Oh, Biden!

What will he say next?

I woke up this morning and checked the headlines on MSN before packing up and heading to the airport for my trip to Tucson. The first headline I saw was about Joe Biden saying he recommends avoiding all crowded places like planes and buses. Sadly, avoiding crowded areas won't help him, since he is already infected with a terminal case of foot-in-mouth disease. Within an hour or two, his office was already backpedaling, trying to soften his words and placate the already flagging travel industry.

That guy. I'm going to risk it and fly anyway.

People aren't kidding about Austin

This town is great! It has moved up to the top of my list of places I would live if Seattle was no longer an option. The public transit is pretty comprehensive, and bus passes are only $18 a month!

After a few mellow days hanging with my friend's mom in San Marcos, during which time we ate, drank, chatted, drove over to Devil's Backbone, saw glassblowers make a lampshade, and I got my hair cut and colored, I headed in to Austin to meet my friend.

We kicked off a really great trip by going to see The Kills. The show was fantastic, and I don't think it was just the secondhand smoke talking. The crowd had incredible energy, even showing much love to the opening band, The Magic Wands, which was a couple originally from Nashville whose smooth sexy style made some of the songs seem a bit like foreplay. I doubt anyone in the audience had heard of them, but they were totally into the show. My friend happened to know them (small world!), so we got in for free, but the show was good enough that it would have been worth the money to pay for it. We weren't so into the second band, The Horrors, which was some tragic 80s sounding stuff, but they were good at what they did. It seemed like all of the bands were really feeding into the crowd's energy and responding in kind.

The next night we did a bit of random barhopping, to take in the Saturday night in downtown Austin scene. There was a ridiculous amount of blatant public drunkenness, as well as a huge police presence, but the police were just standing around watching out for violence and leaving the drunks alone, so that was cool. Most of the music venues here have outdoor stages, since the weather is generally so nice, although the actual stage and at least a small area in front of it is always covered, which came in handy during the frequent storms and showers that were happening for most of the week.

Sunday night we saw a local band from San Marcos, Zlam Dunk, six college boys with a ton of energy, decent talent, some creative songwriting, and just the right amount of cowbell. Afterwards we hung out with some friends of friends who worked at the club, which was pretty chill, since most of the bar patrons left after the music ended.

Monday was stormy and we were partied out, so we stayed in and discovered the best public access show ever, Cookin' Good, starring the Cola sisters, Arcie and Shasta. This show should be on real TV, and these girls should get big money for their awesomeness. Seriously. We were just channel surfing, and paused a bit on this show that looked like a white trash cooking show, wondering what it was. When we heard the stuff coming out of their mouths, our jaws dropped, and we were sold. If you like the TV I like (and you know who you are!), check it out.

Tuesday I dropped off my bike and gear at a bike shop to be shipped home, and that night we checked out more local music at a different venue, but none of it was really worth writing home about. It was fun, though, and the last band, Snatch Racket, was loud, fast, and funny, which always makes for a decent show.

There is a really yummy Ethiopian restaurant (Aster's) right next to the hotel, and they have a lunch buffet. We got addicted and ended up eating there three times, so if you're ever in Austin, that is the place I can recommend the most. We enjoyed the street vendors downtown, too, and I heartily recommend "The Cuban" with slaw, from Beelzebun's. But only if you are a really really bad vegetarian, like me...

Tomorrow I'm headed for Tucson, to visit my Grandparents and some cousins for an undefined length of time, before I move on to an unspecified location.

It's the end of this trip as we know it

And I feel fine.

I was never really excited about returning to my bike, but I did it anyway, because I thought maybe once I was back on the road, I would dig it again, and I wanted to get into and out of Arizona before it got too hot. There was a brief period of excitement, but it didn't last long, and the dog bite killed any hope I had of regaining my love of biking. I became increasing paranoid and negative-- even getting out of Louisiana didn't help enough. The only thing that gave me any happiness was looking forward to meeting my friend in Austin, and that day just couldn't come fast enough. Over the last few days, I had reached the decision that I would probably ship my bike home from Austin, and if that proved to be too expensive, I would sell the blasted contraption. Yup, that's how much I hate my precious Surly LHT right now.

