Day 29 (26 riding): Total overall distance: 1874.27mi Total distance today: 54.10mi Total time: 4.19.00 Avg speed: 12.6mph Top speed: 29.5mph

Random thoughts of the day:
-This has to be the longest, straightest section of road in the country
-That truck has been coming towards me for 20 minutes
-I feel like I'm in that scene from Monty Python and the Holy Grail where the 3 guys are running towards the castle but never actually get closer. They keep flashing the camera on them and they haven't gained any ground at all.
-Am I on a treadmill?
-Excuse me, your house is made out of cans

Today was a nice relaxing 55 mile ride. I saw about 25 cars all day, most of them RV's or 18-wheelers and 1 building on a ranch. I'm glad I stayed in the hotel last night as it was only 38 degrees when I got up at 7:30. It was still only 40 when I left at 9:30 so I had on my Under Armour cold gear and my Titleist rain jacket plus the FJ gloves. Talk about brand name apparel. It was chilly for a while before the sun broke through then it was around 50-55 so not too bad. I rode between mountains all day which was really cool and awesome to look at. Riding through mountains in the desert while listening to music is quite an experience! I had a nice PB&J lunch at a cool picnic area off of the road with a great view of the mountain ranges. I had a little tail wind today which was nice, it was chilly but at least it was helpful. I made pretty good time to Marathon, TX and settled in at the hostel located here. This hostel is really cool. It's a bunch of people that found this place to be a nice place to settle down and built their own 10 acre hostel community. Most of the building are made out of recycled cans and bottles and those that aren't are made out of rock. Really neat place with very friendly people. Plus, they let bicyclists stay for free! The perfect price.

Tomorrow should be quite interesting. Here's the deal: I have a warmshowers host set up and he works at the McDonald Observatory so he said he can give me a tour. I am pretty excited about the tour and the whole place in general. But, he is leaving Friday afternoon until Saturday night. It's only 75 miles with a big steep climb at the end which isn't a huge deal for a day's ride. Here's the kicker: it's supposed to rain tomorrow and probably thunderstorms in the afternoon. So, I have a decision to make...get wet and then rewarded...or wait a day and not get the tour. My decision is to leave the hostel around 3 or 4 AM and try to beat the heavy rain and storms. It's supposed to be a full moon or just about full and I'm in the desert, which means it's bright and awesome. I wanted to ride during the dark a little anyway, so why not tomorrow? There are no cars during the day so I'm definitely not worried about traffic. Plus I have lights on the front and back of the the bike. It's going to be very cold...but I'm pretty excited about it, which probably makes me crazy. Anyway, be sure to check out the blog tomorrow to see what happens!!