Day 33 - Amarillo to Vega, Texas

Day 33 of our tour
November 5, 2016
30.7 miles today
(1466.1 miles, cumulative)
451 feet of climbing
(57,119 feet of climbing, cumulative)


Our day began with eggs and smoked salmon on bagels courtesy of Cloris. It was another culinary treat after John's homemade leek soup last night. John is totally at home in the kitchen, and he ably demonstrated that when for our first breakfast he prepared his delicious green chile huevos rancheros. We very much appreciated their generous hosting of us! Thank you both, very much.

John took me to Napa Auto Parts where I bought a power steering arm shaft seal in order to take the spring out of it for use in repairing our internal gear hub. The supposed similar part sold by Carquest had been much too large, but the part from Napa was perfect.

Here you can see the driver side of the freewheel body, the four pawls, and the two springs (on the left is the one that will fit, and on the right is the one I bought yesterday that is too big). I also put next to them the rubber band I made from an old tube that had worked as a spring, and had considered using if I could not find the correct spring:

Here is the freewheel body with the new spring installed holding the four pawls in place. The spring is the shiny part:

With the repair completed, we reassembled the hub and mounted the wheel, packed the panniers and food box, and headed west. Soon after we left Amarillo we passed the famous Cadillac Ranch where some old Cadillacs were "planted" in the soil. The area is open for free to the public, and everyone is welcome to bring paint (usually spray paint) and redecorate any of the cars:

People were busy at work with their spray cans. We'd like to go back sometime, as John offered to help us make a Canadian flag stencil and use it apply the flag to one of the cars with red and white paint. 

I decided to take one for a drive, and drove it straight into the ground:

This part of Texas is very flat, and as we cycled west, we'd often see on the horizon the profile of a feed mill. They became larger and larger as we got closer. Here are two, and at the base of the second one you can see how small our bike and Jean are compared to the huge silos: 

As we entered the small town of Vega where we are spending the night we came upon an old John Deere tractor on display, and we stopped for photos. (Please forgive the repetition here. We're posting some of these with the grandkids in mind.)

A block later we came to a John Deere dealership. We could not resist taking a few photos of some of the large equipment:

Motels are scarce it the small towns here in the West Texas Panhandle, and in New Mexico, which we enter soon. Today's mileage had to be either 30 or 84 miles, and we chose 30. Not only was it a relatively short ride, but we ended up with a good tailwind, cool temperatures and very little climbing. 

Tomorrow could be different. It may rain, and we go 54 miles.