Border Patrol

October 1, 2015

Bracketville -> Just past Del Rio: 45.5 miles

Last night we stayed in Bracketville, TX. Come to find out that we ended up camping in a pretty cool spot. Fort Clark Springs, a military fort that still has original buildings from the 1800's! It's kinda like a little neighborhood now with its own natural spring pool. Anyways breakfast was oatmeal + honey and instant Starbucks coffee that Christina (the cyclist we met in Baton Rouge) gave us! Not too long after leaving Bracketville we met a sweet couple who are also touring cyclists!! The first ones we've seen doing the Southern Tier route that Joe and I are doing. Except they are going from California to Florida. It's great seeing people that are coming from all of the places that we are headed to...they know where the cool spots are, where we won't have water or anything in sight for miles, etc. And we get to tell them of the awesome people that we've stayed with and places to see :) 

After we ran into Robert & his wife we were about 12 miles outside of Del Rio. For lunch we decided to get some Texas BBQ! 'Twas delicious. Then we went to Walmart to stock up on toiletries & dinner and what do ya know, we saw Todd & Judy...another couple touring! They are also going from California to St. Augustine. Coincidentally their home is in the Florida Keys & we have mutual friends there through Otherside Boardsports! 

"shower" time

After an hour and a half of a break at Walmart we headed to our camping spot that ended up being super sweet. Of course, since we're basically on the Mexican border, I made tacos! Grilled queso, avocado, diced tomatoes, and cilantro! Very easy and delicious :) it was a short day so we are relaxing and hanging out by the reservoir. Enjoying the beautiful sunset! An awesome thing about this trip is that we don't miss a single sunrise or sunset 

(Border patrol has gone past our campsite 3 times already haha I've never been this close to Mexico!)


October 2, 2015
Del Rio -> Dryden, TX: 85miles
Time on bikes: 6:48hrs

The wind basically woke us up this morning. Luckily it ended up being a tailwind! After eating peanut butter roll ups for breakfast we headed towards the middle of nowhere. Literally...we were just going to pick a spot on the side of the road at the end of the day to set up camp. Anyways just about an hour into our ride we saw ANOTHER cyclist! Cheryl has 2 friends following her in an RV & she is biking from San Diego to St. Augustine to raise money for International Sports Federation! You can check it out at Sportsmissions.com. While we were talking to Cheryl, another cyclists rolls up! Matt, who is also on the Southern Tier route. He's riding solo & staying in hotels along the way. It was awesome seeing all of them! We were stoked to hear about the places we HAD to see and of course the nothing-ness that we were about to go through today.

(because we didn't feel like biking the same road again to leave the campsite)

Joe and I made sure to stock up on food and water just in case! Dryden was the next town and we weren't planning on going that far today. The winds helped us out a lot and we decided to just go for it. We were told that there was a convenient store in Dryden, but it may or may not be open. The next town with water is 20 miles further. We made it to Dryden and YAY the store was open! I was dreaming of an ice cold coke and I actually got one (maybe 2). On top of the store being open, the nice lady running the store let us camp right next to it! She also let us keep our water in the ice cooler and use wifi. We have wifi in the middle of no where...where our phones have no service :) Check out where we are sleeping. We were told to be careful of the electric fence haha as for tomorrow, we have another long day in the middle of nowhere