29 March 2014
Fort Hancock to Van Horn, TX
75 miles (Total Miles = 975)

“Hey there, baby doll.” We are covered in sweat and grit and sunscreen and bugs and this is the greeting we receive upon arriving in Van Horn, Texas. No, not from the campground host at our Kozy Kabin KOA but from a quite large and manly female truck driver. I bet she would have given us a ride anywhere we wanted to go.

It’s been a long afternoon on the bike, the headwinds kicking in when we still had 45 miles to go. But this is not to say we weren’t entertained. You see, there is this fun little game you can play when pedaling across far west Texas on a highway frontage road. It’s called “Semi-Honk-Honk” and it goes like this: while facing oncoming semi-truck traffic (and preferably while not on the same exact road), you pump your arm up and down as though pulling and releasing a cord. With a little luck, the oncoming semi will honk his horn in greeting. In response, you wave back like a crazy heat-stroked drunken fool and then repeat.

You might be surprised at how fun and time-killing this game can be, particularly when there’s nothing else in front of you but a long straight road and a strong, debilitating wind. Twists on the Semi-Honk-Honk game include seeing if you can get that entire convoy of trucks to each honk and/or bagging the granddaddy of them all – that freight train running the rails over your other shoulder. Gina landed one of those today and you would have thought she’d won the MegaMillions. Me? I was just glad I didn’t wet myself with the surprise of it all, not realizing that train was bearing down behind us. I don’t think the game of “Freight-Train-Wee-Wee” is nearly as much fun.