Day 24 – 39 degrees???

Miles completed: 54.4

Cumulative miles: 1227.0

Miles to St Augustine: 1822

Our ride started in Fort Davis today and we rode through Alpine and then on to Marathon. Remember the room in Fort Davis only had screens in front. When I first woke up about 6:00, I was a little chilly, so I looked at my phone and the weather channel app said it was 42 degrees. I kept checking the temperature and when we started riding, it said 39 degrees! However, something wasn’t right and other apps said the low was 49 degrees, which I think was correct. But in any case, today was the coldest start of our ride days. It was chilly, but it warmed up fast once the sun came out.

The ride from Fort Davis to Alpine was very pretty. I was lucky to see a herd of about 8-10 Elk running in a field.

As I arrived in Alpine, I was looking for a donut shop where others were stopping. However, when I rode past McDonald’s I heard someone shouting “Tom”. It was Dana and Felix who were on the patio having a coffee. I stopped there for a break. Soon, Brent and Chris showed up and I found out the Donut shop ran out of donuts and the service was poor, so McDonald’s turned out to be a better stop.

About 8 miles after the break, I was riding ahead of Felix when I saw him stop behind me. He had a flat! Dana and I stopped to help and later Simona rode up and helped too. We tried to plug his leak and that didn’t work and then he put a tube in and that did the trick to get him to Marathon.

It took a while and then we had a pretty stiff headwind for the last 20 miles. But I made it back in time to listen to the Packers game on my phone using SiriusXM. Packers squeaked out a win over the Arizona Cardinals. Go Pack Go!

The campground tonight has some interesting stuff. I used the outside shower which was a first for me. I will say their outside showers were better than most of the other showers I used on this trip.

Also, this is a dark sky area, and they give star classes at night. We were not able to attend because it was sold out! Even so, looking at the sky tonight, I don’t believe I’ve ever seen so many stars with my naked eye.