BUSTED!!... and we're not just talking about 3 of our tires!
We had a great night sleep in the RV (actually though...the past few nights we haven't slept so well). Maybe it was the RV swaying in the wind, but we slept like babies. We filled up our water bottles at the Judge Roy Bean visitor center across the street, and hit the road. Fifteen miles later, we were in the middle of climbing a fairly challenging hill. "Water at the top of the hill" I yelled over my shoulder. When we are thirsty we usually pick an area on top of a hill as an incentive to make it up, and to be able to ride downhill after our break. As we rolled to a stop, we were next to a few small electrical buildings surrounded by a chain link fence. From the top of the hill we could see for miles in every direction - with NOTHING in sight (which made sense because we were in the middle of nowhere) Once we got off our bikes we saw 2 men behind the chain link fence emerging from some high grass. One of the men started to walk towards us while the other crouched behind in the bushes. What were the odds that of all the places we could have stopped, we stopped right there. Those of you who read our blog everyday know what we did next. We grabbed the mace! The man began to call to us in Spanish. I made use of the only Spanish I know... "No Ablo Esponiol" (not sure how to spell it - I took Latin in high school) but this didn't help much because he didn't speak any English. The only word he kept saying was "Dallas." We were itching to get out of there so we handed him some food and our map of Texas (not our biking map) and biked away quickly. As we rode away we agreed that what we had just done is what Abraham Joshua Heschel might have done. Once we got away we realized we also needed to do what Bill Oreilly would do - which is to call Border Control asap to catch these potential narco, terrorist, child molesting murderers. The truth is we knew nothing about these two gentlemen except for the fact that they had crossed our border illegally. If we entered any other country illegally we would expect to get picked up. For our Liberal friends the bottom line was we also felt like we were probably saving their lives, since they couldn't survive in that climate much longer.
Needless to say, we called the Border Control when we picked up cell service about 5 miles from where we saw the men. We described to the Border Patrol officer on the phone where we saw them, and told him that we had given them food and a map of Texas. They thanked us for the information. A few minutes later, we passed a Border Patrol Jeep and told the officer about the 2 men. We thought we had heard the last of this bizarre and scary story... but we were wrong. An hour later as we continued west on route 90 we were riding on the right shoulder when we sensed a vehicle approaching behind us on the right side - on the grass. It was the same officer who we saw earlier - he was looking for us. He asked us if we had seen 7 people in that area. We told the officer that we had only seen two men and that he misheard us if he thought we said 7. The officer then asked us - "hey did you give these guys a map". We told him that we had. He laughed and said "well, didn't do them much good...we got 'em!"... Just another day of fighting for truth, justice and the American way for the Sloyers. All kidding aside, we were staring this border infiltration issue in the face (literally) and we were lucky things turned out the way they did. It was very real. (SEE BRIEF VIDEO OF OUR ENCOUNTER WITH INFILTRATORS BELOW)
We then proceeded to get 3 flat tires in under 30 minutes!! We discovered that there are thick wooden thorns on the road from plants on the side of the road that were puncturing our tires. After changing our 3rd tire we were very careful to ride on the road instead of the shoulder (that's where the thorns were). We managed to avoid further flat tires, but we did spend a substantial amount of time replacing the punctured ones.
After a total of 40 miles of biking, we came across the only town between Langtry and Sanderson. The town's name is Dryden, and the population is a whopping 11 people!! We ate a hearty meal of bean dip, crackers, soda, and ice cream (there wasn't anything else in the store - but the bean dip is getting old). We talked to the owner for a little while, then continued on our way towards Sanderson - which is known as the Cactus Capital of Texas. We checked into the Outback Oasis Motel and picked up some food for dinner. The motel is very clean and there is a cool frog- pool (lots of frogs and fish... very cool).
Last night we watched the movie Holy Rollers (A true story about Hassidic Jews involved in an ecstasy smuggling operation)... we give it a thumbs up... over all good movie
Last night we also tried a new beer. Shiner Bock which we would give a 9.12/ 10. It's a dark beer, but comes across as a lighter beer... perfect for the summer!
Thanks for coming along for the ride!
