Today we break camp and continue our assault on US 90.
But first a few words about yesterday. There’s not much rest on our rest day. It’s our opportunity to go to Big Bend National Park.
We fill six vehicles and our staff caravans us to the park.
There are spectacular views of the unique rock structures.
We see the wall between the USA and Mexico.
Let’s see the bad hombres try to climb over this one.
The star of the park is the Rio Grande River and the canyon that surrounds it.
When we rode into Texas several days ago, we crossed an almost dry river bed.
This is the most water we have seen in a river in weeks.
Today we “rest” on the bike. It’s probably our easiest ride thus far. A 55-mile route begins with 21 miles of gentle climbing followd by 34 miles of downhill.
It takes us less than 3 hours to finish.
Start City: Marathon, TX
End city: Sanderson, TX
Miles: 55
Total miles on Hwy. 90: 3 days, 185 miles
Total miles to date: 1174
Pedaling time: 2 hours, 59 minutes
Avg. speed: 18.3 mph
Feet climbed: 600
Fatigue factor: 2 out of 10
Wind: N, 5 mph, crosswind
Road condition: 4 out of 5
Temperature extremes: 44 at ride start, 72 at ride finish
Cactus capital of the Texas:
We should mention the Union Pacific Railroad, which has followed our path for much of the past three weeks. There’s nothing like a train rumbling by at 3 AM while you are sleeping in a tent.
Today, they are working on the railroad, all the live-long day.
Lunch is at a memorable cafe where the food is good and the waitresses are “packin”.
Really.
No complaining allowed! Fortunately, the food is very good.
Tomorrow: no matter how you look at it, it’s still 81 miles!
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Eve and Roger's Cycling Adventures 
Loving this blog. Thanks for sharing the adventure with us!
Wow! Good thing the food was good and the waitress was smiling! She makes the west still look wild. Here in Indiana she’d be legal since we have
open carry, too. Guess we are the wild Midwest. Even at the grocery store
in Muncie!
Long ride tomorrow. Hope there is ice cream at the end. We’ll be tracking
you from our living room.
Best wishes for no headwinds.
Loving the blog. You two are making this look easy.
Less than 3 hours by 1 minute!!! Funny😂
Imagine my surprise when I found a card from El Paso, TX, at the mailbox with my daily Amazon order. I thought, who do I know in El Paso? Turns out it was a birthday greeting from those two wild & crazy friends making their way across America on a tandem bicycle. Your bed (a real bed) and some excellent beers are waiting for your arrival in St Augustine next month. We also have mapped out several new rides for you in St Augustine. I know you will enjoy riding them with us as soon as you get here. Thanks very much for the birthday greeting!
Keep the lights on and the beer cold, Al. We are pedaling as fast as we can to get there!
Impressive topography. Something special to experience I bet.
Are you experiencing any negative effects of the cumulative miles y’all are racking up?
Some chafing in sensitive spots is all that we have had to deal with so far. The rest days have come at just the right times!
Roger & Eve, we are enjoying your photos, commentary, and all of the (amazing/yuge/great) wall jokes. We feel inspired, since we are starting our own east-to-west partial Southern Tier tour in 2 days (only doing GNV to Mobile, though). Pro tip: foam earplugs and Benadryl at bedtime can help mitigate the train noise. Tell Bubba to get on it.
Thanks for the nice remarks. Good luck on your trip, Ally! Hope your weather is as good as ours.
Sounds like a much nicer temperature day today. That’s a relief
Impressive photos, impressive stats, impressive feats. Thanks so much. I love the pictures of the two of you looking so wonderfully happy together. Great lavender shirt, Roger. I need to get Kevin one.
Awesomeness everyday. You two rock! And the waitress has the “safe touch'”. We just got back from Bike Fl, Gullah Geechee tour and saw Safe Touch signs all over neighborhood around St John’s County fairground.