Day 18 - Fort Hancock, TX to Van Horn, TX

76.4 miles today
971.8 total trip miles
13.1 mph average
1,627’ climbing
FF - 4
MP - my sister-in-law “Sunshine” Patti Skirvin & family.  She regularly takes a positive outlook on life, even in the face of personal challenges & encourages others to look at the bright side of life. Today was the perfect day for her to be my MP because the sun was shining all day.  That means I needed to get on plenty of sunscreen.

Today started out great, except that I overestimated the temperature & was cold until the sun came up enough to get me warmer.  The first 20 miles were smooth & fast with very little traffic.  Saw a goat farm along the way & some horses, but the horses were too far away to get a good picture.

Then came a 10 mile climb with grades between 2% - 5%.  Needless to say it slowed me down quite a bit, but those grades I can handle by gearing down. Kept chasing toward this mountain, hoping I didn’t have to climb it.

Had lunch at a diner in the ghost town of Sierra Blanca.  The road we were on used to be the main route through the area, but when the interstate highway was built south of town, the community died.
Pretty much all that is left is that diner.  The owner of the diner was interested in all the bikes, but when she saw my recumbent, she had to try it.  I let her sit on it, but I knew she wouldn’t go anywhere.  She was about 5’ tall & couldn’t even reach the pedals.

We are camping tonight in Van Horn, and there is a beautiful full moon.

WDYLT - ILT  Just north of Van Horn, TX is where Jeff Bezos, owner of Amazon, has his space ship headquarters.  They were supposed to be offering regular citizens space travel this year, but are behind schedule.

Day 17 - El Paso, TX to Fort Hancock, TX

62.9 miles today
895.4 total trip miles
12.2 mph average
931’ climbing
FF - 5
MP - Anyone who has attempted to complete an Ironman event.  An Ironman consists of a 2.4 mile swim + a 112 mile bike ride + a full 26.2 mile marathon run - all in the same day.  I never expect to attempt that, but I am motivated by those who are willing to try it.

Today’s ride was an interesting combination.  We started out riding through the city of El Paso.  It sits in a valley & almost the first thing we had to do is climb out of the valley.  It was at least a mile long climb & that served to spread the group out pretty quickly.  When we reached the top of the hill there was a pretty nice overlook of El Paso.  Here I am celebrating the climb.

I was surprised how big the city was.  We had biked about 25 miles before we got out into the country again.  Lots of stop lights, industrial areas & downtown buildings.  As soon as we got back to a more rural area, there were about 20 miles of pecan groves.  I didn’t know El Paso was a big pecan area. The other thing we had again was the cursed headwind.  I think this is the year of headwinds on Bubba’s C2C.  Everyone hopes it ends soon.

Here are pictures of pecan groves in various states of maturity:

And here is a tree along the road.  I don’t know what it is, but it looked picture worthy to me:

The roads were pretty decent & we are spending the night in a high school gymnasium in Fort Hancock.

WDYLT - ILT Fort Hancock, TX is the city where Andy, in the movie The Shawshank Redemption, crossed over into Mexico.  I think that is the only claim to fame it has.  Not much going on here.