Eaton Adventure Cycling 2018: June 3, 2017. Amarillo TX

Tucumcari NM - Adrian TX

As we were packing up the campsite #tent#allthestuff, I heard Hap say very quietly "Hey Diane come over and look at this". Uh oh, I said to myself, this can't be good. As I was walking over, Hap was intently looking at something that was about a foot from the tent. A tarantula! Mmmm... I said that's nice. So how do you shoo away a big hairy spider? I got a big stick.....and handed it to Hap........there ya go bucko, I'm going over here. He flipped it (no spiders were hurt in the flipping) it away and continued to pack up the tent. I gave that area of the campsite a wide berth when I had to go over that way. The only thing I said was, "I think I would rather have a bear by my tent than that!"

At the KOA store they had pancakes and all the fixings so we ate a great breakfast before heading out on the highway. Actually we were able to ride a frontage road beside I-40 most of the day. The weather has gotten warmer in the last few days. It was in the 80's and sunny. The wind was out of the SSW and we are (of course) going East. It picked up once again in the afternoon. 15-17 mph. It was alittle hillier than we expected. We stopped in San Jon at a cafe for the only services (i.e. Water!) for the day. Since we planned for that it wasn't a big deal. We had our usual 4-20 ounce bottles of water plus the two-one liter bottles of extra water.

Just before we crossed into Texas, we stopped at a picnic area that was actually a road side rest without water or bathrooms. I had to get alittle creative to find a bathroom, but that's ok, I can be really quick! We took a dried apricot and water break and headed back out onto I-40 once again. The terrain has definitely flattened out. We are out of the mountains now.

Once we got to Adrian TX, we had to take a picture beside the sign that said, "Your halfway between Chicago and Santa Monica on Route 66". Even though we aren't officially riding the whole of Route 66, we figure since we are 1400 miles into our 2800 mile (at least we think it is 2800 miles, give or take a few here and there) trip we qualify. Adrian is another small town on Route 66 that is trying not to die. There is a cafe, but it wasn't open. There is also a huge windmill farm surrounding the town. The town put in a small RV park to accommodate the construction workers who put in the windmills back in 2007. We stopped there for the night expecting to pitch the tent. But once there, the caretaker said, why don't you just throw your sleeping bags out inside our shower/laundry building. So that's how we ended up inside for the nite! We fixed a noodle/spaghetti dinner, took a shower and had a great nights sleep.

Adrian TX - Amarillo TX

We had a fairly short ride to Amarillo so we didn't get a real early start. We ate some oatmeal, peanut butter / tortillas and coffee before heading out. Today was supposed to be overcast and possible storms. We kept our eye to the sky for sure. Once again we were on a frontage road beside I-40 all day. The road was actually very nice. Winds were about the same, SSW 12-15 mph. There were miles and miles of windmills. We probably saw them for about twenty miles.

Our first stop of the day in Vega TX, was for our second breakfast at the Hickory Inn Cafe. I'm trying to find someone that makes sausage gravy like my mom. So I tried again. They were good, just not the same though. Nice try! We got there just before a group of about 30 people. Good thing! More clouds started to roll in after leaving Vega. We checked the weather radar and kept heading east. The next town was Wildorado, TX we stopped for a cold drink, thinking we weren't hungry, but when we got in there and smelled the pizza.....well, what can you do? Are we eating a lot today Hap or what? Excellent pizza! The next attraction on Rt 66, was the Cadillac Ranch. Not sure why, but for some reason a farmer decided to bury Cadillacs on his farm. We could tell where it was a long way off because of all of the cars of tourists that were parked on the side of the road.

Sure enough there were Cadillacs buried in the ground. How about that? But more importantly was the dark clouds directly south of us! Uh oh, we checked the radar and sure enough they were heading straight for us. We decided we had seen enough of the Cadillacs.

We had about 15-20 miles to go. The radar showed the storm moving directly north (we are still heading east). We were watching the storm, and riding as fast as one can ride when they have 100 pounds strapped to their backs. Don't forget about the side/headwind. At least we were on a frontage road and the traffic was too bad. Once we got closer to Amarillo we hoped that some buildings would block some of the wind but NOT. I kept watching in my mirror and realized the storm was in the place we just were behind us. Keep movin......it's coming Hap.

We got into Amarillo proper and still had maybe 5-8 miles to go. We were staying with a Pickleball Ambassador for the USA Pickleball Association. Getting to Buddy's house wasn't bad traffic wise, just that darn mass of black clouds in my mirror..... Keep going Hap. The last few miles of the ride we were on a nice Rail Trail. The only problem was that some engineer decided to put large green posts (3 abreast) at the beginning of each trail section. No problem for a regular bicycle, but exciting for a loaded tandem. Hap did a great job of man handling the tandem through all of them. I gave him 55 bonus points for his efforts.

We got to Buddy's ahead of the rain and also ahead of Buddy. We had about an hour to wait at his house. He arrived about 2 minutes before the storm caught up with us. It poured for about an hour. Some said it was 3 inches of rain in an hour. Whew, thank you Lord!

Amarillo TX (Pickleball Day!)

We got up in the morning and played pickleball for several hours. It was so much fun! What a great group of people to play with. It was great to be able to play again. We are so used to playing pickleball 3-4 times / week. I don't think we will be leaving our play stuff at home anymore. Not sure where we will put it! After pickleball we went out to lunch.

Back at Buddy's house, Hap put a new tire on the back tire. Generally we get about 1200-1300

miles on it while we are touring on the tandem. The front tire gets more miles because it doesn't carry as much weight. We probably won't need to change it until we get home hopefully. We will carry the "slightly used" tire we take off as our spare. The tires we used are special touring tires that most bike shops don't carry, so just picking up another tire isn't so easy. We have had to call our tandem dealer in Alabama at the Tandem Shop while on a trip. We just ask Jack to mail it to wherever we are and we pick it up. While changing the tire, Hap found another wire in the tube and one in the actual tire. We were definitely headed for another flat tire.

We went to a neat Saturday evening service with Buddy at Washington Avenue Christian Church. Great music and fellowship. During church it poured down rain again. I don't think I have ever seen so much rain fall at one time! Well, maybe when we were in the rain forest in New Zealand! We stopped at a Thai restaurant for dinner then headed back to Buddy's house for more bike maintenance stuff and getting the bike ready to leave in the morning. Sometimes on these trips we know where we are headed but sometimes we just don't know where we will land when we get there! On the right side of my blog if you will scroll down there is a reading called "God is my Stoker". It talks about letting God take control of where you go and he will take you to places you never even thought of. Like we always say "Every day is an Adventure and God is always there". He knew the right place for us to be at just the right time. We enjoyed so much the last two days.