Day 34 - Vega, Texas to San Jon, New Mexico

Day 34 of our tour
November 6, 2016
55.1 miles today
(1521.2 miles, cumulative)
1274 feet of climbing
(58,393 feet of climbing, cumulative)

It rained last night in Vega, Texas and it was still raining when we looked out this morning. We took time to get out our rain gear in order to get the rain to stop, and when we left, it had indeed nearly halted.  We pedaled through some large puddles (slowly) at first, but as we proceeded they became less of an issue:

One of the first small towns we reached was Adrian, Texas and it is the official halfway point on Route 66. The nondescript Midpoint Cafe was closed. Its sign was colourful:

Today we spent about 40 miles on I-40. The good news: a wide shoulder with great pavement. The bad news: lots of semi trailer trucks, as well as cars and other trucks. Of the big trucks, about 50% moved to the left lane, and the other 50% remained in the right lane as they passed us. The latter especially were very loud, and those that passed with their wheels close to the white line left a current of air that sucked us to the left each time, even though we used the righthand two feet of the shoulder:

At one point the bike felt sluggish and we stopped. Sure enough, the rear tire was soft. It was a very slow leak, because it was not flat, and in fact it was still ridable. I wondered if by chance we had gone over some dry brush and picked up a goat head that had caused a tiny puncture. Here is one that stuck to my tights after I walked through some grass. Those spines are incredibly sharp and do not bend:  

Cloud watching was our major pastime today. The expansive landscape under the canopy of an ever-changing sky were both very entertaining:

We left Texas after a hour or so and entered New Mexico, our seventh state on this bike ride:

New Mexico's sky was every bit as interesting as what we had seen in Texas. This photo probably shows sky over both states:

To wrap it up for tonight, here are three more sky photos taken from the same spot about 10 miles from our destination. This first one is looking east to Vega, where we had come from:

This one looks south, to our left, to some clouds dropping rain that followed us much of he day:

And this final one shows the clouds overhead that dropped a few sprinkles on us, but never  a downpour. Also, this photo shows our destination straight ahead, in the sunshine:

We are spending the night in San Jon, New Mexico (pronounced san-hone). Tomorrow is forecast to be a nice day, and we will ride our shortest leg yet, about 22 miles to Tucumcari. The two days after that will be some of the longest at 66 and 76 miles, with climbing. Then on Thursday we will have about 38 miles left to get to Albuquerque and a visit with Jean's brother, Gary and his wife, Karen.

We have decided to end the trip there and fly home from Albuquerque, probably on Tuesday, November 14. The days are getting shorter and colder, the motels less frequent, there would be more of the less enjoyable freeway cycling... and we also want to visit the grandkids before the Christmas break.