Life has become immeasurably better since one of my very best friends Devon Powley rode into town, ready to bike with me through the toughest section of this whole trip: Big Bend National Park. He flew from Washington, D.C. to El Paso, took a train to the neighboring town of Alpine, and finally a bus to Marfa. With my blessing and approval he’s getting married in four weeks, making this week-long stint a kind of sick bachelor party, one with shooting pain instead of shots. The kind where you have zero fun with your amigos and run to your beloved with open arms.
I’m enormously grateful to have Devon along. Should something happen to me on this trip, Devon will be there to collect my dog tags and commit my last words to memory. Traveling with a friend is better than traveling alone, especially when it comes to seeing everything with a second set of eyes. Devon has already made two observations that escaped me. The first was completely idiotic and went something like this: “I thought there would be more rattlesnakes.” I asked for clarification. My friend—who was always the number-one or number-two student at our college’s math department—said he thought you would see and hear rattlesnakes all the time in Texas, like birds chirping or dogs barking, just like the movies.
The second, though, wasn’t a waste of my time. He said that he’d already met several people who had never left the state of Texas in their entire lives. The person who drove him from the bus station to our motel had lived in Marfa his entire life and had never been beyond the city of Austin. Another one of our drivers, Charlene, had grown up in Alpine (a small-town like Marfa) and had never been beyond Dallas. We’re going to keep this phenomenon under observation, but I will say that I found the opposite to be true in Mexico. People I met with very little money from small border towns in Mexico had traveled all across their own country and the United States. Miguel, the owner of the bakery where we bought breakfast, is the perfect example. Before he was turning out divine donuts and sinfully delicious cinnamon rolls, Miguel worked construction for a short period of time. Even so, that job took him to half a dozen U.S. states and territories, including the Virgin Islands.
Devon’s first day on the road didn’t get off to a good start. My bike had mechanical issues that were beyond my YouTube expertise, so we caught a ride with the Adventure Cycling Association tour to the town of Alpine. The aptly named Bikeman of Alpine resides there. He’s the only mechanic within the four nearest towns. After an amazing lunch at Los Jalapenos, a nearby Mexican restaurant, and several hours of waiting around and looking nervously at the clock, we finally got on the road. There were nearly 60 miles between us and the border town of Presidio and the initial miles were mostly uphill. It was a grey, sunless day. The forecast called for rain, and the wind was blowing against us. Instead of dipping a toe into the amateur sport of bike touring, Devon was forced to belly flop from the high dive.
It was difficult to focus on my friend’s aches and pains while surrounded by such a majestic landscape. The scrubby plains I’d seen so far in Texas had been replaced by giant misty rock formations, rising above the horizon like massive naval vessels in port. We passed ghost towns, huge sweeping ranches, and two random camels standing awkwardly by themselves like their own high school clique. A road sign told us where to look for Lincoln’s profile in the mountain rocks, and sure enough the bearded fellow was clearly visible.
Eventually Devon’s moaning became impossible to ignore. I did my best to help him out. I carried some of his gear and eventually traded bikes with him. At the top of every hill I waited for him to catch up, because I’m loyal and noble like that. Thankfully Big Bend and west Texas in general is so desolate that the quickest way for Devon to escape is to keep biking toward our end goal of Marathon. I’ve been fooled enough times to know that an “international airport” in this part of the country refers to a dirt runway pointed in the direction of Mexico.
At that point, the wind had reached a frantic shriek and was pushing against me with enough force that I had to pedal hard even to go downhill. We were about to run out of daylight, and there was a dust storm forming on the horizon. A lot of grit was already in the air, and I noticed that a lot of it was sticking to the tears that the wind was forcing out of my eyeballs.
Ten miles to Presidio I spotted an abandoned building that I thought would make a great picture. I pedaled over to what, apparently, had been a sports bar of some kind and prepared to take a couple of iPhone shots.
A red pickup truck drove by and came to a halt.
“Hey!” someone yelled at me.
I thought I was in trouble for trespassing on private property, but I recognized Devon leaning out the window. I noticed my own bike was in a trailer attached to the truck. The bastard had hitchhiked.
“Want a ride?” the person who I thought was just as loyal and noble as me yelled.
“Uh … no, I’ll meet you there,” I yelled back without thinking.
I had the next hour and half of pedaling against the wind to realize that I was dealing with a professional.
