7/23- Hereford, TX to Portales, NM- BIKE AND BARTER

Today was the coup d'etat of food donations, the grand daddy of them all. For a while, I've been one of the few to pull in massive food donations for the group, and I had always been left with getting 3 seemingly impossible things- free Sonic (supposedly only corporate and not franchised), free Chinese food (assuming a cultural and language barrier), and finally free gas for the van. Well today I pulled off the first two.
We woke up this morning and found out there would be no dinner at our host this evening in Portales, although we would have actual beds to sleep in at Eastern New Mexico College. I was told to work my "negotiating magic" by some, my bullshit sweet talking by others. The challenge for massive amounts of free food was on.

The first score of the day came in the form of Sonic, where me and Sofie both got free cheeseburgers and fries. Although I wasn't really hungry at 8:25 AM, it was the best cheeseburger I've ever eaten as I basked in the glow of victory and fatty foods.

The next score would not come until after crossing the border into New Mexico, where I secured more free subway for the group at the gas station/food mart place the van was at. Subway at this point has been somewhat easy to secure, but today may have topped all previous subway victories as I fed the entire group (which I havent been able to do since IN), and was able to get foot long sandwiches instead of 6 inch subs. Thats right, thats 31 feet of free sandwiches.

Right before leaving the town of Clovis that we were biking through, I saw challenge #2 (chinese food) present itself, and feeling quite lucky at this point, Sofie, Kyle R, Lindsey and I somehow communicated we needed free food for our group. Although not the best haul of the day, we got 5 pints of fried rice/ chicken chunks that made a tasty snack when the group got back.

Reaching Portales with still no dinner for our group, our fearsome foursome scored 12 pizzas from pizza hut, and then Sofie and I continued our food rampage by securing $20 of free ice cream from DQ. We also picked up a $20 donation along the way.

Total tally for the day:
2 cheeseburgers
2 fries
31 feet of subs
3 meat pizzas
3 vegetable pizzas
6 cheese pizzas
1 DQ ice cream cake
5 pints of chinese food
and a partridge in a pear tree (no not really, but it started sounding like it)

The ride itself was a relatively flat 75 miles and ride conditions were pretty nice as it never got too hot or windy. In addition we encountered some of the nicer roads weve seen in Texas (road quality has been pretty horrible the past few days and really gave the body quite a beating). It is very interesting to me how much the road quality can change between different counties, and every new county we pass through brings new surprises.

I'm a little sad I have been away from the action of Le Tour, as I heard the last 3 days in the Alps have been quite interesting as the main GC contenders sorts itself out.

90 miler tomorrow before a rest day in Roswell!