Today, after another hilly, windy ride, I reached a really nice clean trailer park in La Grange, TX. I set up my tent, had a lovely shower, then returned to my tent to fetch my laundry. The tent zipper exploded. I tried in vain to put it back together. I ended up taping the thing shut-- no easy task. There is a lot of tension in that system, and stuff doesn't stick to mosquito netting so well. I noticed that my friend's mom, who lives not too far away in San Marcos, had called, so I returned her call in a sorry state. We laughed that my equipment had failed right around the same time as my fortitude, and she offered to come pick me up in the next day or two. Sweet! I love moms...

So anywho, the biking portion of this trip is done, and the blogging will be fairly infrequent from now on, since I don't have much to say to the public when I'm just hanging with my family and friends. I won't subject you to any more Trivial Pursuit reports. My flickr will probably get more action than this blog. I'm still planning to travel for a few more months, but at this point am primarily interested in spending time with my peeps, not seeing the sites. If anyone would like to petition me to come to their town, or meet them somewhere random, have at it, I'm footloose and fancy free. Have credit card, will travel.

Ho hum.

More riding, more sun, more hills, more wind. I didn't meet any other cyclists today, but when I stopped at the store in Independence, they gave me a book to sign, and the last ten people I met were in there. I guess we all get hungry going through those hills.

I'm camped at a Corps of Engineers campground on Somerville Lake just north of Gay Hill, Texas. Yup, Gay Hill (tee hee!) I'll never grow up. I was excited to check the place out, because my past experience with these places has been that they are nice and/or super cheap. This place is meh, and priced a little high for what I'm getting, in my opinion. And the water tastes funky. But I've already paid for two days, so I'll attempt to quit whining.

I am titleless today

Today started out lame: I packed up my soggy dew-moistened tent and rode off into the wind. Sigh. At least it was sunny. I chatted with six other cyclists today, all headed east. I envied them, but they all claimed to always have a headwind, too, so I guess things are tough all over. Other cyclists always ask how your trip is going, and I found myself today complaining to complete strangers. This is normally something I avoid, but that's what was on my mind, and I've discovered my conversations are much more interesting (to me anyway) and constructive if I just start talking about whatever I'm thinking rather than bothering with social niceties. I can see why people get into that whole radical honesty thing.

The third cyclist I met was this wacky kid (http://twitter.com/xcryanpfeiffer) from Chicago who is riding for Lance Armstrong's cancer charity. (livestrong.org/grassroots2009/xctour) We got to babbling away, for I don't even know how long-- at least an hour-- beside the road until three other kids showed up. There we were, all five of us standing over our bikes with our assorted Ortlieb panniers (every single one), chatting away on the roadside. That was a nice break. After that my route turned a bit so that I actually had some tailwind, and I rode into Navasota, which has grocery stores and a park just outside of town where you can camp for free. It even has a shower. Nothing fancy, but it's better than that pit I stayed at in Louisiana... So my day ended much better than it started.

Sorry, I'm too lazy to make my links work today, so you'll have to copy and paste if you're interested. And while I'm linking to unselfish touring cyclists I have met, some guys from Toronto are riding for this charity: http://athletesforafrica.com/

There are people more obnoxious than rednecks?!

The overflow campground mostly cleared out yesterday, and around the time I was crawling into my sleeping bag last night, there was just the one most obnoxious group of rednecks remaining, who had proven themselves to be not so bad. Then the Mexicans pulled in. They set up camp and blasted their own brand of obnoxious, terrible music until-- I'm not exaggerating-- dawn. The rednecks, who seemed pretty feisty when surrounded by other rednecks, were uncharacteristically silent on this one. They actually packed up and left around 4:30AM.

Then the rain came, and the storm. It was so bad some rain snuck into my tent, and several regions were flooded. Actually, pretty much the entire field I was in was flooded. I stayed afloat on my thermarest life raft until it stopped, and the sun came out, and the birds started talking. By this time, I had the whole place to myself, and was able to empty my tent and dry out a bit, as well as get some much-needed sun power to my phone. This place is really pleasant when not overrun by noisy litterbugs...

Excuses, excuses...

