Yes, yes, I’m going to complain about the weather again – ‘oh no stop banging on about the sun and the unbearable heat’ I hear you say. Well stop rolling your eyes just for a second and listen to this – we’re cold!

We all know that America is a country of weather extremes. Hurricane Michael has just devastated the Florida Panhandle only a few weeks after we cycled through. In the last week or so, we cycled through Texas hill country and today the area is suffering from serious flooding after nearly 10 inches of rain fell in the last few days. Roads we cycled along are flooded and closed.

When we reached Del Rio we had a planned rest day that turned out to be two rest days. Why? A cold front has swept down America and the temperatures are now 20-30F lower than usual at this time of the year. In some nearby areas they are experiencing record low temperatures for this time of the year.

On the day we were due to cycle north towards Comstock there was a 30mph headwind, rain and flash flood warnings for west Texas. If there’s one warning you listen to in Texas it’s a Texas flood warning! We also recognise that we are pretty vulnerable on a bicycle on roads that are very susceptible to flooding.

So instead of cycling on Monday we went to the movies. $3 each – I wish it was as cheap in the UK.

We started cycling today (Tuesday) and, as the rain moved eastwards to blast the rest of Texas, we only had some short spells of drizzle. Unfortunately, we still had to contend with a 20mph headwind and a ‘feels like’ temperature of 37f (3c). Yes, that’s right – in the space of a couple of weeks we go from 115f to 37f. How do you cope with that!

Well we coped by going to Walmart to buy some additional clothes. Most important for me is I now have a nice pair of fleece gloves for my cold hands. I’m also wearing two pairs of socks and using my old trick from Canada – putting my feet into plastic carrier bags before I put my shoes on.

So that’s us now cycling west for the next few days over reasonable hills against an unreasonable headwind. It’s going to be slow and pretty cold.

Added to this, we will have to camp tomorrow as there are no motels on the next stretch of road. We’re travelling as light as we can so although we have a tent we don’t carry any other camping equipment – no sleeping bag, mat, cooking facilities etc etc. Just a tent. We just didn’t expect it to be near freezing!

So that’s it. No more complaining about the heat and I bet you’re glad about that. I’m now complaining that we’re cold and until it gets warmer I’m going to have a good moan about it!

Can’t leave you without at least one picture so here’s where we are now – that’s us in Comstock, the big cold blue dot.

The serious flooding is between us and Austin to the east – that’s Texas Hill Country.

We will continue heading west towards El Paso. What will weather be like when we get there? Well, it could be freezing cold or a heat wave. That’s America!

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