When you’re biking the Southern Tier, your standards for lodging eventually drop through the floor and settle somewhere in the Earth’s crust. Even so, last night’s motel was a bold experiment in how much a human can endure before calling a lawyer.

The mattress wasn’t so much “firm” as it was a collection of rusty bayonets disguised as springs. The road noise was so loud I felt like I was sleeping in the middle lane of I-10. And the coffee? I’m pretty sure it was just hot swamp water filtered through a gym sock. While I waited for that liquid disappointment to brew, the local cockroach population came out for their morning calisthenics. Apparently, I was the morning’s entertainment.

The Great Escape
We fled that place at 58 degrees, partly to beat the heat, but mostly to put distance between us and the bug Olympics. The morning was actually a dream—crisp air, a modest downhill, and legs that felt like they belonged to someone younger and more athletic.

The scenery was a revolving door of Texas greatness:

Pecan farms as far as the eye could see.

A petting zoo’s worth of animals: Birds, butterflies, horses, sheep, a random goat, and several “joyful” dogs who were very committed to helping us work on our sprint intervals.

The Lunch Oasis: We found shade, we ate, we didn’t think about the cockroaches.

Into the Oven
Then, the “Heat Dome” decided to join the ride. It hit 95°F with the kind of shade coverage you’d find on the surface of the sun. At that point, you aren’t “cycling”; you are slowly being sous-vided in your own spandex. We spent the afternoon trying to remember what it felt like to not be a human popsicle melting on the asphalt. The one thing that got us through, was a delicious instant cold brew from Swift Coffee ( Yep….. it actually is pretty dang good, and out in the middle of nowhere it taste like a gift direct from God.)

The Van Horn Redemption
They say the darkest hour is just before the dawn, and possibly at a roadside motel in West Texas. I will say that at the 99-mile mark, we rolled into Van Horn and were greeted by a hotel so beautiful I almost wept. After a day of grinding through a furnace, sitting in a lovely restaurant with actual architecture and eating a delicious meal felt like winning the lottery.

Jeff and I rode strong. We managed the heat the way we manage everything else: with a massive dose of humor and the constant reminder that “Hey, at least we’re biking across the USA.”

I’m officially back to feeling like my old self—minus a few pounds of sweat. Onward!