The rednecks quieted down shortly after ten last night, so I managed to sleep pretty well, but on waking, was still not feeling so hot. I figured since I really have nowhere to be, it's cheap here, I have a bit of cell reception, and it might be a challenge to find another campsite during Easter weekend, I may as well sit tight. Tomorrow is supposed to be stormy, so I'll probably just sit that one out, too.

I'm finding myself in that weird place of zero urgency again. The only real reason to ever leave this spot is the lack of grocery stores...

My redneck neighbors are having some sort of obnoxiousness contest

They are all going to win.

Riding went fine today. I met several other cyclists headed in the opposite direction, so I warned them about the pit bull specifically, and about Louisiana in general. They are all riding much faster than me, though, so they'll be in and out in no time.

Toward the afternoon I started to feel lousy, and was entertaining thoughts of taking another day off, since I have some time to kill anyway, but now I'm not so sure. I was headed for a campground in the Sam Houston national forest, but then I realized it was Easter weekend and everyone would be there. I stopped at the ranger station to see if it was full up, and the nice lady there told me I could stay in the overflow camping area, which was free, and I would just have to pay a five dollar day use fee for the facilities, which were very close. That sounded like just the price I wanted to pay, so I went for it. It turns out the showers are a bit further away than I was led to believe, (I call it the journey of a thousand steps) and the overflow area contains many people who seem lame. And "redneck" is what they were shouting about themselves, not just something I chose to label them, so I'm not being snooty. Anyway, I'll have to see how annoyed I am when I get up in the morning... Country music never sounds worse than when it's blasting from someone's crappy car speakers.

Yawn. Stretch.

It was time for a rest day and this place is cheap and has laundry facilities and a decently stocked little store, so I stayed put, and pretty much did nothing all day, except that load of laundry.

I smell so clean!

The wind was still pretty strong today, but I think it's supposed to be better tomorrow, when I'll start inching along toward Austin. I've arranged to meet a friend there, but that doesn't happen until the 23rd, and it really won't take me that long to get there, so I plan to take a lot of days off and explore the pretty wooded part of east Texas.

I might as well continue to review campgrounds, because I don't see enough of that on the internets. Other cyclists tend to talk mostly about the riding, unless the campground is exceptional in some way. This one is not. I am at Browder's Marina and Campground on Lake Livingston Reservoir. It has the necessities, like toilet paper and showers, but the facilities in general are not well kept up, and the shower was kinda luke. It's cheap, and the employees are friendly. Many of the tenants seem to be long term RVers, so they are a quiet, friendly bunch. I was stretching on the grass in a position where I look all crumpled up, and one of them drove his golf cart over to ask if I was ok. Cute!

I really *am* out west again!

I spent most of the day on decent roads. There were a few miles of exceptions, but the bad roads in Texas are still better than most of the roads in... Ahem... Other places. The wind was only slightly less awful than yesterday, but I stuck to my guns and made it to my destination. Once, when I stopped for a roadside snack, someone stopped to ask if I was okay. When I got to the campground, it wasn't the nicest place ever, but I got the half-price cyclist rate. It's been so long...

I'm still in the puppy love phase, for sure. I really missed riding in the west, and to have this sudden transition from deep backwoods rural south to something that really does feel like it wants to be Montana (thanks, Steinbeck) is just glorious.

Also, most dogowners here have fences.

Texas = smooth roads

Many with actual shoulders! I feel like I'm back out west. I'm so happy! This morning I returned the Uhaul truck less than a mile from my route, then hit the road.

But the wind! Yeesh! Will it ever be beneficial? Today was a struggle, and I knew there was no chance of making it to the far away campground that I harbored vague fantasies of reaching. I was planning to push on for a few more miles, but had been on the lookout for stealth camping for most of the day. When I saw a dirt road heading into the woods, with a sign that said "Hardin County Park" and commemorated the eight mile logging road through the Big Thicket, I decided that meant it was public property and I could camp here. I found a spot off a 4x4 trail off the dirt road that is hidden from the casual authority driving through, but quite visible from the 4x4 trail, so I don't think I'll get shot by hunters. But if I'm never heard from again, start looking here: N 30°24.368' W 094°33.629'

I don't really have any cell service out here, just barely enough to slowly, painfully post this. Not enough to look up what kind of wildlife is in the area... But I'll tie my food up and everything will be crescent fresh.

