Day 28, the day of the white line

So our morning started out with a great ride through some pecan orchards.   What a beutiful way to start off, the trees overlapped the road from both sides creating a tunnel.  it was very pleasant to ride through.  The road was great, it was smooth and there was very little wind in our face to start the day.  We headed toward the town of Hatch, where we were going to have lunch.  Nothing really to note this morning except the that we crossed the Rio Grand River.  I have to tell you it was a little disappointing, we crossed "creeks" in Texas there were bigger than this.  I am not sure why it is so shallow and narrow, but i assume it is due to it being dammed upriver. 

After lunch we headed northwest to Kingston.  As we started out I was thinking that it would just be like the morning but with a little breeze and some additional heat.  WRONG, What we got was the worst afternoon of wind since we crossed the Florida Alabama line.  It also included steady climbs in the afternoon.  I know that it was warm out but with all the wind you could not feel the heat at all.   The scenery turned from some green to drab brown, not real interesting to say the least.  Between that and the wind I  ( and from the sounds of it everyone else as well) watched the while line on the road for the rest of the 51 miles. 

This was one of those days when you just put your head down and pedaled.  So we pedaled and drank water and ate and pedaled and pondered why is the wind coming out of the north now that we are heading that way when most of the trip it had been coming from the south.  Oh well,  if we wanted easy we would of road West to East.  When I finally looked up there was a cow on the road and there were trees again.  I was 11 miles form the end and at this point just wanted to finish and eat.  So again i looked at the white line and road. 

We are staying at the Black Range Lodge which is really neat, it has great ambiance and the keepers are really nice.  They gave Mona the use of the kitchen and she whipped up a great meal.  The keepers joined us and shared some local knowledge with us about tomorrows ride.   If you are ever in this part of the country stop in and check it out and maybe stay a night.

Lesson for the day.  When things seem to be going wrong and the day is looking bleak, stop and think about all of the good things you have going for you.  On our ride today i started to think about how much I was not enjoying riding in the wind.  Then I say my dad on the side of the road smiling at me, and I knew how proud he was of us and what we were doing.  I also remembered all of the times we have spent together and from then on I enjoyed the day again.  Even though it was tough it just took that one thing to make a good day out of a bad one.