Sunday, April 11, 2010

Day 18
Guadalupe Mountains National Park to Pecos

Today was very difficult for me, after making such a big climb yesterday, I was really looking forward to the down hill today. The winds this morning have only gotten worse, we stopped at the visitor center to look at the weather station. My dad (Mike) and I were amazed at numbers we were seeing before our eyes, 35-40 MPH sustained winds and the high gust so far this morning was 75 MPH! All this at 8:00am!!

I made the decision to pack up the bike and drive it to Pecos, and if along the way the winds were better I would ride the balance of the day from that point. Needless to say the winds were no better until that evening. So I had to endure a car ride over the route I was supposed to ride, this was more disappointing to me than you can possibly know. I was not ready to risk the ride to try and make an extremely windy day.

Arriving in Pecos was very different than I was expecting, I thought it was a much bigger city than it actually is. The signs welcoming you to town say "Pecos..Home of the worlds first rodeo". We did find a Laundromat to do some laundry, after much searching, and began searching out our options for food.. there did not seem to be many of those.

We stayed in a motel this day to try and get some sleep, which was much needed at this point. Driving around town we finally happened across a restaurant called terrazzos (I think that's the spelling). They actually had a very good Mexican menu, the chips were warm and fresh, and the salsa was awesome!

After dinner I returned to our room to repack clothes wash my water bottles, make up more Gatorade and get ready for tomorrow. Finally we were able to get a good nights rest!

No Garmin data today....more for tomorrows ride!

2 comments:

  1. Todd, try not to be too hard on yourself. You don't have infinite leisure to complete this ride, because of your work obligations. You can't afford to wait out impossible conditions. Your commitment and effort is total, and that's what counts, in the end - and getting to the goal in one piece - i.e. being a survivor. You have nothing to be sorry for; you're giving it your all under very tough conditions.

    Catherine

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hear hear! Todd, you are an inspiration. I just heard today that a family member has been diagnosed with colon cancer. Thank you for doing this for all of us, IBD and cancer survivors/family alike.

    ReplyDelete