Paul and Siona's travels

• DAY 27: Saturday 26th March 2022 – Van Horn TX to Sierra Blanca TX
• Distance: 55km
• Elevation gain: 310m
• Accomodation: Americana Inn Motel

Today we headed West along interstate 10 – most of the route was on a service road along the side but for 10km or so out of Van Horn it was on the road shoulder – this felt like taking a bike ride along the hard shoulder of the M1 in the UK, but apparently it is legal here if there is no reasonable alternative route. The weather today turned out to be gloriously hot and sunny with light winds whch made for the easiest cycling day for a while. We arrived early in Sierra Blanca, just before 1pm, although this was helped by unexpectedly crossing into the Mountain Time zone! We passed a group of 13 other cyclists today heading east on the Adventure Cycling Association’s vehicle supported trip (we later learned that people pay $7000 per head for this service!) Two of them stopped for a chat and gave us some trail mix and a spare sandwich which was nice! Arriving early meant that we had plenty of time to relax at the motel and enjoy being in an actual bed for the first time in over a week – an experience that was slightly spoiled by the bed bugs that we shared the place with!

• DAY 28: Sunday 27th March 2022 – Sierra Blanca TX to Fort Hancock TX
• Distance: 67km
• Elevation gain: 180m
• Accomodation: Fort Hancock Motel

Our first 30km today was again along Interstate 10 – most of it along a traffic free service road at the side – which turned out to be almost entirely downhill making for fast progress. The service road eventually died out 3km short of our exit, by which time we were on the “wrong side” of the interstate leaving us cycling down the shoulder towards oncoming traffic – this is technically no more dangerous than riding with the traffic I suppose, but more terrifying when you can see the trucks coming towards you! Leaving the interstate at last, we cycled some very quiet backroads, through a couple of tiny “towns” that looked like they once had stores, cafes and gas stations before the interstate took all of the passing trade away. The road continued with the Rio Grande ( and the Mexico border) just a kilometre or so away on our left hand side. It is so close to Mexico that my GPS keeps adjusting to Mexican time and my mobile phone company has messaged me to say that they are charging me Mexican roaming rates rather than the US rates that are included in my plan – thanks for that Three, great job. The landscape became much greener than we have seen for a long time with irrigation channels from the river being used to actually grow stuff. It was the hottest day that we have had so far with the afternoon temperature reaching 32C, making the last 10km into Fort Hancock hard work. We both remembered “Fort Hancock, Texas” as being the place that Morgan Freeman’s character buys a bus ticket to when he finally gets parole at the end of The Shawshank Redemption to cross the border into Mexico – I’m pretty sure that no buses come here now, it is pretty much a motel, gas station and Family Dollar store just off I10 – but it is our home for the night in a cheap motel!

• DAY 29: Monday 28th March 2022 – Fort Hancock TX to Clint TX
• Distance: 53km
• Elevation gain: 100m
• Accomodation: Best Western East El Paso Inn

A day of easy riding today, mainly through agricultural land in a very flat valley with the Rio Grande and Mexico just a few kilometres away to our left. The landscape was much greener than we have seen for a while and the empty desert that we have been used to gradually became more developed with farms and huge orchards of pecan trees. We passed a lot of other cyclists today (too many to count, but at least 30) on at least two different organised tours heading in the other direction – the number of times that we had to do the obligatory wave got tiring after a while! After passing through the rather run down town of Fabens, the roads got busier and the landscape gradually more urban – the big city of El Paso was at least 40km away, but it already felt like it was getting close. With no other options, we stayed at a rather expensive Best Western hotel which was unfortunately on top of a hill (not fun at the end of the day).

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• DAY 30: Tuesday 29th March 2022 – Clint TX to El Paso
• Distance: 53km
• Elevation gain: 360m
• Accomodation: Candlewood Suites

Today’s ride was not much fun – getting past a big city never is. We continued West along what yesterday was a fairly quiet, narrow road. Today during morning rush hour it was transformed! Cycling along a very narrow shoulder with busy traffic for 15km was not fun – some traffic got much too close and for some reason school buses were the worst – it felt like they were trying to hit us. We then joined the 375 loop which is basically El Paso’s ring road and supposedly a quick easy way around the city. Mostly it was just terrifying, especially where it has a horrendous looking intersection with I10. It does supposedly have a cycle lane, but putting up the odd sign at the side of the road saying “bike route” and spray painting the occasional picture of a bike on the shoulder does not count as providing decent infrastructure for bikes in my mind! Half way around, the wind increased as well, reaching near gale force by early afternoon – heavy traffic and wobbling in a crosswind is not a good combination! We were relieved to arrive at our motel for then night and decided to take an extra rest day here with more strong winds forecast for tomorrow.

• DAY 31: Wednesday 30th March 2022 – Rest day in El Paso
• Distance: 0
• Elevation gain: 0
• Accomodation: Candlewood Suites

A relaxing day today in a very nice hotel room, catching up on all of the usual rest day jobs. Tomorrow we finally say farewell to Texas and head into New Mexico!