Movement

I'm in Texas. The beginning of Texas, but Texas nonetheless. I left home for Oakland California 57 days ago and have since biked a good many miles down the coast of California, East to Joshua Tree, North to Prescott College, and along the Southern Tier Adventure Cycling Association route through Arizona and New Mexico. I have crossed one time zone and will soon be crossing the next, and yet, I have at least twice as many miles ahead of me as there are behind.

The sign says "Pecan Thieves Will Be Prosecuted

Thus far, I have biked somewhere between 1,400 and 1,500 miles in a slow, rambling and intermittent fashion. I won't have a bike computer for this trip, for I have gone through three and have therefore decided that it is not my destiny to know how fast or exactly how far I am going. The first bike computer just didn't work, so I activated the warranty and ordered a replacement which fell off my bike and broke the first day I rode with it. Then my dad ordered me a cheap one from Amazon and sent it to Twentynine Palms, but it stopped working by the time I arrived in Silver City, NM. So I have a rather large collection of button batteries and only the vaguest idea of my exact mileage for this trip.

The fact that I have managed to make it this far is a tribute to the kindness and generosity of many, many people who have housed, fed, encouraged, and taken care of me through all the struggles of this journey. Warm Showers hosts who I have never met have welcomed me into their homes and given me food, laughter and inspiration, random people wave to me as they drive by, and now that I am on the Southern Tier, I often see other touring cyclists who wave or stop and offer a few words of advice. I feel blessed to have been able to make it this far, and I have no allusions that I could have done it alone.

The highlands in New Mexico

However, I am only half way through my trip in time and less than a third of the way in mileage, there are many adventures before me. In 57 days, I will be standing on a podium on the softball field at Lamoille Union High School in Hyde Park Vermont inspiring my fellow classmates with a brilliant speech before we receive our diplomas and head off into the next stage of our lives. Or more accurately, I will be trying not to mumble as I attempt to express my excitement for all 129 students in our graduating class and the future we have ahead of us in a way that can be understood by everyone. It is a daunting task and I won't pretend to have written anything yet, but I have many more miles ahead of me to pedal and ponder.

Before I go tearing off into the future though, let me look back a little. I forget that y'all weren't biking alongside me through the mountains of New Mexico this past week. I climbed up into the mountains from southeastern Arizona and into New Mexico, stealth camping off the side of the road for the first two nights. There were a couple hard grades, but I like churning slowly uphill, it is humbling, and the satisfaction of arriving at the top of a pass is much greater than that of arriving somewhere after biking on a straight, flat road all day. I will have to get better at appreciating flatness though, for Emory Pass (8,223 ft) was the last 8,000 ft + pass I will bike over, and Texas will be much less mountainous than New Mexico.

Gila Cliff Dwellings

Most of my route through New Mexico was on very quiet roads, sometimes I would go as long as fifteen minutes without seeing a car, and because I was changing elevation so much, I saw a wide variety of flora and fauna. It is a very beautiful area despite the harshness of drought. The open spaces in the highlands reminded me of Ecuador, the cows weren't nearly as graceful as the ones we saw in the Paramo in Ecuador, but seeing them roaming freely under an open sky brought back the feeling of trekking to Cotopaxi with my semester friends.

After two nights sleeping out-one night I didn't even use my tent!-I arrived in Silver City where I was greeted by a wonderful warm showers host. I had a spectacular time with my hosts in Silver City, they were generous beyond words and great people to talk to. After a fun afternoon, a restful evening, and a delicious breakfast, I headed out towards Gila where I stayed at the hot springs.

Hot springs!

The road there is gorgeous, though very windy and hilly, and I managed to get a flat tire. No big deal right? Just pop off the tire, get out my tire levers and replace the tube, easiest bike maintenance there is. Except that my tire levers weren't in my tool bag. During this trip, I have lost many things. Scissors, a glove, one and a half pairs of socks, my Kroka water bottle (I left it in the airport in Vancouver and I'm hoping that whoever picks it up is like me and will look into Kroka and discover that it is the perfect program for them or some one they know or become inspired to contribute to the organization), my multi-tool, and probably a lot of other little things that I won't miss until I need them, but tire levers? What kind of a cross country bike tourer doesn't have bike levers? They are the simplest, most necessary bike tool in existence and I felt incredibly stupid sitting on the side of the road with my flat tire. Luckily, it was only a slow leak, so I managed to get to the campground by stopping every mile or so and pumping it up. The man who runs the campground and hot springs gave me some old worn out screw drivers to remove the tire with, and I was later gifted a set of tire levers by one of the folks staying at the hot springs. So it all worked out, but only because I was lucky.

I decided to splurge and stay at the campground for a whole two nights-$10, which is more than I have spent on lodging the whole trip, but the hot springs were right there and I could soak in them whenever I wanted to. It was great to leave my tent standing for a day and take a leisurely ride up to the Gila Cliff Dwellings before getting back on my bike to go to El Paso. I shared a camp site with a woman who has been living out of her truck for a long time and we had a great time together.

The creek I slept by in Kingston

Visiting the Cliff Dwellings was well worth the $3 entrance fee, for they are a special place. They have been inhabited by many different indigenous peoples over the years, the most recent group of which built very beautiful rooms inside the caves. I could imagine living in there, hauling water up from the bottom of the canyon day after day, but it was sad to see how distant the monument is from the people and the cultures that once called it home. In the park, it is merely an attraction to walk through and take pictures of, not a place to honor and remember the people who lived here before us.

The ride from Gila to El Paso went quite smoothly. Crossing Emory Pass was a breeze, and I found a lovely place to camp by a little stream just past Kingston on my way down. From Kingston to Las Cruces was close to 90 miles, but all downhill, so it should have been a relatively easy day. There was a breeze that day though, and a breeze is transformed into a terrible, exhausting headwind when you are biking against it. It is infuriating, you stop and you hardly even notice the wind, but as soon as you start biking, there it is again, pushing slowly but constantly against your tired body. The only thing that got me through that day was the local pecans I bought in Hatch. I had plenty of food, but I have never had an opportunity to buy local nuts before, and the quart sized bag of shelled pecans I bought was well worth the $8 I paid for it.

Luckily, I had a Warm Showers host in Las Cruces, so I had a comfy bed to rest in and good company at the end of the day. And the next day's ride was a mere forty miles, bringing me into El Paso, where I met my dad's bike at yet another Warm Showers host's house. It has been awesome to have a place to stay these past two days while I figure out my route and rest. The family I am staying with is so welcoming, and it is amazing to have a place where I can use a computer.

A beautiful piece of wood I found at my camp spot on the way to Silver City

And now my dad is here! I am really looking forward to biking with him for the next two weeks through Texas, it will be great to have a travelling companion. After he leaves me in Austin, we'll have to wait and see what happens. I may be able to go fast enough to bike the rest of the way home, but if I can't it won't be any less of an adventure.