Day Thirty-Two — Tatum Bunnett

Day 32

73.50 miles

2,450 ft (elevation gain)

1,203.2 total miles

Del Rio -> Rocksprings

Today was a rough day for me. The first ten miles were fantastic though. The road surface was really nice and there was a wide shoulder and the uphill grade was really chill. As soon as we exited Del Rio city limits about 10 miles into the ride, the road went from great to terrible. The road surface was chip sealed and super super bumpy, and there was basically no shoulder. This was really rough for me, my hands and arms were super soar because of the surface, but once I put two pairs of gloves on it was a little better. The road was generally uphill most of the day but with big rolling hills mixed in. I think we have entered Texas hill country now but I’m honestly not sure if we actually did haha. Although we were going uphill all day it wasn’t the hills that made the day a bummer, it was the super bumpy road. At about 20 miles in we went through an immigration check point, they waved us through with no problems. After the check point we had a quick snack at a food truck and continued on. We then roads through a windmill field, we were a little worried this would mean that we would get a large headwind but luckly we were able to avoid it. The road continued to be super bumpy and hill but we continued on, we had lunch a little over halfway into the ride, it was a nice break from the road. For about 10 miles before and after lunch we road past construction workers putting in a pipeline, It’s really sad to see how much land is destroyed in this process. At about 15 miles outside of Rocksprings the road got significantly better, the rocks in the chip seal were significantly smaller, this made the road much smoother. At this point in the day 8 was pretty grumpy from being bumped around all day. I got a little happier when I saw my first armadillo of the trip along with, a cute deer and some really cute cows. We powered through the next five miles with no pain, and then as we closed in on the last five we decide to power up and get in really fast, on the last big hill I was going around 18 mph uphill, it was pretty cool, dad couldn’t keep up. We took a one mile cool down, and we’re realky happy once we made it into Rocksprings. Tonight we are staying in an old historic hotel, we felt the need to sleep in actual beds for once. Hopefully tomorrow’s road isn’t nearly as bumpy as today’s was.

The moment a butterfly tried to attack me.

Most of the scenery we rode past today looked like this.

One of the cool historic building in Rocksprings.

Our elevation profile for the day.

Please help raise funds for Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS) at https://www.firstgiving.com/event/rsds/Ride-Across-The-Country-For-CRPS