Beggers can't be choosers

September 21/09 - Langtry, Texas
Mileage: 97.6 km
Total mileage: 3,451 km


Picked up our lunch and supper provisions before leaving Sanderson. We were warned that Dryden and Langtry had next to nothing for services. Packed lots of fluids along for this stretch.


Southern New Mexico and this part of Texas do involve some logistical planning. Towns are a long way from one another and some may not have the services you need to survive, food and water, and some may not even exist.


Travelling south east on Hwy 90 we made a quick start through beautiful Sanderson Canyon. Rolling grades, easy ups and long descents. A bit of a headwind, but Deby drafted me and we flew along. We made Dryden (40 km) in record time.


At Dryden we stopped at the store for a break. The little store is Dryden. A cold reception from the lady at the cash register who told us there were no public restrooms. She didn't even look up or apologise when she said it. How can you be the only service in the middle of the desert and not have a restroom? Twenty six years ago I cycled trough here and they didn't have a restroom! We left our deposits out back and when we left we felt much better about the place.


The day heated up as we rode and Deby began to have some difficulty with the climbs. I noticed that the vulchers that are regularly present began to leave their carrion and circle Deby. I think they thought that something moving that slowly would have to fall over any time now. Yummy...Alberta beef fed and Great Western fermented, what a morsel. She continued on though and the vulchers dropped off in pursuit of other road kills.


Stumbled into a rest stop and fixed a flat tire in the shade. That was a nice fix. Cycling in the heat is not a problem. You create your own cooling breeze. Fixing a tire in the sun in the ditch is real killer. We continued on.


During the afternoon the wind changed in our favor and we rolled into Langry. The store was closed, no campground.


Three locals, one having had too much to drink, made fun of us when I told them we were cycling to Florida. I let them talk for a while before telling them that we had come from British Columbia. Then, we were hero's and they became more diplomatic. The inebriated one, Rusty, invited us to take up a patch of grass in his yard for our tent, mumbling something about being put on earth to be good to people. We took him up on it, but not before I changed a flat on Deby's bike which she had pushed the last 1/2 km to the store.

Now, Rusty had been relegated to living in the back of an old office in a rock yard. Landscaping rocks are stored in the yard having been taken from a nearby quarry. It was not the splendor that you may be thinking a yard in a small town might be, but beggars can't be choosers.

Anyway, we set our tent up on oil soaked gravel where cars had parked for years and then went and enjoyed the company on the couch outside Rusty's back door. It all seemed reminiscent of a certain house on lets say, the 100 block of Avenue J South (Police humor). Oh, how life has changed.

Rusty's cousin, a ranch hand and a pseudo hippie who sold out in Virgina to live off the land in this desolate country was also our company. Princess and I just looked at each other and smirked as the philosophical conversations deepened. Rusty, bless his heart provided the beer.

An ugly storm was brewing in the west so Deby and I retired to cook supper and hit the hay. And the storm did come. All night we were awake watching the peak of the tent flattened out over us in the wind. I rolled to one side and Deby to the other side to try and hold it down. All the while listening to Rusty's tin roof creaking and moaning like it was going to blow off.

By morning the storm had subsided and the good old Eureka Timberline was still in one piece. Rusty was up in his rock yard giving orders and running around like he was a Mormon who never touched a drop. I guess he is very used to his liquor.

Rusty has a giant heart and the experience was fun. I hope we see him again some day, but doubt he'll remember that night.