Day 12: Clayton, NM to Pampa, TX
Strava Link: Petoji Day 12
After 4 days in New Mexico I made my way to Texas, the 6th state of Petoji. Obviously Texas is a large state and riding conditions are going to vary from place to place, but this portion of Texas was mostly flat with a lot of oil and cattle. It's actually more interesting than it sounds, but I didn't take many pictures because it looked like it was going to rain for most of the day and I was too lazy to take my camera in and out of the little plastic ice bucket bag I was using.
Day 12 was one of those days that looked easy on paper (look at that elevation profile) but ended up being difficult thanks to the wind. I was fighting headwinds all day. Out there in the plains of Texas there was simply no stopping the wind. I was riding on highways all throughout Texas, but they all had very generous shoulders. I was taking the shoulders for granted at the time, but looking back now I can really appreciate them. I was able to put my head down and just focus on the ride.
I spent the night at the AmericInn in Pampa, TX, which was one of the better hotels of the trip. When you stay in hotels for so many nights in a row, you realize that the little things can make a huge impact. I won't name names, but there was one hotel where everything seemed to go wrong. I had to wait at the front desk for a long time to check in, there were no towels in my room, the TV wasn't working, and there was a waffle maker at breakfast but no waffle batter. There was also a juice machine, and you can probably guess that the orange juice came out watery. I shouldn't have even tried the apple juice, but I just had to know. You guessed it: water. By the time I checked out I wasn't even mad. All I could do was laugh at how inept the manager of the place was. Anyway, the AmericInn got all the small things right (especially breakfast).
There was one problem. It gave me the biggest sense of deja vu. I felt like I had been at this hotel before. Everything seemed familiar. There was a little shopping center and a McDonald's right next door, and both of those seemed familiar to me. I walked over to the McDonald's since it was the closest place to eat, but then I realized how much I hate McDonald's and walked over to Taco Bell instead. That whole sequence felt very familiar to me, as if I had done the exact same thing before. I'm not sure what was going on. As far as I can remember I have never been to Pampa before and I can't think of any reason why I would have passed through there before. The only thing I can imagine is that I stayed at a hotel in some other city that was next to a shopping center, McDonald's, and Taco Bell. I suppose it's not out of the question. Another possibility is that all of this riding was making me lose my mind. That's not out of the question, either.
Later that evening I got up to do something and realized that my right knee was super stiff. I couldn't bend it all the way. This was not a good time to have a health problem, as tomorrow was a long day of 180 miles. At this point in the ride I didn't doubt that I could finish the 180-mile day, but I wasn't exactly looking forward to it, either. I had been fighting headwinds for a few days and it didn't look like they were going to let up. It was going to be a long, slow day and a knee problem was the last thing I needed.
I decided to do a little stretching to try to loosen it up a little bit. My flexibility was a joke! Everything was tight, especially my quads and hamstrings. I'm not the most flexible guy to begin with, and now my flexibility was probably 30-50% worse than normal. I did a lot of stretching that night and started to feel a little bit better. It was a big wake up call for me. From here on out I needed to do some stretching every night.
