Finding a Kitten in New Mexico and Cycling through West Texas
- genevieve
- Jan 12, 2018
- 11 min read
After our tough time in Tonto National Forest, we decided to bypass Emory Pass, the upcoming climb in New Mexico. Instead, we rode along the US-Mexico border in New Mexico—and fate brought us the biggest surprise of the trip. We then made our way into Texas, where we went off route again to stop in Marfa. Pretty much all of our cycling in this part of Texas was through very small, rural towns and sprawling countryside.
We cycled about 713 miles bicycle touring from Bylas, AZ, to Del Rio, TX, bringing our total mileage up to about 1,644 miles. We covered this distance from October 3–24, 2017 (days 29–50 of our trip). Here are some highlights from this section of our Southern Tier bicycle tour.
Cycling Near Nowhere
We left the church in Bylas and headed back out on highway 70. We were on the road for only a few miles when Doug got a flat tire—he'd rolled right over a long screw that punctured both sides of his tube. We stopped to patch it up and were very thankful we had so much Slime gear! We made use of patches, CO2, and the hand pump all in one go so we were quickly back on the road.
It was a bit windy, so we treated ourselves to fries at Taylor Freeze in Thatcher, a popular stop for cycle tourists (probably because there's nothing much else around). Though we struggled with the wind, we felt really accomplished when we passed our 1,000-mile mark!
When we arrived in Safford, we stopped at a bicycle shop to get Doug's wheel trued, and then we made our way to our Warmshowers for the night. Hal greeted us, let us shower, gave us a snack, and drove us in his golf cart to get drinks at a new restaurant in town. He was a real character who knew a lot about the area's history and Mormon influence.
The next day, we got on the road early because rain was forecasted in the afternoon, and we had to climb about 1,000 feet before reaching Duncan. We finished our ride, pulled up to our home for the next two nights—a teardrop trailer specifically for cyclists—unloaded our belongings, and got inside just before it hailed and dumped rain! The roof of the trailer leaked, and the door wouldn't close completely, so it was quite the experience. We walked around town after the storm, and it was flooded down the main street!
We spent a day off in Duncan. We walked around town, pretty much all of which is along Highway 70, and stopped at the antique mall and visitors center. It was nice to spend a rest day in such a small town where we didn't feel overwhelmed with needing to see everything. We went back to our Warmshowers to relax for the evening. Our trailer was behind the town's inn, which had a beautiful garden, goofy goats, and many rescued cats.
Going Off Route
My tires had gone flat when we arrived in Duncan, but Doug looked for issues and pumped them up on our day off. They were flat again the next morning, so he checked them out and gave them more air, and we hoped not to have any more issues.
About seven miles into our ride, we entered New Mexico. As with our other border crossing, this one felt like an accomplishment. We were in our third state! The ride from Duncan to Lordsburg was mostly easy and quiet. We arrived at the KOA in Lordsburg, ate a very late lunch, did our laundry, and walked into town to get some groceries.
The next day, we were officially off the ACA's route when we cycled from Lordsburg to Hachita. We rode about twelve miles on Highway 10 to start, which wasn't much fun at all. At one point, I got a flat tire from a thorn. We stopped to fix it, and Doug decided to pump all of our tires again. Unfortunately, a valve stem broke, so he had to replace his tube as well! We were really thankful again that we had Slime patches and a lot of extra CO2 canisters with us.
We turned off Highway 10 to ride on the 113, and we had the road to ourselves. We saw about three vehicles in twenty miles. Shortly after crossing the continental divide, my back tire went completely flat. We had to walk for a mile until there was space to re-patch it. After that, we made it to the tiny little town of Hachita. We camped indoors at the Warmshowers there, which is the community center. They recently reopened this Warmshowers, which is great because Hachita receives a lot of cyclists on the Southern Tier and Continental Divide routes.
My tires were both completely flat the next morning, but our host came to our rescue! He and a friend of his—who just happened to be visiting—drove over with tools and supplies to fix my tubes. His friend has a lot of experience patching tires from his many long distance bicycle trips. He showed us better ways to clean and patch our tubes—including using rubbing alcohol and rubber cement. It turns out we hadn't properly cleaned our tubes before applying patches, so they weren't sticking well enough. After an hour or so, we were on our way! Thankfully we had a tailwind all day, so our ride to Columbus was easy breezy.
