I have gathered that in Texas, the Mexican restaurant is equivalent to the pizza parlor in the Northeast: every small town has one, and often it's the only restaurant in town. In Plains there were two restaurants, but since I've developed a profound hatred for Dairy Queen after a soggy sandwich and a tastless Blizzard, the clear choice for lunch was Lalito's. I was pleased to discover they offered a lunch buffet, so I helped myself to a small serving of everything and ordered a coffee for afterward.

As I was sipping my coffee, something bumped my shoulder. It was a leg belonging to a little boy who'd decided to climb up the back of my booth and plop down beside me in the seat. I estimated him to be about 2 years old, since he was too young to have any scruples about such things, and since he was at the adorable stage where kids like to talk but are still mostly unintelligible. So we carried on a largely one-sided conversation, with me holding up my end with responses like, "Yeah. I know what you mean." until his apologetic mother, one of the waitresses, discovered him and carried him off.

Fueled up on enchiladas and caffeine, I set out for my last ride in Texas which was exactly like every other ride in Texas. Of all the state lines I have crossed, none has felt quite so satisfying as the New Mexico border. Not that I disliked Texas; on the contrary, I rather enjoyed it. But it sure is big. I sure spent a lot of time biking across it. And several of my absolute worst days on this trip just so happened to be in Texas. So it felt pretty darn good to be done with Texas. I celebrated with my customary state line photo and a snack, and amused myself for a few minutes by walking back and forth across the state line and watching my cell phone automatically switch from Central to Mountain Time and back.

Fast forward 18 more miles of not-much-of-anything to the town of Tatum, in which the Welcome to Tatum sign, many road signs, and almost every shop sign appeared to be created by Westcraft Metal Art. The sun had already begun its initial descent so I considered my lodging options for the night. There were two motels in town, the Sands and the Sunset, the former slightly seedy and run-down looking, and the latter looking perky in a fresh coat of bright yellow paint. But generally I've been saving motels for extenuating circumstances—the four times I've stayed in a motel in almost 3 months have been due to heavy rain, heavy winds, and sickness.

Another option I quickly ruled out was an RV park behind a barbecue joint. This consisted of a handful of dirt parking spots, each of which featured a table with two chairs anchored to it (clearly retired from the restaurant itself) in a small plot of weeds. Nobody was there but a big jackrabbit who scampered off when I approached. The place, and the idea of paying someone money to camp there, were just too depressing.

So that left me with the option I chose: ride a few more miles out of town and camp off in a field somewhere, a solution which had served me reasonably well thus far. Besides, if I knocked off another 5 or 10 miles, then I had a good shot of making it to Roswell the next day, a day ahead of schedule. So I continued on until it got dark, hopped a fence, walked far enough down a faint truck trail in the grass until the traffic sounds from the road began to fade, and set up camp.

That night the temperatures dropped into the low 20s, which, as it turns out, is the point at which my sleeping bag plus a few extra layers of clothing, including a hat, gloves, and wool socks, are not enough keep me warm. I wasn't shivering or anything (which is the first stage of hypothermia, as I learned while preparing for a 2-mile ocean swim in November last year) but I did feel the way you feel when you come inside on a cold winter's day and need a cup of hot tea or a hot shower to warm up: chilled.

An interesting thing happens when I'm camping under less than ideal conditions: I don't sleep very well, and when I do sleep I dream that I'm in the exact same scenario, in this case, lying awake cold and unable to sleep.

I finally became frustrated enough that I temporarily sacrificed some precious body heat by unzipping my tent and rummaging in my panniers (by then coated with frost) to find the space blanket I'd packed for just such contingencies. I've never used one before, but in theory the shiny foil is supposed to reflect 80% of your body heat back at you. That sounded good. On my first try, I spread the space blanket over my sleeping bag, but even after giving it 10 minutes or so for it to work its magic, it didn't seem to help. So I then pulled the space blanket into the bag and wrapped myself up like a burrito. I can't say I was warm exactly, but it did push me over the minimum warmth threshhold needed to sleep.

I woke to a beautiful sunny morning, with no evidence that the frigid night had been anything more than a bad dream. But that night was enough to solidify my new two-part plan to beat the cold. Part 1: finish a couple weeks early and get to California by mid-December. Part 2: In the meantime, purchase a Snuggie at the next Wal-Mart I come to. It will be just for sleeping. I will not wear it in public.