Check out our route at the link below:
We had a great night sleep in the RV (actually though...the past few nights we haven't slept so well). Maybe it was the RV swaying in the wind, but we slept like babies. We filled up our water bottles at the Judge Roy Bean visitor center across the street, and hit the road. Fifteen miles later, we were in the middle of climbing a fairly challenging hill. "Water at the top of the hill" I yelled over my shoulder. When we are thirsty we usually pick an area on top of a hill as an incentive to make it up, and to be able to ride downhill after our break. As we rolled to a stop, we were next to a few small electrical buildings surrounded by a chain link fence. From the top of the hill we could see for miles in every direction - with NOTHING in sight (which made sense because we were in the middle of nowhere) Once we got off our bikes we saw 2 men behind the chain link fence emerging from some high grass. One of the men started to walk towards us while the other crouched behind in the bushes. What were the odds that of all the places we could have stopped, we stopped right there. Those of you who read our blog everyday know what we did next. We grabbed the mace! The man began to call to us in Spanish. I made use of the only Spanish I know... "No Ablo Esponiol" (not sure how to spell it - I took Latin in high school) but this didn't help much because he didn't speak any English. The only word he kept saying was "Dallas." We were itching to get out of there so we handed him some food and our map of Texas (not our biking map) and biked away quickly. As we rode away we agreed that what we had just done is what Abraham Joshua Heschel might have done. Once we got away we realized we also needed to do what Bill Oreilly would do - which is to call Border Control asap to catch these potential narco, terrorist, child molesting murderers. The truth is we knew nothing about these two gentlemen except for the fact that they had crossed our border illegally. If we entered any other country illegally we would expect to get picked up. For our Liberal friends the bottom line was we also felt like we were probably saving their lives, since they couldn't survive in that climate much longer.
Needless to say, we called the Border Control when we picked up cell service about 5 miles from where we saw the men. We described to the Border Patrol officer on the phone where we saw them, and told him that we had given them food and a map of Texas. They thanked us for the information. A few minutes later, we passed a Border Patrol Jeep and told the officer about the 2 men. We thought we had heard the last of this bizarre and scary story... but we were wrong. An hour later as we continued west on route 90 we were riding on the right shoulder when we sensed a vehicle approaching behind us on the right side - on the grass. It was the same officer who we saw earlier - he was looking for us. He asked us if we had seen 7 people in that area. We told the officer that we had only seen two men and that he misheard us if he thought we said 7. The officer then asked us - "hey did you give these guys a map". We told him that we had. He laughed and said "well, didn't do them much good...we got 'em!"... Just another day of fighting for truth, justice and the American way for the Sloyers. All kidding aside, we were staring this border infiltration issue in the face (literally) and we were lucky things turned out the way they did. It was very real. (SEE BRIEF VIDEO OF OUR ENCOUNTER WITH INFILTRATORS BELOW)
We then proceeded to get 3 flat tires in under 30 minutes!! We discovered that there are thick wooden thorns on the road from plants on the side of the road that were puncturing our tires. After changing our 3rd tire we were very careful to ride on the road instead of the shoulder (that's where the thorns were). We managed to avoid further flat tires, but we did spend a substantial amount of time replacing the punctured ones.
After a total of 40 miles of biking, we came across the only town between Langtry and Sanderson. The town's name is Dryden, and the population is a whopping 11 people!! We ate a hearty meal of bean dip, crackers, soda, and ice cream (there wasn't anything else in the store - but the bean dip is getting old). We talked to the owner for a little while, then continued on our way towards Sanderson - which is known as the Cactus Capital of Texas. We checked into the Outback Oasis Motel and picked up some food for dinner. The motel is very clean and there is a cool frog- pool (lots of frogs and fish... very cool).
Last night we watched the movie Holy Rollers (A true story about Hassidic Jews involved in an ecstasy smuggling operation)... we give it a thumbs up... over all good movie
Last night we also tried a new beer. Shiner Bock which we would give a 9.12/ 10. It's a dark beer, but comes across as a lighter beer... perfect for the summer!
Thanks for coming along for the ride!
Check out our route at the link below:
Langtry, TX- Sanderson, TX
Check out our encounter with the illegal immigrants at the link below:
youtube.com/user/Elliotsloyer#p/a/u/0/aYXgfAExNZI
Check out our encounter with the illegal immigrants at the link below:
youtube.com/user/Elliotsloyer#p/a/u/0/aYXgfAExNZI
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