Finding—and Keeping—a Kitten
Fran was our host in Columbus. We arrived at her self-built home and were greeted by her two pups. She has an old school bus that she used to travel in and now uses for Warmshowers guests. The three of us drove to the US-Mexico border station four miles away so we could go to dinner at a restaurant just across the border in Mexico. We parked, and I pointed out to her that her front tire was going flat. She said we'd fix it after dinner, and off we went.
The restaurant owner was so kind and had the chef make vegan vegetable tacos for Doug and me (she even gave us a bag of candy when we left). We also ordered margaritas, chips, and guacamole. The restaurant was inside a store, so we spent a bit of time exploring all of the art and products they sold from different regions of Mexico.
We got back to the car, and the tire was completely flat. As Doug and Fran rifled through her toolbox looking for a tire iron, I saw a kitten in the distance. I said to Doug, "I see a kitten over there. I'm going to see if I can pet it." I walked over to the kitten and saw he was much smaller than I thought. He ran away from me a couple times but didn't get far before he was blocked by a fence. I picked him up and could feel every little tiny bone in his spine.
When I got back to Doug, he didn't know what to think, but he went to buy a can of cat food from the Family Dollar (the only other structure by the border station). I figured we'd just take the kitten to a shelter the next day. After about fifteen minutes, Fran's friends came from town to help fix the tire. We got back to Fran's and settled in to the school bus for the night.
Fran had a cat carrier she didn't use, so she lent it to us for our ride to Santa Teresa. We strapped it (with the kitten inside) to the back of my bicycle, and rode to the market in Columbus. We were nervous about riding with him on our longest day yet—67 miles—but it didn't seem like there was another option. The market we stopped at to buy him some food was closed for Columbus Day, so we went to a small cafe in town. The chef made us breakfast burritos with potatoes, and we almost convinced the kind waitress to adopt the kitten! Though she seemed really interested, she couldn't take him because she worked all day. We got some chicken for the kitten and were on our way.
It was a lot of miles for us, but the ride went just fine. We had some tailwind, and it wasn't too difficult. We called both of the animal shelters in the El Paso area as soon as they opened, and we had no luck. They either didn't take strays or were full from Hurricane Harvey. They told us to call Animal Services, but I really didn't want to because it isn't no-kill. It's likely that a cute, tiny kitten would be fine, but I couldn't be sure. This put a lot of stress on both Doug and me as we didn't know what to do.
We spent the night at an Airbnb in Santa Teresa, just west of El Paso. Our Airbnb host was also interested in adopting the kitten, but after talking with her for a while the next morning, she decided against it. That dashed our hopes again, and we really didn't know what we were going to do. We had an appointment at the Apple Store in El Paso that afternoon (our computer had been broken for about a week), so we started making our way there.
Shortly after crossing into Texas, I had a bit of a breakdown. The roads were extremely busy and shoulder-less, we were going to be very late for our appointment, we had a kitten we didn't know what to do with, and our relationship was really strained. Long story short, and many tears later, we rented a car from about noon that day to 9:00 am the next. We drove to our computer appointment, and we took the kitten to the veterinarian. The vet encouraged us that the kitten would be very much okay traveling with us. After more tears, Doug said we'd keep the kitten. It wasn't resolved, but we purchased some food, a carrier, a harness, and a leash.
We then drove the rest of the way to our Warmshowers in San Elizario. We were nervous about what our host would think of us arriving in a car, but David was so kind, and he didn't judge us one bit. We spent two days camping there. The next day we returned the car and took busses all around El Paso to pick up our computer and buy other supplies we needed. The second day off we spent time at a cafe nearby planning the next several days of our trip. David and Doug also worked together to put an old barbecue grate on my front rack so the kitten, who we'd named Border, would have a secure place to ride in his carrier.
Fighting the Elements
Two days off gave us time to get used to the idea of having a kitten with us. We were still nervous but ready to get riding again. Our first day to Fort Hancock went smoothly, and we arrived in the early afternoon. A church there—we just weren't sure which one—hosts cyclists. Luckily it was the first one we stopped at! We ended up having to wait three hours to be let in, but we were very grateful to be let indoors.
