It took me exactly two weeks to reach Albuquerque, but it seemed like much longer. So much happened between those two cities, it’s hard to recall most of it! Troubles and joys, long days, hot heat, heavy winds! Mechanical issues! Freak thunderstorms and new friends! Giving up, and finding salvation at church! I’ll try to recap all the highlights for you.

Oh, and here‘s a rough map of my route. It’s not exactly accurate to the way I went, but it will give you an idea. Each green letter is a place where I slept. I’ll try to find a program or site where I can make a more accurate map.

The first few days were rather uneventful. I had to adjust to the heat and to the challenge of climbing hills again. I camped out most nights, even though most roads in Texas are lined with barbed wire. On the first night the best place I could find was between the fence and some small trees. After that I spent one night in an open field and the rest of the nights in city parks, one motel, one home, and one highway picnic area.

Day two I stopped at the library in Bertram to check my route and my email and Facebook. One of the entrances to the library was through a funky little cafe called Tippy’s Cafe. When I walked in, the woman behind the counter saw me and my bike and started asking me about my trip. Anna introduced herself and offered me a sample of some raw, organic, vegan chocolate. Turns out she’s from the Fort Collins area and might be up there when I get up there. We chatted for a while, she gave me some coconut water, and then she offered to watch my bike for me while I went into the library. When I left, I thanked Anna for everything, and encouraged her to check out my blog and let me know when she’s going to be up in Colorado.

On my third day out I was riding the dirt back roads between Goldthwaite and Brownwood. The night before I had lucked out and found a field with no fence and no posted signs, but it also offered no opportunity to refill my water. Luckily, only a few miles into my ride that morning I heard someone calling out, “Do you need some water?” I stopped to look around and see who had shouted it out, and I spotted a man just up the driveway I had passed about 100 feet back. I called back to him that I sure could use some, and turned my bike around.

Don introduced himself to me as a fellow cyclist and told me he couldn’t let me ride by without at least offering some water. We talked for a bit about where I was going and what my plans were. I told him that I was going to do some WWOOFing in Colorado, and he told me that the owner of the farm we were on employed WWOOFers. He told me I ought to stay around, but I told him I had a date when I wanted to be in New Mexico. Then Don told me about a tour he was going on called Ride the Rockies. He encouraged me to check it out and showed me an itinerary which listed the elevation change for each climb. I laughed and said I didn’t think I’d be able to keep up on my heavily loaded bike. I filled my water from his hose, and told him that maybe I’d see him during part of the tour.

I was approaching Sweetwater, TX five days after I left Austin. It was evening and I was feeling good and coasting down a very long hill, but then I started to see lightening in the distance. I started pulling over and asking locals about safe places to sleep, but no one had any bright ideas. I was terrified of the storm straight ahead of me, but I didn’t know where else to go, so I kept heading right for it. On the edge of town, I found a small abandoned shop that looked like it might be a good option. The door had no handle, so I knocked and let myself in. Looking around inside, it was obvious that someone else had been staying here, and very well may return. There was a foam mat laid out and empty beer bottles littering the cement floor. I didn’t feel any safer in that building than I did facing the storm, so I headed further into town.

At this point the storm seemed to be moving in the same direction as me, so I was staying a few steps behind. I stopped at a McDonald’s to use their free wifi, and I found a park in town where I could camp for the night. The next day, I was beat and the forecast was calling for more storms, so I decided to take a day off from riding. I wanted to stay out of the rain, but I had no luck with Couchsurfing.org, Warmshowers.org, or trying to befriend locals so they would take me in for the night, so I asked my friends if anyone could afford to book me a room for the night. Luckily, my friend Meghan called and helped me out. I got myself a good night’s rest, a free hot breakfast, and I was refreshed and ready to go the next morning.

Later that afternoon, I stopped just northwest of Dermott, TX at a little highway picnic area for a snack break. I ate some food and laid down on the table for a while, and as I was getting ready to get back on the road again, I noticed a small thundercloud in the distance flashing bolts of lightning. It looked tiny, but it seemed to be heading in my direction, so I decided it would be best to just stay put while it passed. At least I had a little metal awning over my head and could keep myself and my stuff dry.

After about 15 minutes, that tiny cloud had expanded to cover the entire sky. The rain started light, with the wind blowing it diagonally into the small shelter. Then it started pouring and hailing and more and more cars and trucks started pulling into the parking area.

The first person to join me under the shelter of the small metal awning was a 54 year old man named Troy. Troy had just moved to the area to do some construction work in Dermott and Snyder. He had a house in California, but was living out of his car to keep costs down. I have a feeling he would have been pulling into that lot storm or no storm. As we were chatting, the storm started getting worse, and a motorcycle approached from the southeast. The rider parked the bike and walked over to our little shelter. She took off her helmet and joined in on our conversation.

Natalie was from Monterey, California, and was on her way back from the east coast. As we chatted we found out we had a lot in common. We were both Couchsurfers, we both enjoyed slacklining, and we shared a lot of similar world views.

