(January 24)

Day 30 - Fort Hancock to Fabens TX

I Just Got Nixed

Yesterday I was listening to an audiobook titled "The Nix." In the book, "The Nix" refers  a spectral horse in a Norwegian ghost story that appears, lets you ride it then gallops smoothly, beautifully with you astride it feeling glorious. Then, at the height of your happiness and joy in riding such a wonderful horse, it promptly runs straight off the nearest cliff and drowns you.

So, yeah, I was Nixed today.

Yesterday was so glorious on the bike, such a wonderful ride, so full of joy that the universe simply HAD to Nix me by sending me such a terribly disappointing wind day.

Today, for the first time, I feel like I failed. Every other time I didn't quite make it, I thought I was wise, or strategic or, at the very least, realistic.

But today, I just gave up.

The day started well, with a good breakfast across the street at Angie's Restaurant. But that's where the good ended. Immediately upon turning Northwest on my main route (the hotel was a bit of my route last night), there it was:

THE WALL

During past wind days, the wind would blow maybe for 30 minutes, then take a short break before picking up again. Or blow hard for 5 minutes, then slack for 2 minutes. Not today. Unrelenting, never stopping the wind blew at 25mph straigth at me for the entire time I was on the road. It took me 4 hours to travel the 27 miles from Fort Hancock to Fabens. I averaged only 6 mph. Yesterday, I averaged over 11mph. It not only felt like I was crawling...I WAS crawling. I can RUN at a pace of 6mph.

Once I hit Fabens at lunch time, I sat in the Subway studying my maps. It was about 20 more miles until the next hotel in Sparks TX...and even THAT wasn't yet El Paso. El Paso was an impossible 30 miles away. Normally, not a big deal to roll 30 miles, but just getting to Sparks would have been another 3 hours straight into the wind the entire way.

My body might just have made it. I wasn't exactly tired...fatigued some...but not too bad. But my mind just couldn't take the depression that had set in over knowing, without a doubt, there was no way I was going to fulfill the expectation I had for today: which was to make it to El Paso and ride into New Mexico.

So, while my body might have made it, my inability to live up to my own expectations did my mind in. I simply didn't want to fight the wind any longer, so I gave up and checked into the local motel in Fabens.

I'm going to darn well think twice before accepting another ride from a spectral horse. That's what I learned today.