The Journal. Los Angeles to Daytona...

Day 6 – Here Comes The Rain – El Paso to Big Bend (not)

Today was always going to be about the mileage, the need to ride from El Paso to Big Bend National Park. Leaving early with overcast skies the progress along I10 was good, arriving at Van Horn at 9.30am for coffee stop. We had some rain along the way but the skies were showing signs of becoming blue. Turning off the 10 at Van Horn, which was a relief, we headed down the 90 but things progressively got worse with heavier rain, mud and diesel on the road for almost 100 miles, passing through small towns such as Valentine and Marfa.

On the horizon was a white mass far off in the distance, a steam cloud from a plant perhaps. After about thirty minutes of riding a large weather balloon was seen, tethered at its station this was a good opportunity to stop take pictures and wave at a passing freight train, this was met by several pulls on the air horn by the train driver, it made us all laugh as we mounted up to push onto Alpine.

Just outside Marfa we saw a small shop frontage, not a shop, very well presented in light green with Prada Milano above the windows, adorning the shelves inside were shoes, very strange as this was in the middle of nowhere.  Later we learned that this was part of a larger Marfa art initiative. The temperature tumbled to a low of 42 Fahrenheit with ever driving rain.  Riding with an open faced helmet rain driven onto my face mask forced water into my nose and my mouth, a very strange and almost threatening feeling.

The last 75 miles into Alpine were very tough indeed a real shame as the roads were brilliant, meandering with rises and falls, but visibility was too poor to enjoy what I suspect was a beautiful landscape.   We pulled in for lunch at a silver coached diner with all of shivering and looking rather glum, very glum as the main reason for staying at Big Bend was the night sky, it is one of the darkest places on earth and as such provides great views of our galaxy.  From California we had been threatened with a strong polar front coming in from the North, we were now on its outer fringes and with it a weather front set to test us all.

The weather was now threatening, in fact stopping any chance of seeing clear skies in Big Bend, we were very cold with temperature at ca 42 degrees F let alone wind chill, so we pulled the trigger and took the decision to stop the night at Alpine, find a hotel and amend our road plan. Whilst not ideal we had flexibility by not having rooms booked ahead, we found a hotel and made use of the hot tub and reflected on the demands of the day and what could have been at Big Bend.

Laner
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