Epic day

September 18/09 - Pecos, Texas
Mileage: 137.6 km
Total mileage: 3,162 km

Camped tonight in a backyard in Pecos, Texas. Rode into town in the dark and had a flat tire on Deby's bike at the city limits. Deby rode on the flat to the first service station because I was not going to fix it in a black ditch.

We fixed the tire at the station while people came and went in their cars, loud mariachi music blaring. I knew I would find some sort of hard object having pierced the tire because thorns and chip coating will not go through these Armadillo's. Sure enough it was a wire from a blown retread.

We met a very nice lady by the name of Lynell Putman in Orla. Lynell owns and runs the restaurant/bar, which is Orla, as there is nothing else there. Orla was 75 km into our day and we still had 63 km to go to Pecos. We had 2 pops each and a nice visit with Lynell and she said we could stay in her yard in Pecos. The house is vacant and she is renovating it at this time. It sure was nice to have a place to go to, especially as we arrived in Pecos late and in the dark. It looked like a nice area at night when we set up the tent, and when we awoke in the morning, it appeared like beautiful Riversdale.

Leaving Carlsbad this morning we again rode through beautiful pecan orchards towards Loving and Malaga, New Mexico. After Malaga the country changed to the desert we have become accustomed to and continued on that way through Orla and to Pecos. Gentle rolling grades and a bit of a headwind provided for a bit of a struggle. The Guadalupe Mountains were visible to our west, but as we travelled they disappeared off into the southwest.

Just before reaching Orla we stopped for a peanut butter and hone sandwich. When we were ready to carry on I realized my front tire was flat. I had a suspicion days ago, when I got my last flat, that the Flat Attack had decomposed the contact cement on a patch on the tube. It was confirmed on this date. The Flat Attack had removed most of the a patch on the tube. In hind sight, this makes sense because rubber cement is water soluble and both Slime and Flat Attack are water based products. Don't ever put Slime or Flat Attack in a patched tube. I've learned that these products may work on ATV or wheelbarrow tires, but they don't work in a high pressure bicycle tire. Thank goodness the experiment is over!