Dear Louisiana,

When we first met everything seemed so right-- you were so attractive, and a great cook. But over time, I began to see your uglier side. I would make excuses: oh, you're just having a bad day, or I shouldn't have done that thing to upset you like that. But as I was lying awake in bed last night-- yes, you managed to wake me up again, for the third night in a row-- listening to the howling tent-shaking wind, I thought about us. I mean, really thought. I considered my options: I could either spend another night at the gross campground that I hated, or I could struggle all the next day against the very strong wind, trying to go the fifty miles I needed to go to get to the next camping place, but likely failing and having to stay in a hotel. Or possibly even further injuring myself. Both of these options were so unpalatable that serious consideration of either one made my stomach turn and I wanted to cry.

We couldn't go on like this, Louis! What I'm trying to say is that it's better for both of us if I just leave, as quickly as possible. I packed up my things this morning and backtracked sixteen miles to rent a fourteen foot U-haul truck to take me away from you, straight into the open arms of Texas, who may not be perfect, but hopefully will treat me better than you did.

Don't try to find me, or I will take out a restraining order.

Goodbye,
Cheri

I came up with this plan around 3AM, all frustrated and sleep deprived. It wasn't cheap, but I estimate I would have spent about two thirds as much on food and lodging riding all of the miles I drove through instead, and I'm quite happy about it, so it was money well spent. The wind was so crazy strong, it was difficult to drive. Riding would have been really unpleasant. I got to drive on the twenty mile bridge across a big swamp, which I would have skirted on my bike. Halfway across the bridge I stopped at a lovely rest stop and called my dad to tell him where I was, since we had just been discussing Louisiana the day before. He told me I was in the only nice rest stop in the whole state. I will have to take his world for it, since I never saw any other rest stops. He also joked that I was escaping from prison. It kind of felt that way. Once in Texas I stopped to camp at a campground run by an adorable old couple, and the woman knocked a couple bucks off the price since I got in so late in the evening-- around seven. I don't think that has ever happened before. I'm sure the euphoria will pass, but tonight I'm stoked to be in Texas.

I'm medicated and healing

More from yesterday-- Cletus, who is actually named Billy, and some of his friends were out here yesterday fixing something. They were drunk. When it was fixed, Billy came over to talk to me about it, because that ole boy wants a reason to talk to all of this. Just then, the thirteen-year-old boy member of my camp neighbor family yelled that there was a big snake. Billy's bud took off running, shovel in one hand and giant can of Busch beer in the other. He took quite a few poorly aimed whacks at the snake. It got angry and curled up, shaking its rattler, according to Billy's bud. I was not close enough at this point to see or hear any rattling. He finally hit it enough to damage it, then attempted to remove its head with a shovel, which was unsuccessful, but he claimed it was done on purpose because he wanted to keep it intact. We all looked at it for a while, and there was some debate about what type of snake it was. They eventually decided it was a rattlesnake because it had a few rattles, but later got back to us that it was a kingsnake. I looked it up. It was a speckled kingsnake. Anyway, Billy's bud wanted to keep the thing, so he got a grocery bag out of the car and picked it up by the tail. Blood was dripping out, the snake was long, and he was beery, so he had a bit of difficulty getting the head in the bag. By this point, the camp neighbor and I were giggling and making quiet jokes about bringing home some groceries. Billy's bud had some sort of plan that involved scaring his neighbors back at the trailer park, or perhaps making boots, and Billy was telling him that if he brought that thing anywhere near his wife, she would shoot him with her pistol.

Those guys are weird to hang around, but they are capable of putting on quite a show.

I forgot to mention that they measured the distance between the two deepest puncture wounds (the canines) at the hospital yesterday, and it was five centimeters, so if anyone needed a bit of size perspective on that picture, there you go.

Today the dogowners came back to drive me a long ways to a pharmacy that is open on Sunday, so I could get my antibiotics. Those twenty pills were $75, after tax. Yikes. It was so nice just to look at the total, shrug, and look at someone else. They definitely had sticker shock.