After a good night of sleep, we were off to Sierra Blanca. We had a hot and humid ride, which wasn't too bad until we stopped for a break in the shade and were attacked by mosquitos! Instead of resting, we pedaled as fast as we could. The route was on a quiet farm road that passed by lots of cotton fields. It was so nice feeling like we had the road to ourselves.
Doug and I were doing well, but we noticed Border started panting, so we stopped for a break in the shade (no mosquitos this time!). We put a cool towel on him, which seemed to do the trick. We started second guessing ourselves and wondered if we were doing the right thing—we'd need to be much more aware of the temperature in the future as it was only about 85° F. We saw thunderstorm clouds rolling in, so we took shelter in an abandoned building. This all set us back quite a bit, but we eventually made it to our cheap motel in Sierra Blanca.
The next day, the forecast showed extremely strong headwinds. We considered taking the day off, but we'd already taken two in San Elizario, so we decided to ride. This turned out to be one of our worst days of riding. We were on a frontage road next to Highway 10, and we had 25 mph winds in our face. I definitely considered quitting, but somehow we didn't. We ate lunch next to cement barriers on an onramp. It was very glamorous. We then made our way up a hill and were rewarded by a few miles of downhill into Van Horn. We were going to camp in Van Horn but decided on another motel to avoid the wind and rain that continued through the night.
Stopping in Small Texas Towns
After Van Horn, we went off route again. We wanted to see Marfa, so we took Highway 90 to Valentine. We had such a nice ride on 90 because it had extremely wide shoulders. Doug and I rode safely next to each other for most of the day! Just outside Valentine, we passed Prada Marfa, an art installation. In Valentine, Doug called the RV park (which was just a cement plot) to see if we could camp there, and the person who answered also worked for the Catholic church in town, so he said we could camp there. Lucky us!
We had another great ride the next day on our way to Marfa. We arrived at the Tumble In RV park, set up camp, and made lunch. We then cycled back into town to explore a bit. Most things were closed (or way out of our price range), but it was fun to see such a cute, quirky little town in Texas. The movie Giant, which we'd recently watched with my grandparents, was filmed in Marfa, so we biked by Hotel Paisano, where much of the cast stayed during filming.
The ride to Alpine the next day was fairly short, and we loved the scenery. We had blue skies, scattered clouds, and rolling hills all thirty miles. We were hosted by Martha and her son, Zach, who were so kind and welcoming to all three of us. Martha encouraged us to watch the sunrise from their porch the next morning, which we did.
After the sunrise, we pedaled toward Marathon. It was windy, but we had a good day. We passed a little structure with Target's name and logo on it—it seemed like something similar to Prada Marfa, but we weren't sure. When we arrived in Marathon, we set up our tent at the RV park and then walked across town to Gage Gardens. It was a beautiful little Oasis. Border loved exploring all the greenery!
Our next few days of riding weren't very eventful. We had 56 miles on Highway 90 to Sanderson from Marathon. There were no towns in between, the terrain was similar to other days—with the addition of some mountains and small canyons—and we camped at another RV park. Sanderson to Langtry was 62 miles, and we fought some headwind and hills. These hills were pretty short and appeared incredibly steep, almost like walls. I laughed at the first one because it didn't look real, but we made it to the top. In Langtry, we stayed at a Warmshowers: an empty RV that's left open for cyclists.
The 60-mile ride from Langtry to Del Rio brought us more hills and wind, but it wasn't too bad. Our elevation app showed us that there was a huge, steep hill at one point, but we were pleasantly surprised to see that there was a bridge over the canyon when we got there! Coming into Del Rio, we crossed the Amistad Reservoir, which was beautiful to ride along. We were so happy to have made it through three long days (for us) of cycling!
We checked into Motel 6 and spent two days getting things done in Del Rio. We ordered Border a trailer, researched and booked flights to Portugal for all three of us and our bicycles, purchased a new tire for me (mine had worn down a lot), and accomplished a lot of other things. After such an eventful three weeks, we really needed the extra rest to make sure we were ready to go.
What's Next
Though we loved a lot about the desert, we were so happy to be met with beautiful, large, magnificent oak trees the day we left Del Rio. Once we were east of this city, we felt like we'd truly left the desert behind, and we welcomed all the trees, plants, and water. We were nervous for what awaited us in hill country and excited for Austin—but what came after that proved to be our biggest challenge yet.
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