Day 13 - Back to El Paso - a long day in the sun

Got up and out early, but found it difficult finding a place to catch breakfast.  Ended up chowing down some microwave fare from a local gas station. As the route between Columbus and El Paso has nowhere to stop for even water, we had to provision accordingly which meant even more gas station food for along the way.

This is us just heading out on this final day.  The proprietor of this hotel is a charming and engaging women who shared a bit about this small town.  It turns out her husband is the mayor.  One of us asked in jest "so who is the judge?".  Without missing a beat, she replied; "oh, that's my brother-in-law".  :)

She runs a very nice establishment with complimentary beer, snacks and use of the laundry. Martha (that's her name) did mention, with a bit of a sideways glance, the border patrol officers like to drop in and grab the free snacks.

She gets lots of bikers and hikers stopping in and will happily shuttle you around - but we chose to stretch our legs and walk.  We also passed on her kind offer to take us across the border for dinner in Mexico, but in retrospect, may have been nice to do.

There wasn't much to look at on the final day - as Christian said; "miles and miles of miles and miles".  The first hour was calm, but mother nature had the final say, pestering us with a very unwelcome quartering headwind that made the 74 miles feel like much more.

180 ° panoramic

Martha, on her way to see her orthopedic doctor (broke her arm ice skating!) in El Paso, stopped to say hi and ask if we needed anything.  We take a lot for granted, not having to travel 75 miles to visit our docs.

That's Mexico - you can barely make out the border fence.  Hmmmm - will this be a big beautiful wall someday?

We came onto the Border Patrol headquarters near the 3/4 point in the ride.  There was a constant stream of their vehicles up and down the road all day long.  We did not see any relevant activity, just a lot of gas being consumed.  We also saw a number of horse trailers - did not know they still use horses to patrol - though the numerous ATVs would have replaced the horses by now.

Well, we did make it back to Texas, where the wind does blow in all directions at the same time.  That is some new highway construction (not on the maps) we had to find our way around and through.

Closer to El Paso, the route took us onto some rather iffy dirt roads.  Shortly after we started down, a border patrol officer took note and visited.  "You guys know where you're going?" he asked.  "Not a clue" came from the 3 gringos.  With that he cautioned us and recommended we find alternate route.

The conversation continued and came around to us describing our adventure and how we left El Paso 2 weeks early and this was the final piece of an 850 mile ride with 50,000 ft of hills.   "So why would you do this? Are you crazy?" he quipped.  "Because we can" came promptly and proudly.  After a bit more banter, his view changed and making us smile, he said "well, I'm not that much younger than you guys, so maybe when I retire, I'll do the same".  So much for being crazy.

The main road into El Paso, right along the border.  The fence one right is the border - the Rio Grande river is just on the other side.

Back to the hotel after 800+ miles and lots of fabulous memories.