On the Border

Cotulla – Laredo, TX

It feels like the end of many things, but it’s obviously the beginning as well.

The end of our ride through the states. The end of our ride through Texas – which is itself like its own country – which, indeed, we’ve learned it once was. The end of the prelude to our “real” trip. 

But when we cross that bridge into Mexico it marks the beginning of our real Spanish speaking journey, the beginning of our journey through the third world (can we still use that term? or is it on the bad list?) countries, and the real beginning of our eating, drinking and cooking adventures (how do we eat and drink enough when we can’t eat many things – like salad – and when we can’t drink the water, but when we need mondo calories and tons of water to get through a day?)

Well, we’ll deal with the future when we get there. 

Today’s post is more about where we’ve been and how we got here.

Tomorrow will be our last day in the US for a while – so tomorrow we rank the states we’ve been through. I mention this because this is your opportunity to weigh in. Love Iowa and think it should receive top billing? Well, good luck with that. But regardless, this is your opportunity to remind us of all the great things about Missouri or Illinois or Arkansas…

On that note, Texas did not finish on a high note today. Don’t get me wrong, it was a good day of riding- we even had the wind at our backs. It would have been so easy to connect the dots and Texas would have been in great shape. Maybe even in the running for the Dr. Diana Liu Award of Excellence – a highly prestigious honor that states spend a lot of time coveting. 

Sadly, that ship has probably sailed now. 

So we’re biking along on the I35 frontage road heading to Laredo. No traffic. Generally good pavement. Pretty flat. Enjoying ourselves really.

And then, out of nowhere things take a hard left turn. Literally. They talk figuratively about the other side of the tracks. In this case we literally had to cross the tracks. 

What’s on the other side? 

Gravel.

Mangy gravel. 

Bumpy gravel.

Worse, there were a whole bunch of burn piles upwind from us – that were still burning. Upshot was HORRIBLE air. Combine all the worst wildfire days for the year into ten minutes and that was us. It was like smoking seven packs of cigarettes all at one time – while biking – just to make sure you had to take it all in. And that wind – positioned perfectly to blow the smoke right at us.

And then – according to Google Maps- we’re supposed to turn and be done with all this. Except we’re confronted with a locked gate along with a sign telling us not to trespass. And also no fishing or hunting, and no littering and no dogs. What?

We figured out how to get through all of this with a minimum of damage to our souls, but we’re not happy. Lots of demerits for Texas. 

Okay, but Diana reminds me that we saw another wild boar and the 18-wheelers were awesome today. It’s true. We literally had about fifty of the big rigs give us those toot-toots that say: “Nice work bikers. We’re with you!” My arm started to get tired from the Princess Diana acknowledgment waves. (Don’t worry – for the most part they were on the interstate and we were on the adjacent frontage road).

Of course, fifty toot-toots sounds maybe better than it was. After all, we must have seen ten thousand big rigs today. Literally. It’s crazy. I guess this is the biggest inland port in the country. Which I think I understand to mean that tons of goods pass through the town – but I always thought the term “port” implied water and ships. Pretty sure they’re not talking about the Rio Grande… not exactly the Mississippi. Anyway, that explains the eighteen wheelers. They are the equivalent of ships I guess. 

So that was good. As for the wild boar, it was all the way dead, so I’m not sure that counts for much. 

But, really, I haven’t even told you about the bad part yet. 

Remember Quincy, Illinois and their boil order? We arrive in Laredo and I’m literally thinking about enjoying American water for the last few days here and how sad I’ll be when my water bottles run out in Mexico where we can’t drink tap water … and then Diana tells me that Laredo has a boil order because of E.coli and that Governor Abbott has declared a state of emergency. 

And to think, a month ago we didn’t even know what a boil order was. We were so naive to the world…

Considering that I’m not even sure Texas gets the credit for the tooting drivers it was a really bad day for Texas’ standing in tomorrow’s contest… It’s too bad. Because they have some good things going otherwise…

Housekeeping. I did some math – which I always enjoy. The world really needs more math. Such great challenges, and usually without any political baggage… Anyway, per my odometer we have traveled 2,396 miles since we left our house in Minneapolis. Which is about 800 miles more than if we had just driven here directly.

You can see our meandering route on our “wandrer” page. Diana tracks everything in Strava and Wandrer charts it all in one place – kind of slick. Go to our Maps page, and click on Follow Our Progress and then zoom out to see our whole route (and every other ride Diana has tracked on Strava – but for now the cool part is Minneapolis to Laredo). 

I guess you get the extra miles when you avoid Oklahoma and go to see St. Louis and Little Rock and Arkansas and stuff. The other thing is that about 10-15% of our miles are “extras” – things like going to the grocery store or riding extra to get to a rattlesnake infested Hipcamp… But, really, the plan was never to take the shortest route. The whole point of the trip is to enjoy the journey…

Speaking of extra miles we added an extra 8 or so today in order to go by Twin City Cyclery. (Not sure what this place is doing here. Don’t we have a patent on that term or something. Regardless, good place and good people). Finally got Old Dan and Little Anne new chains – and I managed to replace the old ones – which I’m feeling pretty good about. 

Lots more errands tomorrow in preparation for crossing the river Friday. The list includes:

• Voting absentee 
• Picking up fabric glue to patch a hole or two in our sleeping pad (we suspect goat heads!)
• Getting batteries for the steri-lite thing – which has taken on new importance since we can’t even get good water in the US…
• Picking up a new keyboard (which I’m very eager to get – all this typing on the screen is not what it’s cracked up to be).
• Getting some type of needle thing “my doctor” can use to dig the remnants of goat heads out of the bottom of my feet – because she says they can become infected.

Okay, so let the comment period begin. The judges will be making their decisions tonight so getting your suggestions in soon is important. Also, it is worth noting that there is a certain amount of corruption in this process. Bribes are, of course, not allowed. But if someone were to, say, promise one of the judges bottled water or cookies or something, that would, perhaps, not go unnoticed…

That’s all for today. Too hard to type this way and too many errands to run before we head into Mexico tomorrow morning.