We've entered two states since the last update!
The ride from Cordell to Wheeler was long and hot. The plan was to have two lunches, but when we came across a diner about 20 miles into the day, we had to stop. I had French Toast and hash browns. The whole morning had nothing going on; there was not much to see. We had lunch in a little town outside of a coffee shop, but because we just got done with breakfast, we sat in the air conditioning and had some drinks and packed a couple sandwiches for later. We rode another 10 miles and stopped outside of a church to enjoy our picnic. After that we had another 10 miles to second lunch. We made a turn onto a road that was not very biker friendly, there wasn't any shoulder and there was a lot of truck traffic. Second lunch was at a gas station, and although the people there were friendly and let us fill up on ice and such, but we got a weird vibe from the people there. We had another short jog to get to the Texas border and the road was no better. The trucks would usually slow down and give us room when they passed, but there was still a lot so it was hard to catch a break. Once we got to border, a former cyclist and now trucker stopped and informed us that all the truckers were talking about us on their CBs. I suppose it made them more aware of us, but the things they were saying weren't the most friendly. Texas had nice wide shoulders, and due to the fact we stopped so many times, I missed getting to the post office by 10 minutes. Our hosts had brisket for dinner which was awesome.
The ride to Amarillo was fantastic! Chris motivated us to get out one the road by 6:30-6:45. The first 25 or so miles were in a thick fog making it nice and cool. It was so weird because all the water would collect on my arm hairs, and eyelashes and helmet. The whole day was straight with nothing going on, it was 98 miles and I managed to average 18 mph, with lunch and other stops included, I averaged just over 14mph. I think we got to first lunch at a record setting 9AM, rode with my whole chore group for a while, and got to the host around 1:45. We stayed at the Amarillo Habitat for Humanity office, which was nice considering they had mattresses and blankets for us. They had Texas Roadhouse cater dinner and I think we still have chicken and pork chops left over in the cooler from it. For whatever reason, we had everyone that snored sleep in one room, resulting in two nights of poor sleep for all of us in there.
Build day was really cool. Our house was only a block away meaning we got to sleep in even longer! We had breakfast burritos before heading out to work. They actually had work planned out for 30 people to do, so everyone had jobs! There were people putting up trim for siding, installing porch posts and ceilings, and people working on putting tar paper on the roof. I started with tar paper, but eventually switched over to help Sarah and Shane putting in some decorative roofing over the front door and porch. Basically they put in the rafters for it on top of the existing roof and then I helped them figure out the sheeting for it, which was way harder than it sounds due to some weird angles. Lunch was some kind of awesome mexican chicken casserole. After lunch we finished on the roof and then switched over to help put siding around the house.
For dinner our hosts arranged for us to be picked up via Texas limos and taken to the Big Texan restaurant home of the 72oz steak challenge. Shane has been "training" for this for several weeks. In order to get the meal free, he had to eat the whole steak, salad, shrimp, potato, and roll within an hour. He ended with 16 oz of steak left, potato, roll, and shrimp. I had the 50th anniversary special steak, which was basically the same as the steak challenge except with 1/4th as much steak. I overheard someone making a comment on our groups tanlines, so I went over and talked to him. He showed me his and said they were biking over the country. I thought they were riding bicycles, and he thought we were riding motorcycles, but I figured out eventually that it was the other way around. It was funny to see his reaction once he found out we were pedaling across the country. He ended up giving us a $20 donation. Someone paid for Shane's meal and someone else donated $200! We rode the limos back to our host, watched a couple episodes of The Office and went to bed.
We expected a fairly easy ride into Friona. It was basically another day of following the same road and then turning onto Main Street once we got into town. However, we were hit with headwinds early on, and they didn't let up all day. The winds were blowing from the southwest and we were headed into to southwest so we averaged a generous 12 mph on the day. We had lunch in a tiny town called Dawn, population 58. The van was parked on the street, across from the "post office" and one of the residents came out and talked to us and let us sit in his yard in the shade. Turns out he's like 80-90 and is the mayor. He was very hard to understand, but nice. I rode alone most of the day because it was hard to match pace with everyone else riding into the wind. We had a second lunch to fill up water bottles in another tiny town, but it was only 10 or 15 miles from the host, so I just stopped for a second to stretch before finishing up the last leg.
Our hosts were fantastic in Friona. I had a nice chat with our hosts while waiting for other people to come in. We had a mail drop, so I got a new chain and a bunch of candy and other random things from Victoria. Earlier in the week, some of us ordered new gear from Bike& Build so we got that too. I got 2 new pair of bibs, so now I'll be rocking full B&B kits for the rest of the summer! They also sent us squirt guns and a couple games to entertain us. Thanks Justin! We had a ton of great food for dinner and for the first time, we were staying in various peoples homes from the church. I stayed with Chris in a farm house with George and Leslie. We got laundry done and talked a lot about how farming works in Texas compared to other parts of the country. George pulled out an atlas and we looked over our route for the rest of the trip and got the low down on what things to look for in the near future. I got to sleep in a real bed, with real pillows, and real sheets, and it was awesome-- I slept like a rock.
Today we crossed into New Mexico meaning another time change. It was also only a 53 mile ride, so we didn't have breakfast until 7, meaning we got to sleep in till 6:30! How awesome! We passed a lot of feed yards today and a slaughter house that kills 4,000 cattle every day! It was still a little windy this morning, but not nearly as bad. I rode with Abby and Alex who I don't think I've ridden with this summer. We also had Chris, Claire, and Sarah in our group. Lunch was at some huge boot shop. Some people found the sale section and picked some up, but I just can't see myself ever wearing cowboy boots. The second half of the day was a lot of fun, we were able to go faster which is always good. We spent a lot of the day doing riddles and playing games. Totally fun to figure out the answer early on and then watch other people suffer as they try and solve it. Chris told the "green glass door" riddle, apparently it took him 6 hours to figure out, but it took most people maybe 20 minutes to figure out. We stopped at an awesome ice cream stand on the way into town and got a killer chocolate malt. We're staying in dorms at Eastern New Mexico University. We're being shuttled to dinner at a Methodist Church so hopefully that's great, then we have a town hall and hopefully we'll get to explore this town a little but before going to bed tonight.
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