Yesterday I flew in to El Paso to begin the trip. I had a layover in Dallas. So when I arrived at the El Paso airport, I had two items to collect from downstairs off the conveyor, my big luggage bag and my bike box. The luggage bag came out pretty fast but the bike box seemingly took forever to the point that I wondered if it had missed the connection in Dallas. Suddenly the dangling black rubber strips at the front of the conveyor parted and a cardboard box slowly began to appear. The box looked so different than the way I had last seen it that I wondered for a second if it was mine. Then I thought, "who else would be enough of an idiot to leave perfect 75 degree weather in Indiana to go ride 192 miles in nearly 100 degree heat in El Paso Texas - of course it's mine." But the twine that was wrapped around the box was completely gone, one of the handholds on the side was partially ripped out and both wheel hubs had punctured the box from the inside leaving two new holes in the box. I'm pretty sure at some point the box was on its side and something was dropped on it and drove the hubs through the cardboard. Upon opening the box, I discovered a TSA card inside so they opened the box which is not a problem but I worried about small parts not getting back inside the box following their inspection. My next concern was my Sustained Energy. That's the white powder in the bag in the photo below. I mix it with water and it provides most of my calories during the day. I put the ingredient label on the bag so they wouldn't think I was trying to smuggle drugs or explosives down here under the guise of a bike trip. Apparently the label worked because the baggie did not look disturbed.
The good news is I put the bike together and rode down to the border this morning with Kevin Salyer and back to the north for an hour or so and everything is working great. We leave tomorrow to ride 192 miles up to Socorro New Mexico. It looks like we'll see temperatures of near 100 for part of the day. We'll leave at 6 am and hopefully get to Socorro by 6 pm. Multiple layers of sunscreen, lots of water and not riding too fast are critical tomorrow. It's pretty boring desert and flat most of the way up there but I'll try to take a few pictures and post those tomorrow night. The scenery will start getting nice toward the end of Day 2 as we get in to the mountains south of Santa Fe. With the mountains also comes higher elevation and that should make for cooler temperatures for cycling.
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