Tuesday November 1, 2011, 65 miles (105 km) – Total so far: 1,997 miles (3,214 km)
>We rode out of Las Cruces on I-10 and entered the flat land of New Mexico on a nice warm day. We haven’t been on such a flat road for a few weeks so it was super fun to race a few trains. There was a Border Patrol Inspection Station checking for illegals. We had gone through one outside of Del Rio where they ask ‘where are you from’ and ‘where are you going’. I answered Florida and California the first time and thought about answering going to Florida to the agent this time just to see if they were really listening. But I chickened out and said California and he let us go. It’s fun to get in line with all the cars.
The Beast is continuing to have problems. Neither the front or rear derailleur are working properly. My fix to the chain guard on the chainwheel fell apart and the chain is going over the 3rd (largest) gear. I have tried the L and H adjustments but it still goes over. Plus the rear isn’t shifting off and on. I find myself manually moving the chain to get in the right gear. This is really slowing me down. Jocelyn is sometimes way ahead of me which is scary if I break down. Fortunately the cell service has been mostly good.
We stopped at a tourist spot for a quick hot dog and talked with a guy who said it must be rough to ride into such hard winds. When we stopped for lunch it really wasn’t blowing hard so I said that it isn’t really hard until it gets blowing over 15 mph. So when we finally left the store I swallowed my words! It was blowing really hard and we had about 20 miles to go for the next town of Deming. Jocelyn kept looking at me and said nice answer to that guy. We laughed and finally pulled into Deming, New Mexico after sunset. We were beat and did a quick laundry in the sink, dinner in the Holiday Inn, then early bed.