{"id":1035,"date":"2013-10-07T20:44:12","date_gmt":"2013-10-08T01:44:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jaderiderjourneys.com\/2endslavery\/?p=1035"},"modified":"2013-10-07T20:44:12","modified_gmt":"2013-10-08T01:44:12","slug":"day-3-a-natural-refuge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jaderiderjourneys.com\/2endslavery\/2013\/10\/07\/day-3-a-natural-refuge\/","title":{"rendered":"Day 3: A Natural Refuge"},"content":{"rendered":"

The alarm from my phone went off at 6:45.\u00a0 This was one hour before sunrise.\u00a0 In the cool morning of Seminole Canyon, I really wanted to stay in the sleeping bag a tad longer.\u00a0 But knowing that it takes me about an hour to pack every morning, my nagging subconscious insisted that I needed to get packing, and five minutes later the process began.\u00a0 So, I packed as much as I could inside the warm refuge of the tent, and then I the rest got done.\u00a0 Yep, the cold front that blew through the desert yesterday brought the temperature down into the forties.\u00a0
\nI bundled up a bit more than usual when I put my gear on, and then I was off, on the next leg of this desert journey that has been anything but yur run of mill hot and dry trip so far.\u00a0
\nThe road out of the park took me through Highway 90, and while the sun was out I still needed the grip warmers installed on the handlerbars.\u00a0 The morning was beautiful, nonetheless, and the winding hilly roads were glorious.\u00a0 I passed the Pecos River, and to my left and right I could see turkey vultures, sitting on fence posts and warming themselves.\u00a0 How I whished I could do just that.\u00a0 Further down I saw a number of border patrol cars, driving alongside the road on a gravelly path that seemed to had been built just for them.\u00a0 They were dragging three big tires tied to their vehicles with chains.\u00a0 Quite bizarre I would say, but I was not curious enough to make me stop and ask the purpose of this.\u00a0 Sometimes it is better to just entertain the mind with guessing games.\u00a0
\nOne of the persistent annoyances of the day was another guessing game, “Where will you find fuel next?”. Mr. GPS was not the most helpful companion, as it only seems to know where gas can be found in major cities or towns.\u00a0 I know from experience that since I tend to take secondary roads, there ain’tmuch help there.\u00a0 As signs for towns announced the distance to them, I continuously engaged in the guessing game of “Can you make it”.\u00a0 I eventually made it to Sanderson, where I did find gas, and some needed breakfast burritos.\u00a0 From there it was North to Fort Stockton, and then Pecos, at the intersection of Insterstate 20.\u00a0 This brought back an old memory, since this is one place where Adelina and I stopped for gas on our way to Scripps College, California, when she and I took the long way as she was getting ready to start college.
\nI was hoping to find a good place for lunch there, but managed to not make a decision, and just got some nuts and dried fruits, as well as gas.\u00a0 This is where the real guessing game started, especially since I forgot to reset my fuel odometer.\u00a0 My next stop was to be Hueco Tanks, and by my calculations it was to far to go on a single tank.\u00a0 Yet, there was not much to do besides to ride on.\u00a0 One of the most spectacular landscapes and roads come as I rode along side the Guadalupe Mountains.\u00a0 The park, of course, remains closed since it is a National Park, and certain people in Washington decided that it was a small price to pay to allow the parks to remain closed while they argue and count threads of lint in their belly buttons.
\nPast the Guadalupes was a wonderful Salt Lake, and after taking some pictures of the turquoise sky reflected on the salty pools , the next things was to get back to the calculations game.\u00a0 Based on the number of bars on my fuel gauge, things looked dicey. According to the GPS, there was a small town 13 miles of my route, with a gas station.\u00a0 This was a gamble I had to take.\u00a0 If the station was not there, I would have wasted 26 miles of fuel. While Mr. GPS took note of the station’s phone number, I had no phone service in the area.\u00a0 So the gamble was on.\u00a0 I rode the 13 miles into town, passing though the agricultural landscape that leads to Dell City.\u00a0 Once I got there, I made it to the gas station.\u00a0 However, my other concern proved to be true: being Sunday afternoon, it was closed, and the pumps had no credit card slots.\u00a0 Some of my compadres were working construction there, and giving me the cut throat hand signs, confirmed the obvious.\u00a0 However, they also indicated that just a few blocks up was one that was in operation.\u00a0 So, while Mr. GPS had been right, my suspicions has been also been right.\u00a0 However, an unmapped station, and God’s provision saved the day.
\nI made it to Hueco Tanks after a 420 mile ride today.\u00a0 This place is a true oasis in the desert, where wholes in the rocks hold water way after the rest of the local streams and draws have dried out.\u00a0 They have supported life and people for thousands of years, and the park is home to some wonderful prehistoric art on the crevices that provided refuge to many.\u00a0 Just so, my wish is that this journey will motivate you to help provide refuge and protection, to help provide life, to those who today are victims of [modern day] salvery.\u00a0 Please join me in supporting the work of the Polaris Project and International Justice Miss <\/p>\n

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The alarm from my phone went off at 6:45.\u00a0 This was one hour before sunrise.\u00a0 In the cool morning of Seminole Canyon, I really wanted to stay in the sleeping bag a tad longer.\u00a0 But knowing that it takes me about an hour to pack every morning, my nagging subconscious insisted that I needed to… Read More »Day 3: A Natural Refuge<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1035","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2o6Hc-gH","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jaderiderjourneys.com\/2endslavery\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1035","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jaderiderjourneys.com\/2endslavery\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jaderiderjourneys.com\/2endslavery\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jaderiderjourneys.com\/2endslavery\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jaderiderjourneys.com\/2endslavery\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1035"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.jaderiderjourneys.com\/2endslavery\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1035\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1036,"href":"https:\/\/www.jaderiderjourneys.com\/2endslavery\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1035\/revisions\/1036"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jaderiderjourneys.com\/2endslavery\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1035"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jaderiderjourneys.com\/2endslavery\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1035"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jaderiderjourneys.com\/2endslavery\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1035"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}