Day 3 of 20 in the Lone Star State, Fort Hancock to Van Horn

75 miles (plus 12 extra), 2100' of elevation, 82 degrees
  Today started well with a 15-20 mph tail wind literally blowing us through some of west Texas. A few loose dogs to contend with but not real problems since we were soft pedaling at 22mph and they could not catch us. The problem happens when you are cruising so fast in a group of 7 and not paying attention and make a wrong turn which you do not discover for 6 miles. Retracing our steps into the head wind could have been a lot worse except that the most experienced of the riders, Lise, got us organized and we did a rotating pace line to get back to the intersection where we made the mistake. Ordinarily, the 4 of us who usually ride together do not pace line because you put yourself in a high risk situation and we rather avoid an accident from a touch of wheels. However, by doing the pace line we conserved necessary energy and it worked out well.
  We were surrounded by mountains which were beautiful to look at and more appreciated with a tail wind. The sag was right at the designated location and we refueled and off we went again. The next 10 miles were painful. Even though we had a strong tail wind, we were climbing on the frontage road with chip seal, which unfortunately has a high rolling resistance. We were riding along I10 for those 10 miles and since there was not fence or restrictions, I was definitely eying going onto that beautiful shoulder but my 3 fellow riders kept reminding me not to do that foolish thing. Big advantage to riding with a group is that your friends keep you on the straight and narrow. It all worked out as eventually we got on much better roads and went back to flying toward Van Horn. We changed time zones into Central near our final destination and eventually we had an average speed for the entire ride of almost 16mph.
  There was a high wind advisory that kept Chef Linda from cooking outside so we went to a local restaurant. Not as good as Linda's food but worked out with everyone ordering off the menu.
 Tomorrow we head to a lodge in a state park and will have a 90 mile day with some climbing. Hope for another day of tail wind.