 High five it up. Haven't slept much, it's been a little windy. It's about five in the morning, and I'm gonna try to get going because the National Weather Service has issued a wind advisory, very strong gusts. So I'm gonna try to ride before it gets way too gnarly and I'm up, so why not go right now? Yay. There's also quite a bit of moonlight, so that should help guide me. It's pretty bright outside. All right, need to make sure I didn't leave anything behind. It's not often I pack up in the windy dark. Should be good. Thank you, beautiful piece of flat ground right next to this crater you can't really see right now. Let's go ride bikes, it's an adventure. Oh, and there's the moon. There's the moon, lead the way moon. Sure I'm glad my wahoo works in the dark because you can't see a whole lot that way. All right, so far so good. It's definitely windy, but it's beautiful. I love it. I'm riding to the moonlight with the stars as my guide. No crashies, no flaties, no wormies, whew. And it's supposed to get way windier. That's why I'm out here early to try to get some of these miles in while it's not crazy windy. Just a little bit. Okay, I haven't gone very far. Mainly because of sand, not so much because of wind. It's really deep sand and it's hard to navigate sand in the dark. I don't know if I could navigate it in the light either. Whoa, there's a tree right there. Talk about navigating. Look at this, I just saw on the side of the road lighting up everything. If you need help, push red button. US Border Patrol will arrive in one hour by you there. Wow, this is interesting. Me or I should push this sail fast like a meh. Just kidding, I don't need help. But maybe you could turn the wind off, that'd be cool. I'm guessing they put this here for people who are coming across the border from Mexico. Look at that image, just a dehydrated, dying human. That's crazy. Huh, well, back into the darkness. It's a beautiful time to be riding a bike. A little bit of light in the sky and it's beautiful. Even though it's not fun to wake up in the dark and pack up everything when it's blowing around, it's beautiful to be on the road this early. I never wake up this early if I don't have to. And today, I kind of have to, to beat this wind. All right, bike, I know we woke up early. Get up, I know you're tired. Get up, bike, let's go. All right, so the sun is on its way. Push this button for help places. Attention, you cannot walk to safety from this point. You are in danger of dying if you do not summon help. That's pretty dramatic and it's also in Spanish. And I've been thinking about this a lot since I saw the last one. And this is a station for Mexicans, Central Americans, who are crossing the border through the desert, who have been on foot for however long, weeks without a lot of food and water. You know, imagine just traipsing through this, not on roads, they don't want to get caught. And then they see this and they see, oh, maybe they can help us. But if you push this button, I guarantee you, they're sending you right back. So nobody really wants to push this button. It's a tricky conundrum because they're coming here to work, to help their families, create a better life. And you hit that button, you're going back. And a lot of times these people have been planning their trips for years. When I lived in Honduras, people were saving up money forever to make this border crossing, to pay the coyotes and to get all the way up here. So, fascinating. I didn't know anything like this existed. It's funny, it was really windy at like five in the morning, but right now, it's completely still. The National Weather Service is saying 10 a.m., it's all gonna break loose. I mean, when they warn farmers about high winds and to be careful with your machinery, they usually mean business. So, I need to keep moving. And hopefully it's not as severe as they're saying. All right, I've been riding for two hours, I've only gone nine miles. Gives you an idea of how fast I'm not going. And it's time for a pro meal bar. Not sponsored by pro meal, but I just love these things. It's just a big chunk of calories and some chocolate chips. So, I'm riding by this farm and I see somebody walking in the field. I think it's a farmer. Nope, it's Aaron. What's up, buddy? Hey. Good morning. Did you have a good night? I did, did you? Yeah, man. Good. Yeah, you sleep well? Yeah, yep, no snakes, no creepy crawlies. Buenos dias, Kyle. Buenos dias! How you doing, buddy? Doing good. Dangerbird day four. Yes, sir. I'd like to think that it's the final day. It better be. Yeah, slept here and ground was soft. Yeah, look at that nice soft sand you found. I know, well, we found plenty of it walking through it yesterday. I think the wind's in our favor. Be quiet. Don't taunt it. I've learned my lesson. We're the three best friends that anyone can have. We're the three best friends that anyone can have. All right, so we've come to a fork in the road. The true route takes us all the way around this train track, 15 miles. But it does say in the ride with GPS notes that you can go across. You can find this magical gate and be careful because trains can kill you. So I'm thinking we should cut off 15 miles. What about you guys? Yeah. All right. Kyle, I'll hold your bike. Here's the gate. This maneuver is saving us 15 miles. And I'm cool with it. Thank you, gate master. All right, we did it. I feel like we just got a cheat code in a video game. So I want to give you an idea of what we just cut off. So the route goes all the way left over back, boom. But we went straight across right here. Way easier. Let's go to Las Cruces. So with that little route cut we just did, we have 25 miles to go. And I don't want to jinx myself. But the wind has not been a factor yet. It might even be helping. It feels like a bit of a tailwind. Oh, it's just so nice. I was really kind of anxious last night reading about all these high wind advisories. But so far, so good. In something like that is calling my name. Where we started on Saturday. Today is Tuesday. Thank you, Dangerbird, Monumental Loop, Matt, Pablo. Everybody involved. This is awesome. We're done. This route had it all. It was challenging. It was interesting. It was beautiful. Made lots of new friends. Got to ride with people. Got to sleep under the stars. This was a winner for sure. I'm so glad I made the effort to come on down here and do this. And I'm really impressed with what Matt and Pablo have created. And like I said on Saturday, the energy of the group really just stayed with me the whole time. It was really fun to be part of this. Cause a lot of times bikepacking is a solitary sport. At least it is for me. A lot of times I just go off on my own and do my thing. And sometimes I'm with one or two people, but it was really unique to be part of a thing. And even though we weren't all together all the time, it was fun just knowing that on this entire route there were about 100 or so people scattered around and we were all connected by this little blue line. The monumental loop. And it was monumental. And you know what I'm really happy about as well? The heat, it's warm. I feel like I got some bonus summertime. Thank you so much for watching this series. Please like and subscribe and tell all your weird friends about my channel. That's the best way to have my channel grow is just word of mouth. And I like weird subscribers. I like weird people, you know what I'm saying? Bam. High five it up. Bam. Okay. Beans. Time for beans. Oh yeah, there we go. Good work, hombres. Ha ha. He's so ready for this. Ha ha.