Day 3: Ft Davis State Park to Marathon

Great things come in small packages.  After being buffeted by the wind yesterday, we hopped on our bikes this morning after a great fuel-filled breakfast buffet at the Indian Lodge and sailed an easy 57 miles and 2,000 ft downhill into the parched dry grass, creosote, and yucca plains of Ft Davis and Alpine to land at the Historic Gage Hotel in Marathon, Texas. 

The Gage Hotel is one of the last stops before travelers head south to Big Bend.  It’s located on one entire block of a two-block west Texas plains town, an oasis where we had rooms lining a grassy, flower–filled courtyard and lots of time to recover, listen to Ron sing and play his guitar around the pool, and enjoy the afternoon.

Rich, Pat, Deb, & Emily goof off by the pool

Mark and Charlotte befriend the Gage Hotel cat

For comparison, the scenery outside the Gage Hotel