Southern Tier - West Texas

As you can see from the pics, West Texas has been very boring.... 

Starting out in El Paso there was a lot of agriculture, including irrigated alfalfa fields and lots and lots of pecan orchards. Apparently, there's a huge lake under El Paso which is used to irrigate the crops. 

Traveling eastwards, leaving El Paso, on Rt. 20, I had amazing tail winds. I barely pedaled and averaged about 15 mph.

My first overnight in TX was at a "closed" camp - Planview Lake.  The owner no longer lived on the premise,  however, she let me stay the night. These geese were pure evil.  They would attack me for no reason.  I had to fight them off twice with a lawn chair.  

Moving on to Ft. Davis, TX, I quickly visited the McDonald Observatory.  It's part of the University of Texas at Austin. The tour and visitor center was kinda boring.  However, their research was interesting. They were modeling the universe to measure how fast it was expanding.

The roadside views are somewhat spectacular and boring....

Texas Longhorn! This confirmed I was in Texas....

Moving eastwards there was more signs of water and even rain...

Cycling was monotonous.... very long stretches of nothing....however being one with nature is kinda refreshing...

Almost every town has it's Mexican restaurant. And I found them. However, it was difficult to find vegetables and/or fruit on the menu in these places.

I stopped to take this picture of this Texas wild flower and got my 3rd flat of the trip. 

I fixed the flat along the side of the road. People did stop to offer assistance, but I had all the tools, extra inter tube, etc. to change the flat. Once fixed, I cycled back to camp, parked the bike and heard a "pop".  The inter tube blew out again. I'm guessing I must have pinched the the inter tube while installing it.  4th flat of trip.

Contemplating the flats...

Make it to Del Rio, and decided to switch up the Mexican food for some Texan BBQ at Rudy's! Weather forecast is for rain every day for the next 10 days.  Good thing, it typically only for a short period during the day and the temps are in the 80's so things dry quickly.  Next stop Austin, which will be about halfway! About 1,500 miles complete and 1,500 more to go.