Chapter 4/Day 4: A New Definition for Exhaustion

After the best night’s sleep of the whole ride, we awoke to Gary frying bacon and cooking eggs and biscuits in the kitchen. Sharon invited her dear, little mother Jonnie Weaver to join us for breakfast. Amongst all these goings on here came Pete Gonzalez to retrieve his errant dog, Hercules. I thought “Hercules” was aptly named. Seemed he made a habit of escaping the confines of his world and his owner was growing impatient with his escapades. Mr. Gonzalez loaded Hercules into the back of his old pickup. The dog was trembling and I was fairly certain he knew he was in trouble. Sharon and I said our goodbyes to Hercules. I tried to get a good picture of him but he was like a child in hyper mode. I really appreciated the part Hercules played in our meeting of our new friends the McMullen’s.
4’ 7” 78 year old Jonnie was this beaming and excited schoolgirl of an audience. She loved us and we her the moment we met her. As our story unfolded from the day before and we told her the story of God’s provision through a hyper dog, Jonnie said, “God knows where to send people.” As we bowed our head before our breakfast, Jonnie wept as she prayed for us. It was the most endearing moment of our trip and I will always remember her earnest prayer on our behalf. We talked of other opportunities to help strangers in the past and we talked of all our animal friends from dogs, roadrunners, skunks, raccoons and owls.
As much as we hated to, we needed to be on our way. It was Sunday morning and pushing 11:00 when we said our goodbyes. The McMullens contributed pecan halves and a jar of crystallized honey to our stash of food. And we were off to our adventures. Unfortunately the wind was kicking up from the south as we headed southeast. A mile or so up the road we realized we had left our battery recharger plugged in the electrical outlet in “our” bedroom. Rick gave Gary a call on his cell phone and here came our chivalrous host with our recharger and offers of a money loan for the rest of our journey. We declined on the money.
I am so glad we didn’t bike over the Caprock Canyon in the dark. For one thing it would have been dangerous. For another we would have missed the beauty and drama of the canyon in the dark. And furthermore, we would have missed our friends Gary, Sharon and Jonnie.
Quitaque (pronounced “kitty-quay”) was quiet as we approached that Sunday morning. The only activity in town was The Sportsman Bar, Grill and Lodge there on the main drag. Hot and thirsty we pulled in. My husband as usual was thinking “hot meal.” I was thinking “not a good idea” because the day was heating up fast, we just ate breakfast and we had a long way to go to against the wind to Matador. As we entered the crowded, dark, small room, our eyes adjusted to see a lot of friendly faces watching us as we entered in full dress. We quietly took a booth in the corner trying not to draw any more attention to ourselves. In the booth next to ours, Jim Messer sat with his daughter, Jessi, on his lap, his son Jake next to him and his wife Misti on the other side of the booth. Misti said, “Did I see ya’ll yesterday standing in front of The Texan Motel in Panhandle?” We had a fun visit. Jim sent Jake home to retrieve some cross stickers for our bike helmets with WWJD on them. We helped ourselves to the veggies on the all you could eat buffet. We enjoyed visiting with locals Donna Hamilton, Doug Bingham and his mother, Gail, Walter Arnold, Jim and Donna Taylor and others. Eager to get going, not wanting to get stuck in the dark again, we say our goodbyes. It was now pushing 1:00 and it was 40 miles to Matador. Not good. We biked to Turkey the home place of famed musician Bob Wills of the Texas Dough Boy fame. The streets were deserted as we rested on the main drag there in Turkey. Rick was dragging this day really lagging to the rear as he tried to digest his too large veggie meal. At Turkey we turned south and was unpleasantly shocked at the tenacity of the wind that we now took full force in the face. We settled in for a very difficult leg. Not only was it windy but it was 84 degrees by this time. The traffic was slim so that was one good thing. Once I looked back to check on Rick’s whereabouts after fighting tooth and nail with the wind. I could ascertain that Rick was in the ditch. Our cell phone was no help. We had no reception plus the wind was too great to talk. Begrudgingly, I turned back to check on Rick. What had taken me 10+ minutes to bike against the wind I now covered in 1 minute with the aid of the wind. It was 6 p.m and Rick was fixing a flat. He found 2 cactus spines penetrating his tube. I watched the jackrabbits in their flight across the fields as he kept trying to fix that flat. The wind blew dust in his efforts and our green slime kept obstructing his view. His judgment was a bit off as he wasted precious minutes trying to repair the flat. I finally suggested he change out the tubes and fix the flat in our hotel room. Actually the break from the dispiriting fight with the wind was much needed. As we got back on our bikes, I saw a green sign in the distance that I knew would have the mileage to Matador on it. I prayed that it would say 10 miles. I could handle that. As I approached the sign and squinted to make out the numbers, I read 20 miles. This was one of the lower points of our trip. 20 miles in this wind translated to 4 more hours of toil. The sun was fading just as fast as we were.
At 7:40 we stopped to put on our lights. We were at a little place called Whiteflat complete with historical marker, old school house and the haunting hoot of an owl. Miraculously the wind started to die down. Rick spat out the word “copasetic” as he described the reprieve from the wind. We discussed the origin of the word copasetic. We talked to our son, Lane, at this point. Lane was truly conscientious about checking in with us to keep up with our progress. His calls were a huge encouragement to us.
My diary entries for the day say “Downhill doesn’t count if you can’t coast! I feel buffeted and rebuffed by the wind. I feel scolded. I feel like Job.”
In the middle of the road, I found a large rubber hoop identical to the ones our dog Moose loved to play with so we had to add that to our stash. At 7:54 Brian Smith, deputy sheriff of Motley County stopped to check on us. “Someone called and said they had passed 2 bikers and that they looked beat. They just wanted us to check on you.” Brian offered us a ride as dusk settled in earnest. We declined. Brian verified that there was a room at Billie Dean’s in Matador. We pulled into Billie Dean’s at 9:40 exhausted, relieved and a little numb from another hard day. Billie Dean didn’t answer her front door but I was reassured as I saw the lit up vacancy sign. I went around back, knocked and she answered that door. She checked us in; we cleaned up, made some phone calls and went gratefully to sleep.