By David Freeze

Crossing America, one convenience store at a time!

  Today was very busy, but fell just short of my expectations! I left the home of Joe and Grace Myers at first light this morning. About 7 miles into it, I found a convenience store that had a woman making breakfast burritos by order and I got one. It was fantastic with egg, cheese and potato. She was out of tomatoes, or I would have had that too.

  Afterwards the riding began in earnest, I rolled through Mesilla and turned down an offer for free pancakes at a church. I pedaled through 8-10 miles of pecan tree canopy with plenty of other cyclists out there too. I then rode through several interesting Hispanic towns named San Miguel, La Mesa, Chamberino, all that on US 28. The sweet smell of hay being processed made for an even better day. Then I followed the suggested route of taking a 7 mile bike way into El Paso, before attempting to follow two sets of directions to cross the east side. I got lost once, but asked a border guard at one of the Mexico entrance points for directions. He pleasantly helped, then I had to deal with a detour before finally getting on US 20 East for the rest of the afternoon.

  Traveling though the center of El Paso was very crowded and hilly, plus I saw no bike lanes in that area. I did not enjoy that part, especially the endless intersections. Gradually as I moved on east, there were Socorro, Clint and Fabens. I am spending the night next to Interstate 10 at the Fabens Inn Motel. I paid too much, but it was the only option for 25 more miles. All this after 87 miles today.

  All afternoon, I kept refueling at convenience stores and it was hard to delineate one town from another. With daylight running out, I gave up on my plan to go way over 100 miles. Storms were in the area too. It will be many days before I have lots of supply points available. They begin getting scarce tomorrow.

    I did have a very pleasant conversation with Carmelo Morales of El Paso who said that if he didn’t have to work he would doing this too. He is the first person I have ever met that offered me a tire tube that fit my bike out of his truck. Carlos gave me plenty of insight on the road ahead.

    Starting tomorrow, I am going to be limited in supply points and places to stay. But still, I have big plans for the day. Big ones too for the next day. I will explain all of this tomorrow.

  I was reminded today how the most famous river in the area keeps showing up, same as the Ohio River did on my Underground Railroad adventure. The more I see the Rio Grande, the more I understand how the local economy relies on it. Agriculture is everywhere!

    Thanks for riding along today. I am going to start on some ice cream in an effort to keep the massive calorie burn fueled.

    See you tomorrow with possibly yet another great story!