Natalie and I were close enough in age and experience that we could relate very well to each other. I think it was more of a challenge for either of us to relate to Troy, and for Troy to relate to us. We all shared stories and experiences (as well as a little bit of Wild Turkey 101) and for the short time we were trapped in that storm, we genuinely connected with one and other and I gained a whole new perspective on the world from Troy’s stories and attitude towards life.

The rain didn’t stop until the sun had already set. I got out my sleeping bag and laid it out on the picnic table. Natalie headed out towards the next town to get a motel room. Troy invited me to sleep in his car, but it seemed pretty cramped in there and I was already comfortable on the table. That night I had some really bizarre dreams, and woke up with a case of sleep paralysis and a sensation that someone was somehow reaching through the table and squeezing my wrist. I tried to call out for help, but I couldn’t move and I could barely make a sound. Then I fully woke up and returned to my senses. The fear left me, and I was left with just a sense of “Well, that was weird.”

Two days later, I was on my way to Muleshoe from Lubbock when I got another flat a few miles short of Littlefield. I stopped to put in my last new tube, and discovered that it already had a slow leak in it. I tried to locate the source of the leak, but I couldn’t, so I decided to just ride, and reinflate it whenever it started to get low (which turned out to be about every 6 miles or so). I stopped in Littlefield to use the internet at the library to try and find the nearest place where I could get another tube. There was no place nearby, so I went back out and tried to fix my problem. I switched to my old tube and tried patching the hole. When I went to inflate it, a hole burst right through the patch. I tried it once more, and the same thing. I figured I’d try the new tube again, but when I went I picked it up, I noticed that a new hole had developed near the base of the valve stem. There was nothing I could do. I was out of patches, out of tubes, and had access to neither.

I walked my bike to the McDonald’s in town to once again take advantage of their free wi-fi. I found a place to camp for the night, and sent out a distress call via Reddit.com/r/assistance, which was related by Redditors to Reddit.com/r/Lubbock. I also got a message via Couchsurfing.org from a guy in Lubbock named Grant who was passionate about bicycles and touring and wanted me to come visit. He also managed a bike shop and offered to help me out with whatever I needed.

The next day I got a message from a woman named Amy on Reddit.com who offered to come pick me up and help me out. She ended up sending her husband Dane instead and he brought me back to Lubbock.

Amy and Dane also happened to be Couchsurfers. They were both intensely interesting people and also genuinely interested. Dane brought me to Grant’s shop where he bought me a new tire which Grant offered at a special discount, then he took me back to his place where I hung out until Grant got out of work. Amy fed me and showed me her backyard farm where she had veggies growing in a greenhouse, and an area where she kept chickens and ducks. After a little while, Grant called and I headed over to stay with him for the night, since Amy and Dane were still just getting over a recent illness.

When I got to Grant’s I took one of the most satisfying showers of my life. Afterwards, a couple of his friends came over and we drank some beers and ate some chicken fajitas. I also tried some of Grant’s special spicy pickle slices, spiced with ghost chilis. We all sat around the table out back and chatted until late at night, but I still managed to get enough sleep to make it to Muleshoe the next night.

The first person to talk to me in Muleshoe didn’t have much to say. He commented about how I was the first white person he’d seen in town and as he approached me to continue the conversation I noticed a strong smell of liquor on his breath. The next thing he said to me was a complaint about how you can’t buy alcohol in Muleshoe. He continued to talk at me about how there weren’t enough white people and you can’t buy beer and how he came from Oklahoma to run combines with his buddies. I tried to excuse myself, telling him I just needed to go use the wi-fi at the McDonald’s of which we were standing in the parking lot to find a place to sleep. He pointed to a trailer behind the parking lot and informed me that there was a bed open and that I was more than welcome to stay with him and his buddies as long as I wasn’t “some sort of fucking weirdo.” I assured him that I was indeed some sort of fucking weirdo, and wished him a good night.

The next day I was aiming to make it to a town called Melrose in New Mexico, but after only a few hours fighting the headwinds, my body was giving up on me. I stopped at a picnic area short of Farwell, and rested, but even after an hour of rest, I still felt too weak to move on, so I started waving my thumb. After a little while, a woman pulled up in her car and told me she wasn’t going the way I was trying to go, but she lived just down the road and she could get me some water. She drove off and shortly returned with three bottles of water and two small oranges. She told me that just a short distance from the picnic area there was a church where I could find a minister who might be able to help me out. I asked her if he’d be put off by me just showing up and asking for such a big favor like that, and she insisted that he would not, so I decided to give it a try.

