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Friday, October 26, 2001 - From the Michigan Flat Through the Davis Mountains
87 miles. Van Horn, TX to Fort Davis Mt. State
Park, Fort Davis, TX
We got up before dawn today so that we were able to be
on the road as the sun broke the horizon and it was a good thing, too. The
first 20 miles were along a frontage road of I-10 and for all these 20 miles we
passed a vast "flat", as they are called, almost level area between
the surrounding mountains that fills up with the detritus of the washes that
flow out from the mountains when it eventually rains. The Michigan Flat caught my attention, for obvious reasons, so I asked about it
and it turns out that when the RR came thru here in 1880, a lot of the RR men
were from the Midwest and the terrain in this area reminded them of some forest
openings back in Michigan.
Looking at the place now it is hard to see any resemblance
but 120 years of human disturbance may have obliterated any similarity. The
name remains and I am proud to say that, being in Texas, the Michigan Flat is
quite sizable and as we rode we were adding all that we could to its dimensions.
We then had to ride on I-10 for the next 20
miles, an up and down run and as we looked back it was passable to see Van Horn
in our wake from as far away as 25 miles. You just can't do that in
Michigan (but you can across the Michigan Flat). These 40 miles brought us
to Kent, TX where we had our little lunch in the ruins of the old schoolhouse.
With the preliminaries now over the real ride of the
day began. T-118 heads south from the Interstate gradually ascending and
then entering a winding canyon, all the time passing rangeland in all directions
with the occasional house of each ranch. These ranches are huge, all of
them being in the thousands of acres, and it takes all this land since it takes
at least 200 acres to support one cow per year. The
grass is usually clipped low and doesn't recover until moisture is available,
infrequent here. As we rode we started our first stampedes of the trip.
These cattle didn't just watch, they started trotting. The most
interesting was the single steer that trotted with us for a couple of hundred
yards before we dropped him. Joan commented about all the good marbling
lost. We were cruising with a nice tailwind and feeling good.
Thus passed the first 23 miles on T-118. Then the
road began to climb very steeply and we could go only a tenth of a mile before
coming to a panting stop. The next miles were up and down as we entered
the heart of the Davis Mts. with occasional grades hors categotie, as they like
to say in the Tour de France. The afternoon was slipping away and there
was a chance we might get caught on the road in the dark. Now Joan became
the hard taskmaster, setting a killing pace, climbing mindlessly with me tagging
along as best I could. Finally the adrenaline was flowing in me and we
attacked the rest of the distance climbing above 6,000 feet three times and the
total elevation gained for the day was about 4,000 feet. Finally at the
top we passed the U. of Texas' McDonald Observatory before descending down
to our campground.
We got in an hour before dark, 11 hours after starting,
most of that time spent in the saddle. The Davis Mts. certainly gained our
respect today. They are not the Rockies but they are mountains none the
less. We will speak in their behalf. The Davis Mts' State Park was
alive with wildlife which we had not encountered until now. At dusk a
group a javelinas or peccarys cruised past the tent and you don't want to
antagonize them, followed by a skunk that tried to enter the open tent as I was
resting inside. Discretion was necessary as I claimed the tent for myself.
Later, as we fell asleep a raccoon started rifling thru our front packs
looking for goodies. Joan went out to perform damage control and the packs
had to be brought inside the tent for safekeeping. We then slept for 12
hours.
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