This evening, just as I finished eating dinner, Billy drove up and offered me a big bowl of seafood gumbo and some crackers for dinner. I'm not sure if I'm happy or sad I missed out on that... I'm better off, though, because dinner was a heavy can of beans I didn't want to carry, and I was positive there were no roofies in it. He brought his bud with him, and the whole time they were here, the ole boy was yammering away on his cell phone about something he hit with his car last night. I sure hope it was a critter of some sort.

Thank you to all of my friends out there who worry about my safety, share my pain, and celebrate my triumphs. This trip could have easily been a very lonely experience, but instead I'm making new friends all over the country, and maintaining the friends I have back home. I always know there's someone out there to talk to, that someone knows someone who is close enough to help me out if I need it, and that people are wishing and praying for my safety. I want to give a special shout out to Susan, who early on really influenced this facet of my trip. The world needs more like you, lady!

Doctoring's done

Can't say as much about my civic duty, though...

On the advice of... Oh, just about everyone I know, I called the dogowners and made them take me to the hospital. They begged and pleaded with me to say it was a stray dog and not get their precious taken away from them. I laid out my moral dilemma and told them I was a terrible liar, but went along with it because they were paying and they promised to keep Cujo chained up. The doctors gave me a scrip for antibiotics, then called around to find rabies shots and told me to go down to Baton Rouge tonight and begin the ten day, six shot course. The dog is healthy, and I'm not willing to deal with all of that, especially since the last known case of rabies in Louisiana was in 1979, and was from a squirrel. I like those odds! The doctor told me to take it easy tomorrow, so I'm taking one more day off, which is fine, since it may storm tomorrow anyway, and there's a headwind.

I came back to the camp, and my new camp neighbors are nice, and we're hanging around a fire. They have a dog, which freaked me out a little at first, but we made friends and I am on the road to recovery. I have a good story about Cletus and a rattlesnake, but I guess I'll save that for tomorrow.

But at least my tattoo still looks good...

***SAFETY ALERT! For anyone cycling the Southern Tier through eastern Louisiana: a bit east of the junction of 440 and 1061, you may be chased by two pitbulls, a smaller white one and a larger brown one. These are not dogs who want you to leave their territory. They want you off your bike. STOP. GET OFF THE BIKE.***

I'm never sure what to do in these situations. Usually, the dog just wants me to leave, so I keep riding. This dog, the larger brown one, did not like that. He bit my rear pannier. Twice. There are two lovely sets of puncture marks in my formerly waterproof saddlebag. Then he bit my leg. I stopped, reaching for my weapon, but once I stopped, so did he. His owner was home, so she brought me inside for peroxide and bandages. When I rinsed the wound, I saw chunks of flesh on my leg, and managed not to hurl. She insisted that he was such a nice sweet good dog, who just went crazy around bikes. And motorcycles. And four wheelers. And lawnmowers... She insisted that he had had all of his shots. She said that he had only bitten one other person-- just a nip, really-- but he had been wearing jeans. (So he was lucky.) She gave me her number, and I rode on, just wanting to get to the campground and relax and take tomorrow off.

A few miles later, it became apparent the bandage wasn't cutting it, so I rigged something up with a maxipad and athletic tape. This is when I noticed the chunks of flesh on my pants, and the holes.

I got to the campground, which was just reopening after being flooded. The owner was there to attempt to restart the pump and get the water running. He hadn't mentioned this when I called to be sure he was open...

I called Anna crying, and she made me laugh by telling me about the April Fool's snow in Seattle. Then the owner and his good ole maintenance man, who will heretofore be referred to as Cletus, came to tell me the water was on. I played the pity card, and Cletus gave me a ride to the nearby store to pick up some food for my day off. It's less than a mile away, but I'm done riding for now, especially on this busy street where no one slows down, and there is no shoulder. Most of the roads in LA have been decent, and the drivers largely courteous, but this one is evil. (38 from Kentwood to Chipola, if anyone cares.) Anywho, Cletus was real nice and I picked up some delicious crawdad pies and whatnot. I considered asking him why people choose to live in godforsaken swamps that flood every year, but I only understand about half the words he says, and there are a couple of bottles of booze on the rider's side floor of his car, and I didn't want to be rude. He also offered to drive me to the hospital if I needed it.