When I told Dave (the minister) about my situation, he smiled and laughed and said that if I had showed up a few hours earlier I could catch a ride with him while he was going out to get groceries. We talked for a minute and he decided that he wouldn’t mind giving me a ride to Clovis, NM. During the ride, we talked a little bit about my journey and life in general. Eventually he asked me if I was familiar with the Lutheran Church. I told him my familiarity ended with the knowledge of the churches existence. He vaguely explained a little about the history of the church, and told me what it meant to him. Basically he preaches the gospel and believes that Jesus Christ is God and he is the only path to salvation and the center of everyday life. He also told me that he believes that everything that happens is all part of God’s plan. Then he asked me about my faith. I told him I wasn’t faithful to anything and told him about how in awe I am of the universe and how I’m a part of it and how everything just happens, how it may all just be cosmic chaos. He didn’t judge me or react much at all. I suppose to him, my lack of faith and me coming to him and asking him for help and expressing my lack of faith to him was all part of god’s plan. He dropped me off in a dusty lot in Clovis, and from there I managed to muster the strength to ride to Melrose.

During my ride the next day, somewhere on route 60, I heard a pickup truck approaching from behind me and slowing down. The truck passed me and I could see a road bike and a tandem bike in the bed of the truck and I knew that there was someone in this truck who wanted to talk to me. There was a man driving and a woman in the passenger seat and the man leaned over and said to me, “Man, you are a long way from… anything!” I laughed and agreed. I was about 30 miles from any functioning town in either direction. Dallas and Amy pulled the truck over and got out and we chatted for a while. They were both cyclists, as I had guessed, and were on their way back to Albuquerque from Clovis. Dallas told me that he normally didn’t drive that way, but decided to take the scenic route that day, and I commented on how it was a lucky coincidence. They gave me a cookie bar that Amy had baked for a bake sale which I ate while Amy took some photos and Dallas told me about the “bike shop” he had in his garage. Dallas gave me his card and told me to give him a call when I got to Albuquerque and we could have dinner together some night. I thanked him and told him I would take him up on the offer.

Once in Vaughn I stopped at Penny’s Diner for a cup of coffee and to plug in my computer and use the wi-fi. As I was sitting in my booth, a group of men came in and ordered some meals to go. While they were sitting and waiting, they started talking to me about where I was coming from, where I was going, etc. Eventually their food came out to them, and they left. Soon after that, the waitress came up to me and handed me a menu. “One of the gentlemen bought you a meal, just choose whatever you want and I’ll bring it out to you.” I was surprised that he had bought me a meal and left before I could thank him, but she told me he didn’t want to make a big deal out of it. I ordered a turkey burger and told her to thank him if he came back in. After eating my generously donated meal and checking my route for the next day, I retired to the city park.

The last night before I ended up in Albuquerque, I slept in the park in Estancia. It was a really nice looking park but it was neglected. I slept on a stage that sheltered me from the wind for the night. The stage had lights and power sockets, but two of the stage lights were hanging by their wires, and none of the power seemed to be turned on. There was broken glass and bad graffiti all over the stage, the kind of graffiti written by bored angry children. On the back wall of the stage there was a plaque giving thanks to the Estancia Youth Corps for their work on the park. I wondered where all the people named were now.

The next day I rode to Moriarty where I was picked up by my friend Meghan who drove me to her house in Albuquerque. I took a shower and relaxed and when her fiancé Collin came home from work the three of us went out for New Mexican food. Afterwards, Meghan and I stayed up drinking and catching up. It was good to be with an old friend, and I enjoyed our chat very much. The next day Collin drove me up to the top of one of the nearby mountains where we both stood in awe of the beautiful view and sunset.

My last full day in Albuquerque, I called Dallas and arranged to meet up with him for dinner. Collin and Meghan drove me to his house where I was greeted by him and Amy. Dallas offered me a beer and gave me a seat by the counter in the kitchen where he and Amy were preparing dinner. Their friend Woody came over and we all chatted up a storm while Dallas and Amy prepared the meal. The food was fantastic, and the company was wonderful. After dinner, Dallas offered to drive me back to Meghan’s but first he wanted to show me the garage. As soon as I walked into the garage, I was in awe. It really did look like a small bike shop. Dallas said that he wanted to wait until after dinner to show me because he thought if he showed me before, we’d never make it inside. I agreed with him, and we laughed, and he told me a little bit about all the bikes and parts he had stored in there. I was impressed. He told me if I was going to be in New Mexico for a while, I should come back and visit and if I needed any parts or work done on my bike, he’d be happy to help me out.

The next morning, Meghan left for vacation and I decided to ride my bike around Albuquerque for a while until my uncle Joe could pick me up and drive me to his house in Los Alamos. I rode to the library, and to the Whole Foods store, and then to Old Town where I planned to be picked up. I talked to some locals who were interested when they saw my bike all loaded up with all my stuff, and although none of them introduced themselves, they were some of the most excited and friendly strangers I had ever met.

It was a great ride, and I had a great time in Albuquerque, and now I’m having a real nice time relaxing and continuing my break from riding. I’d like to thank everyone again for helping and hosting and just being friendly. I really couldn’t do this without you, thanks.