we found it around 10:30 AM. Found out last night that both of our tenants in Anchorage will be moving out this and next month, so there has was a bit of a hustle shuffle to figure that out.
Just before lunch I had a tire blowout due to the protective tire liner. Fantastic. Stopped to fix it and have some lunch grub. The sun towers in a bleach like light above the winter desert, horses across the road stare at us in disbelief.
We had started the day with Sierra Blanca in mind, at 2:30 PM we modified our ambitions to a truck stop just before joining the I-10 freeway. A huge gravel lot with a barren stocked convenience store. We didn’t realize that when the night took the sky, pretty much the whole lot would be crammed full of semis. The clatter and roar of engines filled up the thin cold air, both from the gravel lot and the paved freeway nearby. Dreams were broken up with beams of headlights parking and pistons pounding.
Jan. 5th – Tiger Truck Stop to Sierra Blanca
19 miles. Woke in the rumble of semi engines running throughout the night – our non-trucker supposition is that those that remain running are refrigerated trucks. Breakfast of bolillos, cheese, and bologna. Yellow semi truck pulled up, “You guys know where I can buy tires?” Ance and I looked at each other like confused chipmunks, “Sorry, we don’t.” Small chit chat about us heading to Florida on bikes. He began pulling out his wallet, “No, no, we are all good!” A smile and off he drove.
Loaded up and lumbered uphill at a slow, but not excruciating pace. Up we rubber kissed against desert rolling hills. We’ve been watching them from a distance for the past day. Had to press onto the freeway again for 3 to 4 miles before deliverance onto a frontage road.
Stopped in at a Texas covered picnic area for lunch – these apparently are common in Texas and they are pretty freaking awesome. After the mini-slog of the morning, we picked up speed with a steady tailwind and slight downhill. Sailed, pretty much, into Sierra Blanca – two miles out of town I got another liner flat. Stopped in at a gas station for a little snack and a couple of Modelo Negras. Then off to the local town park for some free camping. Wonderful park for a town of 600 people.
Jan. 6th – Sierra Blanca to Van Horn
34 miles. Bean and cheese quesadillas. The cold front has abated, so we’re no longer freezing our biscuits off in the morning light. Lots of Russian Thistle prickly bastards. Got a flat on my back tire…again. Fantastic.
Easy 20 miles before lunch. Pulled off into a graveled area to soak up the warm afternoon sun and chow down. Texas, for some reason, apparently has the happiest truckers in the United States. Every 5 or 10 min, a truck will gives us a happy honk. One played a little jingle with his horn as he passed us by.
Back on the bikes for a short slow bump before a quick decent into Van Horn. Pulled into a store for a re-supply – 75 miles of no stores coming up. After resupply, hustled into a cold headwind to the Van Horn RV park – its a good Sam place, so half the price of KOAs. Boiled potatoes, ground turkey, and corn for dinner – supplemented with some of Penny Cafe’s fantastic french fries.
Jan. 7th – Van Horn to Valentine (Desert View RV)
37 miles. Spiced up breakfast from Penny’s with some french toast, pancakes, and biscuits and gravy. Topped off with some fried potatoes and eggs of our own.
All in all, a quality day of riding. Though a good chunk of the day consisted of a headwind and gentle uphill, the clip felt pleasant enough. Stopped off in Lobo, Texas. A ghost town abandoned in 1991 after the aquifer dried up. It has been recently purchased by 3 Germans, having hosted some art festivals in the 2010s. Upon our visit, it is a quiet lonely desert filled with half a dozen boarded up buildings that speak nothing of their once commerce or has-been life.
Some 2 or 3 miles off, highway patrol and boarder control vehicles (and one helicopter) seem to be on the hunt for, what we assume, some souls in violation geopolitical rules of residency.
Busted back onto the road. After an initial pick up of headwind, it abated and turned into a slight tailwind. While riding in the afternoon, Augustine recited, from memory, the first two chapters of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. I can barely recall my full name.
Just before Valentine there is a sleek shack in the middle of the desert displaying Prada products – a juxtaposition of fashion and reality. Behind the window are high heels and leather bags. Outside the structure is a vast expanse of barbed wire, desert dirt, and Russian thistles. High style accessories meet the barren body of earth. I’m not sure they fit.
Pulled into Desert View RV. There are a smattering of RVs in a dirt lot. A man trundles out of his white painted school bus. No shirt and overalls, faded tattoos portraying a life lived before us. He’s in his late 40s, perhaps 50s. His hair stands in white curled lightning strikes. Baby, his three-legged pitbull service dog, circles around and jumps and licks me. “Her name is Baby, she is harmless. Bathroom’s over here.”
We dropped our $10 green backs in the honor system box and commenced with dinner making and non-cycling activities. Sleep takes us for a quiet ride through a cool night of stars and a lonesome moon.
Jan. 8th – Valentine to 4 Miles NW of Marfa
32 miles. I dreamt of the desert, rolling in my polyester bag, next to my wife. I want to say something of her blonde hair being tussled in the relentless wind. Something of her body, that rolls in curves, waxing between the warmth of day and the cold moon of night. I want to say something of her boundless beauty tossed with her trillion thorns – flattening my ambitions. I want to say something kind to this desert beauty, but all that comes to mind is my home. Its wetness and freshness. Its fog and sloppy hot sunshine, all in its season. I wake, and there the quiet desert is. I am far from home.
As usual, slow breakfast and pack-up. Loaded up on trucked on to a rest area in the middle of nowhere for lunch. The wind is howling in our favor – for the most part. Trains have become more common, passing several times throughout the night and a couple of times during the day. The land has opened up into an endless expanse of yawing desert.
Pulled into a picnic rest stop around 4:30 PM for the day. Milled around and wasted time until night began to hug the horizon. Ate dinner and off to bed.
Jan. 9th – 10th – 4 Miles NW of Marfa to Tumble In RV (Marfa, TX)
5 miles. Being at a rest stop, not really meant for tent campers, we woke and packed up camp fairly early. Right after doing this, it seemed, the wind decided to blow with all the fierceness 36 degrees could muster. Almost immediately, Ance and I decided to roll into Marfa and stay at a nearby RV park to weather out the wind. We stopped at a few places to gather some time killing supplies.
We threw the tent out into the wind and wrestled the rain fly on. Luckily there is a communal lounge and kitchen area shielded from the wind – which is where we spent most of the afternoon of the 9th and 10th. After waking on the 10th to a little bit of snow and generally cold weather, we decided to call for another rest day – battling headwind and dealing with just fundamentally cold temperatures seems not fun. So, here we are.
