This is it - It's a sunny eastern sunrise, but the west is looking ominous. I'm the road early and El Paso is 80 miles away.

There are no features, no towns - NADA. Just flat highway. I pedal.

The first break is a Sunland Park, a commercial truck border crossing. Then I'm forced to head north and finally cross the Rio Grande and I'm in Texas and El Paso.

It's a long ride down a busy cross town road to downtown.

Then I'm downtown and check into one of the best hotels in EL Paso - EL Camino.

I wheel my bike into the upscale lobby and staff are showing their mortification of this dusty, sweaty guy who has propped up his dirty bike on the main glass window in their upscale lobby.

I enjoyed that.

They are happy to quickly process my AMEX card, and soon I'm up the elevator to a really really nice room - five stars and a marked contrast from the hard-scrabble rundown room I slept in last night.