So here I am, at a newly unflooded campground, with gross bathrooms (freshly mopped by Cletus, cuz of the flood and all) that would have been gross even without the flooding, but there's toilet paper and one of the most striking sunsets I have ever seen. The campground, outside the bathroom, is lovely, and I have it to myself, although apparently another coupla touring cyclists will be in later, headed the other direction. I will be sure to warn them about Cujo.

On the bright side: My leg still functions, it's doubtful I have rabies, and my precious tattoo is untouched. And I've stopped bleeding. And flesh washes out of pants.

But it's more electrical tape for the old pannier. I'm sure glad I bought them in black.

Louisiana, baby!

I have to enjoy this feeling of cruising through the states quickly, before I hit Texas.

I fully ignored the warnings about "possible" severe storms that "may" produce large hailstones, and got a nice early start. It was quite a lovely day, until the storm clouds gathered while I was navigating through Bogalusa, LA. I considered taking shelter at one of the many churches I passed, or maybe the library, but I opted for getting as far away from that armpit as possible before the giant hail hit. That place gave me the heebie jeebies. Everyone was looking at my bike and gear like it was a shrimp po'boy, and they were starving.

I managed to get a few miles out of town before it started raining. It started gently, and the thunder and lightning seemed to be moving away from me, so for a while I entertained the fantasy that I was skirting the storm. Then it started pouring for reals, right about the same time that I saw an open garage/storage shed thing right by the road that had just enough room for me to pull my bike in and stop for lunch. There was no giant hail, nor any tornadoes that I saw, despite the tornado watch, and the rain passed shortly. The sun came back, and I got back out there.

I was moving through some kind of camping dead zone, headed for Franklinton. The sole hotel in town was a little more than I wanted to pay, so I kept an eye out for stealth camping, but that didn't pan out. Following the lead of someone from crazyguyonabike.com, I called the Franklinton sheriff's office to inquire about camping, because that guy had been allowed to set up his tent in a fenced area behind the police station. Either he is more charismatic than I, or he just got lucky with who he spoke to, but when I tried it, the guy just suggested I go to a campground about ten miles further than I wanted to go, a few miles off my route, that "might" be open. Well, at least I tried. I had enough daylight to get there, but wasn't sure I had the fortitude. I decided to call them for info, since a lot of campgrounds are flooded right now, and a place with "bayou" in the name didn't seem too promising. I didn't reach an actual human, but their machine only mentioned RV sites, so I gave up and went to the hotel. It's a decent place. I got excited when I realized it was Thursday, and I could watch must see TV, but sadly, it has been taken over by ER, so it's a Comedy Central kind of night.

I managed to save a few bucks picking up supplies at the Dollar General and the scavenger grocery store or whatever it's called that are right by the hotel, so I can feel a little better about the money I spent.

Maybe I should write a guide to cheap camping

I'm sure that's never been done before. Maybe I should buy a guide to cheap camping.

I forgot to mention it earlier, but the historic section of Mobile, AL is really beautiful. The streets are lined with these majestic old trees that I didn't have the opportunity to photograph, but I'm sure that's been done to death. There are also some pretty buildings downtown.

I got a late start today and didn't go too far because I'm working with campsite availability. The ride was uneventful-- I didn't run over a single one of the dogs who chased me. I am staying tonight at the lovely Haas-Cienda Ranch in Poplarville, MS. It's a really peaceful place run by a very sweet family who live here all year around. I suspect it's about to get less peaceful, as the waterslide opens Friday, and the summer season will get into full swing. Their tent camping rates are quite nice, and there is toilet paper in the bathroom. It seems like it's way out in the country, but is actually just on the outskirts of a decent sized town, so I'm close to all of the amenities like grocery stores and cell phone reception. If you come through here looking to camp, I would recommend it, but be warned: they don't take credit cards.

I passed by my first Southern Tier touring cyclist today. He started in Houston, and is headed for Mobile, where he will meet up with some other people and ride up the Underground Railroad route. It seems like it would be a nice trip.