A Special Day on the Llano Estacado

As I pulled out of Clovis around 10 am, I set a realistic expectation of making Ft Sumner by 5:30... around sundown. Last night, I had a wonderful meal at Taqueria Jalisco #2 just east of the America's Best Value Inn.... it was one of those meals you remember.... the salsa was excellent (that's the first hurdle for any Mexican food restaurant) and the margaritas (yeah I had 2) were excellent - easily the best I had on this trip.

So this morning where did I go for breakfast - you got it - back to Taqueria Jalisco #2 and I didn't skimp - I had the steak & chilaquiles w/ beans and hash browns with another fried jalapeno (not breaded) just a fried jalapeno sliced and then soaked with lime juice and lightly dusted with salt... I love jalapenos but have never had them like this.... from now on I will ask for them prepared like this for every meal. Then I got a breakfast burrito to go which I ate 1/2 of in Melrose....yeah I said 1/2.... I normally can put down any breakfast burrito in its entirety with no problem but this was the mother of all breakfast burritos.... I mean the thing must have weighed a pound and a half.

So what's the point of all this talk about the food.... well let's just say I had an ample reserve... I had eaten well and I had slept well... and it was a beautiful day.

So I was tooling along 84 still in Clovis trying to make sure everything was adjusted right.... finding the right spot on the seat.... I decided to move my seat up about 1/2 inch... it didn't seem like I was getting quite to near full extension on my legs... so I pulled over and did that.... got back on my bike and had my Zen MP3 player going in my left ear.... when I hear this "Hello there" right next to me..... scared the bejeebers out of me... I snap my head to the left and there's this young fellow riding right there with me..... I mean he just appeared out of nowhere.... this guy's smiling and starts talking to me with a beautiful Irish accent.... Hell I felt like just pulling over and listen to him talk...seems his name was Tom and he was a mechanical engineer doing a project for an Irish-based cheese company that has a plant there in Clovis.... I could tell the guy was an engineer even before he told me cause he kept looking back at the rack and Action Packer on the back of my bike and asking me about it..... only engineers are interested in stuff like that. We talked while we were riding and I somehow pulled one of my blog cards out of my pocket and handed it to him without wrecking me or him.... which I was kinda proud of.... and Tom got a call and said he had to go.... we did a stretched high 5 and I rode on down 84 west.... but Tom had given me a little energy boost. He was the first bicycle rider that had rode up beside me in the 950 miles I had been on the road. I enjoyed our little mile and a half of riding together.... if I'm ever back in Clovis, I'd like to go by the cheese factory and find out if Tom is still there..... seems like a guy you could have a beer with....

Once I cleared Clovis the first thing I noticed was that the relentless northwest wind I had fought for the last week wasn't there.... I remembered mention of a northeast wind when I watched the weather channel this morning.... and I could feel a breath of it on the back of my neck.... hmmmm pretty day - a little tail wind - lots of food in the belly - a good conversation with a fellow rider..... yeah this could be a good day.... maybe a great day.... and it was!

I was feeling the difference in the ride and enjoying the abundance of the wide open spaces of the high plains of New Mexico.... reminded me of the Clint Eastwood westerns I love so much.

I saw one of those historical markers - a big brown sign - up ahead and decided to pull over and take a look. It marked the beginning of the Llano Estacado - Stabled Plains - named for the squared off mesas that were interspersed across the plains that seemed to form fortresses that surrounded the endless expanse. I read the description of the history of the area starting with the Nomadic Indians and countless buffalo that met the first Spanish expedition in 1541. The area was later the center of Comanchero activity and in the 1800s a center for cattle ranching.

As I pulled my bike away from the marker, my mind was drifting through scenes of strings of galloping wild mustangs long escaped from their Spanish importers, of a lone Indian riding his own barely tamed mustang with his spear filled hand cocked back just before he thrust it into one of a thundering buffalo herd - herds that were measured not in 100's or 1000's or 10's of thousands but in square miles, of a group of Comanches returning from their raid in Texas to be swallowed up by the deceiving flatness of the Llano Estacado.

I felt the wildness of this land.... I felt the energy of its void and of its history and the men and beasts that had roamed its endless boundaries for thousands of years.... the more energy my legs thrust into the pedals the more energy I took in and the more energy I took in the faster I went till I found myself at max cadence in 21st gear...

I was topped out doing 16 mph with 60# of gear on a Trek 3700 mountain bike.... and I didn't let up for hour after hour.... yeah there was a little tail wind but that wasn't it.

This land was talking to me.... it was beckoning me on .... demanding more from me than I had...but I was somehow giving it... but I was getting much much more in return.

I was experiencing a magical day of bike riding across the High Plains of New Mexico with a thundering herd of buffalo on my left, a painted stallion leading a mass of blurring hooves and streaming manes on my right and me caught up in the vortex of the energy and history of the Llano Estacado.

I pulled into Fort Sumner at 3:40 pm with a realization that I was privileged to be able to experience something so special and with a sense of disappointment that it had to end.

Bicycling professionals would describe a day like today as though they were riding with no chain - a sense of no resistance from the bike.

Me - I was riding with the spirits of the Llano Estacado.

End of Day Totals:

Leg 2
Day 12
Date Sat, 01/09/10
From Clovis NM
To Fort Sumner NM
This Day's Miles Cycled = 64
This Leg Total Miles Cycled = 516
This Day's Miles Walked = 0
This Leg Total Miles Walked = 29
Discovering America on 2 Wheels Total Miles Cycled = 1026
Discovering America on 2 Wheels Total Miles Walked = 57
Discovering America on 2 Wheels Total Miles Cycled & Walked = 1083