Day 36: Fort Davis, TX to Van Horn, TX

Lon & Dedie put on a wonderful breakfast for us this morning. It was a pleasure to share their company.

Today we fancied putting a big day in to make up for our 20 mile cruises. It would be 95 miles out of Fort Davis, over the mountain and along the interstate to Van Horn. This actually makes sense as there are no services between these two places anyway. I imagine this will be the longest stretch of the trip without service.

The climb up to McDonald Observatory at 1900 metres first thing was a good workout but nothing overly strenuous. Unfortunately we arrived at the visitor centre too late for the guided tour.

After the main climb the lumps and bumps continued as the sun started to burn though strongly. It was really stunning scenery along a deserted road.

We knew we'd be riding into a strong headwind after the 90 degree left onto the Interstate at Kent.

Strong, it was.

Kent: one house (abandoned), one petrol station (abandoned)

Riding I-10 is the only way to get to across to El Paso. The first stretch was on the shoulder, not particularly fun against the wind, and very very loud with all the eighteen-wheeler traffic. After a while there is a much more pleasant parallel frontage road.

We arrived pretty exhausted in Van Horn and immediately sought a fat burger. The lady at the RV park desk was kind and let us sleep in the function room for a fiver each.