(January 19)

Day 25 - Marathon to Alpine TX

Vini Vidi Vindy

 

 

This was a mistake. But, because it has a shadow of me in it, I'm going to call it artistic.

If you zoom in on this, you can see that someone went to elaborate trouble to "brand" this tiny little abandoned railside building with Target signage. Can't even imagine how the conversation starts in order for this to happen.

I've been steadily climbing each day this week. The mountain you can see in this pic is 6,100 ft. high. Which puts me just about at the elevation of Denver.

 

I know I had an entire post about the wind coming out of Austin. And while it was pretty serious, it was wind made by a weak weather god, because the wind today came straight from Thor. Headwind so strong there was one point where I was pushing my rig up what couldn't have been more than a 1% grade. Gusts up to 25mph with steady winds in the 15-20 range. Headwinds. But, luckily, it was at least sunny all day and it warmed up by mid-morning so I didn't have rain or bitter cold in the mix.

 

I knew, of course, that the forecast called for this kind of wind. And I knew I would be, STILL!, riding uphill all day. Without overstating things, I was dreading the day ahead. I contemplated just staying in Marathon, but I also knew that these winds are supposed to last a FULL WEEK. And while anyone, including me, might question my courage in facing what I thought would be a riding day from hell, no one should question my desire to leave the terrible WiFi of Marathon. Even Langtry...lowly Langtry...had pretty good WiFi in that visitor center I could pirate at night. But Marathon...well, 'nuff said.

 

So, off I want not long after breakfast at dawn. And it was just as bad as I expected. My bike has 14 gears on a dial. For the most part, without wind and on a smooth, flat road, I can ride at a pretty steady 12-13 mph pace in about 8th gear. On the steepest of steep hills I have to go down into 1st gear. On a screaming downhill, break-my-neck-if-I-suddenly-get-a-flat-when-doing-over-40-mph stretch I can crank it up to gear 14 just to try and go even faster.

 

So, with that as background, for much of my ride to Alpine I was in gear 3. If it was a downhill, maybe gear 5. Even on some flat sections I was in GEAR 1! Thirty miles of Gear 3...or worse.

Even when the road turned so that I was catching a bit more crosswind than headwind, all that did was force me to ride as close to the lane full of speeding 18-wheelers so that when the wind did its gusting thing, I could be blown the requisite 3 feet to my right and not be off in the ditch, but still on the pavement.

 

But that word "gusting" was crucial today. When I saw the wind speeds this morning my mind conjured up unrelenting winds. Winds that never died down. If I'd stayed...frightened of the toil and difficulty...in Marathon I'd never have learned a valuable life lesson: it isn't always as bad as you read about, nor as bad as your imagination might paint things.

 

Once you actually go out and DO something, well...what that really allows is for good things to happen. See, one's fears NEVER allow for good things. Fear can't paint on your mind what WILL happen...only what MIGHT happen.

 

And that's how I made it to Alpine. Gusts. Sure, it did get up to 25mph...maybe even more. Sure, much of the day there WAS a steady headwind. But NOT always.

 

In some moments the wind tapered off, or some nearby mountain blocked it from me for a moment. When that happened I could pedal at normal speed. Or, downhill, at a pretty GOOD rate of speed. Not much, not often...but it was enough. As long as I maximized the opportunities I DID have...I was able to make it. Sure, I didn't make it as far as I wanted...that would have been 26 more miles to Marfa Texas. But I DID make it to a place I could stay for the night.

 

In the immortal words of Monty Clark "I took what the road gave me." If it wasn't giving me anything but Gear 1, I hunkered down and just pedaled...did what I could...and waited. When the wind slackened, I did all I could to pedal as hard as I could for as long as I could. Sometimes it wasn't for more than 30 seconds. But it didn't matter how long my window was...the ONLY thing that mattered was that I was maximizing what I could do at that moment.

 

But until I actually checked out of my warm, wind-proof hotel, I couldn't take advantage of anything. How can anyone take advantage of what the day will give them when they've let fear of WHAT MIGHT HAPPEN keep them away from learning the truth...the truth that there WAS JUST ENOUGH RESPITE GRANTED ME BY THE WIND to make it a whole 30 miles in totally adverse conditions?

 

So when I chose a take-off of Caesar's famous words about conquering Gaul as my headline for today's post, I wasn't only referring to the fact that I conquered the wind today. Though I'm pretty proud of kicking it's blustery, invisibly antagonistic ass. No, what I really feel triumphant about conquering was the doubt and fear that might have kept me in that WiFi hellhole otherwise known as Marathon Texas.