(January 21)

Day 27 - Marfa to Van Horn TX

Voluntary Discomfort

 

My view of the road ahead just after I'd departed Marfa before dawn.

If you zoom in, you'll see a blimp. It's a tethered blimp used by, I think, US Customs and the Border Patrol to cover about 200 miles of the Mexican border with radar. Needless to say, they don't put it aloft in 35mph winds :)

Once the wind really started getting strong about 10am or so, the tumbleweeds blowing across the road kept catching in my bike and trailer wheels.

 

Sadly, it was too cold for me to want to take my gloves off in order to get a pic of the foot-long length of barbed wire that also got caught up in the trailer wheel.

 

 

I was ready. I'd stocked up on dehydrated food in Alpine. I'd filled both of my large spare water bottles. I'd planned a really early departure time in order to ride the 36 miles to my planned camping site in the small, near-ghost town of Valentine during the time of the morning when the head/crosswinds would be at their lightest (which is relative I assure you!). I had queried the locals about their knowledge of Valentine and found there was a working water spigot at the back of the post office building; a crucial fact when cooking up a couple of meals of dehydrated food and riding one's bike for many hours.

 

And my ride..up until about the 30 mile mark...was terrific. My legs were strong. The wind wasn't nearly as hellacious as I'd expected. It was sunny; at least once the sun came up. It was cold, but not below freezing. I was even considering not stopping in Valentine for more than a quick lunch and then pushing on to Van Horn.

 

And, given THAT level of optimism you all know what happened then!

 

The rain came. The winds kicked up to what was predicted (which was galeforce). And, icing on the cake, the rain turned to hail. Hail, of course, being a BAD little surprise when one has absolutely nothing but empty desert anywhere in sight to get under the cover of. Just as I was asking myself how big a hail ball my bike helmet would protect me from (I figured golf ball size at least), an angel of mercy pulled off the side of the road in front of me.

 

I knew I had maybe 5-7 miles or so to Valentine. I knew that unless the hail really got large I could make it within a couple of hours (I was maybe able to pedal 4-5mph by then). But I also knew the night in the rain, cold and wind would be miserable. So would the morning (given tomorrow is predicted to have NO time in which the wind isn't blowing like a hurricane...gusts up to 50mph). There was every chance I wouldn't be able to make it out of Valentine until MONDAY since I'd never ridden in wind like that so far and didn't really know if I could pedal forward at all.

 

All that calculating and analysis went through my mind in the roughly 10 seconds it took me to pedal up to the pickup truck stopped ahead of me from which Angel was exiting. "Hey, looks like you could use a ride, I'm headed to Van Horn!" he yelled into the wind.

 

And that's when I knew I'd reached my personal limit for what I'll call "Voluntary Discomfort."

If Angel hadn't stopped, sure, I could have kept going. I could have camped. Maybe even over Sunday. If that is what the road gave me, I'd have survived. Sure, I'd have been miserable, but it would not be beyond my limit for involuntary discomfort. I knew that.

 

But, when he DID stop and offer me a ride I didn't hesitate to accept. I knew in that split-second that while I'm not on this journey for fun exactly (not that it hasn't been fun, but that's not why I rode out of my driveway), I'm definitely not riding on this journey to simply be miserable AT THE LEVEL I WAS FACING before Angel stopped.

 

Of course, we all have our limits for voluntary discomfort. For some folks, like Don Potter that I met in Sanderson, it is incredibly high. For others, their limit is low enough that they'd never come on a journey like this, but might go camping in a trailer. For others, if isn't a boutique hotel with gourmet restaurants within easy walking distance, they wouldn't consider leaving their house.

 

And interestingly, I believe we all admire anyone whose limit for voluntary discomfort is greater than our own. Looking back on my life I didn't go to Ranger School in the Army because I knew it was beyond my limit of voluntary discomfort. Sure, I might not have had the physical stamina, etc. needed (for those of you who don't know, Ranger School is one of the ultimate physical challenges one can tackle in life. Seriously.), but that was irrelevant. THe REAL deciding factor was my limit for voluntary discomfort. And no other factor mattered in the end but that. It's one of the many reasons I admire D.I. Smith (a cyclist in my local group) so much: he's a Ranger. It was why I admired Iris the Southern Bavarian. Like Don Potter I knew her limit for voluntary discomfort exceeded my own.

 

What I'm going to try and figure out over the rest of the journey is whether or not I believe it is a) possible to increase one's limit for voluntary discomfort, and b)...far more importantly...is it an important enough goal to even attempt. Should one really care? Is it like one's favorite color or favorite flavor of ice cream...simply hardwired into one's genetic code? If not, is there inherent value in increasing one's limit? Does the funmeter rise as one's limit of voluntary discomfort rises? Or is the sense of accomplishment the exact same as long as you reach whatever your own personal limit is? Or, does the sense of accomplishment ONLY multiply if you voluntarily go beyond your limit and take on more discomfort than you want? Yikes, I hope THAT is not the case!

Anyway....lots to ponder in the miles ahead :)