Camp Wood - Del Rio...Day 20

Woke up to heavy cloud-cover this morning and was thankful. As long as I could finish the day without rain the clouds would be a welcome reprieve from the Texas heat. Above is Road 334. It looked exactly like this for 30 miles. I counted 6 vehicles on this road...all United States Border Control vehicles.

West Nueces River...bone dry. I've pedaled over countless dry river beds over the past week. Typically, April and May are rainy months for Texas. People in every town I've visited have said that it hasn't rained in 2 months. As I write this...It's raining in Del Rio. Enough to fill the banks for The West Nueces? I doubt it and I'm not pedaling 45 miles back to find out.

Below, THANK YOU Tim of Lakeside Sports for giving BIG RED a much needed "spa" day. She looks great with 2 new tires, brake-pads, and a newly lubed chain. Also the "nip/tuck" service of a professional tune-up can never hurt. I can't wait to take her out tomorrow.

A much needed easy day in Southwest Texas. I can't explain how much the cloud-cover helped today. The heat easily zaps my strength and the amount of water needed to replenish my body has been unreal. Without the heat, the ride becomes much more manageable. The terrain also helped in that today's route was relatively flat and I had a slight tail-wind for most of the day. After 80.97 miles we reached Del Rio, TX by 1pm. It felt good to relax for the remainder of the day. Tomorrow will be a short 30 mile day. I've come down with a cold and sore throat. I need to take it easy for a few days to regain some stamina as I've been pushing it too hard this week. In short, my spirits are high, however, I'm exhausted.

TRIP STATS:

Total miles pedaled: 1702.22

Route miles pedaled: 1697.5

Days ahead of schedule: 2.0

Average miles pedaled daily: 85.11

Days up before 5am: 20