OMG, if you can't laugh at yourself...

Then why travel around the country by yourself?

I did something this morning that I don't believe I've done yet on my trip - I set an alarm. The one thing I forgot to mention yesterday was that I found the humidity, big time! 

Even with my cool suit, the final hour of my ride yesterday was not pleasant. The temperature was livable but the humidity was ridiculous. The local (okay, it was a San Antonio TV station) weatherman was saying how rare it was to be late into May with highs only in the 90 degree range. Then they quickly added that all of the recent rain had finally elevated the humidity to extreme levels. The dew point last night was 76 degrees, the theoretical lowest temperature that could be reached before the air was saturated, I.e. 100% humidity. When was the last time you saw fog form with the temperature in the high 70's?

So my alarm was set to take advantage of an early continental breakfast, packing and an early departure. I was on the road by 7 a.m., fed, packed and ready to ride. The weather was similar to previous days, overcast but not raining, and it stayed that way until around noon when the sun finally dispatched the last of the cloudy skies. From that point on it was a matter of how far could I get before the saddle soreness, heat and humidity caused me to say "no mas"?

Shortly after one of my breaks, in the town of Zapata, when I was just getting back on the road, I saw a sign that said "Public boat ramp". This really took me by surprise as I had not thought I was anywhere near navigable waters. As I cruised at 60 mph south on highway 83, I craned my neck to the right and caught a glimpse of a huge body of water, with the bright green grasses of the shoreline visible, behind which was the darker green of deep water with patches of white capped waves. When I saw the rough waters extend to the horizon my mind went into neutral.

It was the ocean! The one point of the Texas border that extended to the Gulf of California near Baja was there at Zapata, Texas. I was so convinced of this that I did a u-turn and rode back to see if I could find a road that went down to the beach. As I re-accelerated toward town I spotted the familiar Tsunami zone warning sign that I had seen in every little dip in the road on highway 1 back in Oregon. I was so convinced that this was the rarely heard of Pacific Coast of Texas that I chased around for 10 minutes to find a road that went down to the beach so I could get a picture. I thought I found a walkway but, shortly after starting down the path between two beach houses I came to a chain, halting my advance. This is the best picture I could get of the Texas Coastline.

It was only as I walked back to my bike that sanity came flowing back to me and I recalled all of the sections of border walls, from Arizona to New Mexico, to Texas that I had seen over the last several days, the time I walked directly across the border to mainland Mexico from just south of San Diego. I had a good laugh at myself and could do nothing but shake my head and make a mental note to schedule that next eye examine as soon as I get back.

A little further down the coast I saw a sign promoting Falcon Lake as the best fishing in Texas. The map makes it appear that Falcon Lake is the very large slack water portion of the Rio Grande behind a dam at Farm to Market Road, with the U.S./Mexican border running down the middle.

A little further down the road, with heat pushing me to find the day's end, I had to stop and take a picture of this.

My Spanish is almost non-existent but that doesn't stop me from singing " you can get anything you want, at Alicia's Su Cocina". And I believe the left side of the sign shows a red guitar. I understand that Alicia doesn't live in Su Cocina, but in a church nearby Su Cocina, with her husband Ray and Poncho the dog.

I had hoped to make it to Brownsville today but the Girls put me on Interstate 2, which runs with highway 83, that I had been riding all day. I had wanted to be on highway 281 and follow the Rio Grande. By the time I stopped to check up on the Girls I was spent. It was only 2:15, but I needed to find a motel, preferably one with a pool. Which is exactly what I did, found a motel, with A/C and a pool and a circle out back for parking.

I'll be literally chillin' tonight so I can get another early start tomorrow.