The bottom line is that Texas is one of the windiest areas that we will ever have to bike through. Once we arrived into Texas from Oklahoma, we realized that this would be one of the most difficult mental challenges on the trip. Imagine this reality of having to bike 80 miles to just find another convenience stores. We threw a convenience store party by filling up the water bottles with as much ice as possible from the soda fountains!
On the way to Spearman, we stopped at a small local diner in Higgins right along the border. You could tell it was a cowboy/Texas place with all of the many pictures of local legends. The men there told us great stories about the area and the good old days! It was one of the best Texas experiences that I got, and bought a biscuit with sausage, egg and gravy for just a dollar. Cheapest place within 100 miles!
When I mentioned the difficulties of the wind, imagine a wind of 20 mph blowing into your face for 10 miles. During this time, you are just fighting to maintain any momentum down a hill or on the plains. I understand why investors are trying to put up as many wind turbines as possible in this part of the country.
One of my favorite stops was our lunch stop in Cactus on the way to Dalhart on our 2nd day in the Panhandle. We found this great restaurant called Judy’s Café where we got ourselves a good breakfast to fill up our stomach. It was my day to drive the van, so I figured I might as well find a good place to eat when ever it is possible! We ended up receiving a free meal after casually talking to the waitress just about life in Cactus and what we were biking for. They even let all of our riders in to fill up their water bottles with ice and use the bathrooms! What a nice group!
On our way to Dalhart, we biked along side to one of the biggest cattle herding plots that I had ever seen. From far way, it looked like a gigantic junkyard due to all of the many colors and its size. Once you got within a mile you could start smelling the cows and just hear all of the MOOs from them. People were stunned by how much beef was at the point with some people thinking it was disgusting and others just realizing it were part of industrializing food in America. Overall it was a powerful learning experience just to bike next to.
Those were some of the memories with our stop in Texas. Overall, we had great hosts who hooked us up with great dinner meals and pools to swim in. It was really hot so the best time to go swimming was after dinner when it was manageable to be outside. Thank god we have occasionally escaped that heat!
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