Day 27 - Sanderson to Seminole Canyon State Park

Sanderson was all but a ghost town. Leaving town we are faced with 80 miles of nearly no services. In theory there may be a store at Dryden and one at Langtry, but we can't count on it. The plan is for Mitch to plan dinner and haul everything we need from Sanderson.

The day started early with pretty much everyone getting up before dawn and manny of us were on the road before dawn. It is Sunday morning so traffic started out really light.

When I got going I could tell I was having a good day. My legs felt strong and I was making good time. Winds were basically non existent. I quickly got to Dryden where the "store" turned out to be closed, but looked like it might be open later in the day or maybe not on Sunday.

Mostly we had rollers with a general downhill trend. Somewhere after Dryden there was a Texas style picnic area. These have at least one garbage can and a covered picnic table. No water and only bushes to do your business in. This one came complete with a style to climb over the fence so you could get to the aforementioned bushes.

We are riding very close to the Mexican border. I noticed early in the day a Border patrol truck driving along a gravel road that paralleled the highway. He was staring out his window intently at the ground. I presumed to look for foot traffic in what was apparently a road with only a couple of car tire tracks. Later on I noticed spaced at regular intervals 3 or so tires chained together which I surmised they drag along the road to obliterate any tracks.

At about mile 40 I stopped to be quickly joined by Sally, Alicia, Shelly and Dick. They mentioned that earlier they had seen a couple of young hispanic gentlemen walking on the other side of the fence along the road asking for assistance.

After the halfway mark we hit a fairly long downhill followed by an equally long uphill. This then went over a somewhat flat plateau and then downhill again. Shortly after that we arrived at Langtry, where there was an open store. Quite a few of us ended up there at the same time.

As we ride through this area there are a lot of cuts in the road exposing the layers of limestone deposits that are common in this part of Texas. This is one that I found to be interesting because of the vertical fault line.

So far so good, but we still have 20 miles to go.

After resting, droning a large Gator Aid and eating a Snickers bar and some other food that I was carrying I decided that I wouldn't feel any better until I got into camp and so proceeded on.

Unfortunately, the wind had picked up and we had a heavy headwind all the way to camp.

On the downhill before the Pecos River crossing I was pedaling in my middle chain ring going downhill.

Crossing the river there was an eerie place in the middle where the wind went almost calm, but then the headwind started up again and continued until the end a few miles, uphill, later.

Actual water in a river!

We camped on top of a hill in Seminole State Park where there were good showers and restrooms. Here we see the sun quickly dropping on the horizon from where we were camped.

Dinner was a stew with rice that Mitch cooked. It was excellent. By then it was dark and we had our map meeting then off to bed.

In the middle of the night the wind started really blowing. Fortunately, my tent held up well, although others had somewhat less happy experiences.

Tomorrow is a short day, but worry about the heavy winds weighs heavily on our minds as we try to sleep.

It was a hard day.

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