Day Thirty-Eight: Springer - Clayton

We knew we were in for an interesting day, because the nearest town was over 90 miles away, and long rides can go one of two ways: 1) we finish the ride, feeling accomplished and exhausted, arriving near nightfall, or 2) we absolutely do not finish the ride, feeling unaccomplished and exhausted, and have to hitch a ride to the next town. Spoiler alert: it was the latter. We spent the morning at the motel attempting to make pot after pot of coffee without success, because it either tasted like water or like dirt, then we munched on gas station breakfast until checkout. We left around 11 o’clock and purchased food for the day from a market near the highway, which actually had produce (we rarely find produce in tiny towns), and bought more snacks at a gas station down the road. An old man proudly wearing a Marines hat spent a good deal of time with us on a bench outside the store, asking questions and sharing stories before we left for our long day of pedaling.

The road was supposed to be flat. “Flat, flat, flat,” they said, clearly never having sat on a bike in the last thirty years, because of course, it was most definitely NOT flat. The elevation was relatively similar at the beginning point and the ending point, but not without cavernous, rolling hills along the way. We were faced with brutal headwinds, too, making our ride drag out longer than we thought possible. At one point, I became so frustrated with the wind resistance that I got in a “zone”, pedaling angrily, facing downward, and clenching my teeth, all the while not realizing that Slater had stopped for a water break in front of me, and I went crashing into him like a fly on a windshield, and we both ended up somehow on opposite sides of the street. Luckily, there were no cars…

On and on we went, passing through absolutely nothing… seriously, nothing… except for cows. And I must say, when pedaling past nothing but grass fields, seeing a cow on the side of the road is like waking up to a puppy on Christmas morning. You start to go a bit crazy, you know, talking to them in dog voices and whatnot, but I think the cows like it. We even passed a herd of dairy cows that began to run as we whizzed by, one after the other, until nearly 100 cows were trotting along the fence in a steady pack, following us (the cow whisperers) until their chubby bodies could no longer keep up. I was cackling with laughter and loved every second of it, to say the least—I mean, we just herded cows on our bikes.

We arrived at the only stop along the route for the day, which was a town called Gladstone. Well, “town” might not be the correct term; as we were informed, the population is a whopping 5—yes, five people—and one of them recently passed away, so actually, it’s 4. The only building was the Gladstone Mercantile, which resembled one of those fruit stands/country kitchens that you only stop at when you’re on a long road trip, and you end up buying a bag of cherries and a random jar of huckleberry jam. Inside, the store felt warm and homey, filled with cast iron house wares for sale and homemade beef jerky smoked by the owner. We bought chocolate chip cookies and sodas to feed our inner 12 year-olds, and spent a good amount of time talking to the owners of the mercantile, who told us that there was not a building in sight between there and Clayton, and we had miles upon miles left to go.

Outside, a man wearing paint-splattered denim jeans and an Ariat work shirt was painting the red trim on the storefront. He was jovial and friendly, adorned with a big smile, and was quick to make conversation. Anthony was his name; he lives just down the road (a country mile—or seven) and works as a rancher, but occasionally is contracted by the mercantile owners for some around-the-house work. His faithful Chihuahua, Tanner, sits anxiously nearby in his pickup truck, and unlike most Chihuahuas I’ve come to know, he waits quietly and wags his tail violently when strangers approach. Anthony says the cows on the ranch have nothing on Tanner: he’ll parade through the herd with reckless abandon so long as he’s following Anthony. He offered to return to his house to grab his other pickup truck so that he could take us further down the road to Clayton, NM, considering it was already 5 p.m. and there was no way we’d make it in that day without the help. We bashfully accepted, fessing up to our inability to ride 90 miles that day, and waited for him to drive down the never-ending straight road to his ranch, then back to us, posted at the corner of the Gladstone Mercantile.

He arrived promptly, and the three of us squished together in the front seat of his F250, while Tanner pranced joyfully across our laps. We agreed on stopping at Dairy Queen for dinner and insisted on buying, as it was the very least we could do, so long as Anthony would tell us more about his life as a rancher. My favorite story was the following: Slater asked Anthony if he ever gets attached to any of his cows—and then if he feels bad about loading them up in the truck to be taken away to a sale (and, inevitably, butchered).

“Ohhhhh, yeaaaaahh.” Anthony responded in a long, drawn-out voice. “There was this one calf… his mom died just after he was born, so I raised him from a bottle. You know, we’re talkin’ a baby baby cow. Anyways, I fed him from a bottle until he got nearly as big as the other cows, so we were bonded—I mean, I raised the little guy! One day, before a big sale, I loaded him into the truck, slammed the door, and looked through the trailer slats—” He paused.

“I saw how sad he looked, so I unlatched the door, flung it open, and the cow ran out of the truck and trotted into the field, happier than ever.”

Slater and I were rolling in laughter, picturing Anthony’s face as he looked in that mirror at the “sad cow”, and we saw just how much of a softie he truly was—and we loved every minute of it. It reminded us of our dads, who couldn’t take a cow to the butcher if their lives depended on it—not if they had looked it in the eyes, at least. We shared these stories over chicken sandwiches and Blizzards a la DQ, and finally bid adieu to Anthony when he dropped us off at the nearby KOA, where we were beyond sad to say goodbye to one of the most genuine men we have met thus far, and his trusty steed, Tanner.