Hoping for a Tail Wind

Rainy morning in Independencea TX and I’m absolutely annihilating these bacon egg and cheese biscuits that Mike sells me. Mike owns the general store. And the restaurant attached it it. And the land we camped on last night. Mike is the motherfuckin man actually. It’s his world, and I’m just a squirrel trying to get a nut. In this case “a nut” is coffee and breakfast and shelter from rain. Mike got me. The 60” TV in the restaurant tells me that’s it’s Friday. That storms are coming. That Houston rush hour traffic has eased. That some dude was arrested after shooting his mother in law to death. Jeez, the information started out useful and went downhill from there. Then the local news gives me a whole minute long segment about “using your dog to get dates”. I definitely want a dog but hesitate as to whether the second part is useful or ethical for that matter. Whatever. I crush two breakfast sandwiches and head out to see if the rain has broken and if Damon is out of the tent yet.

Damon’s not feeling the covid conspiracy talks from within the cafe/store and bolts as soon as the rain ceases. He’s got corporate vegan cuisine just 20 miles up at some king of burgers place. 18 miles later and we’re inside a locally owned cafe with vegan options across from a locally owned book store in Navasota.

There’s three uniformed cops in between us in line, none of them are covering their face, but all three are fully uniformed up. The employees have masks covering their mouths and most of the noses, most of the time. My bandana starts right below my eyes. I kinda wanna just sorta have a kinda sorta discussion with them about it all. Its strange to me that they’d blatantly be like, nah fuck the health of these residents that pay our salaries. They have at least been offered the shot, clearly everyone else in the place has not. I decide not to have the conversation, since I don’t want beef and already had plenty of pig in my breakfast. Instead I go with a pistachio muffin and an overpriced coffee refill. Damon eats a whole bunch of something and still stops up for an Impossible Whopper to go on our way out of town.

A few miles up and I’m in the Sam Houston National Forest. some interesting controlled burns going on today.

Rolling into Richards Texas, I do a double take and see what looks like a 7 year old boy driving a pickup going the other way. Maybe he’s 10 at most. But he’s like Tom Hanks in Big and all his clothes and hat are oversized for him. Like the phenomenon from the film just happened to him just now. Right now. I’m fucking trippin’. What was in those breakfast biscuits? At the break ahead, Damon arrives after me, jumps off the bike and proclaims, “yo, did you see that little kid driving the truck?”. Damon saw it too. Ok so at least it really happened outside of my mind. Damon says he saw a little buckin bronco partner riding shotgun too. So tow kids driving a pickup. Just another day in east Texas.

About 55-60 miles in and Damon gets a clinking sound out of nowhere. It’s strange. We pull off and it becomes clearer what’s happening. This farm road provides the grounds for an onslaught. Like some entry and edit wound shit. One entire inch of this metal shard is burrowed into his tire. I yank it the fuck out. It has literally made two holes in his puncture proof tires. I use some tape as a boot, Damon pumps back and we roll, but go ahead and have a look see at this unholy thing, half of which somehow ended up buried into his tire and tube.

Darkness is coming quickly as we race toward Double Lake USFS recreation area. Finally make entry to the campground; the entrance is unstaffed; the placard says the campground is full. I am intent on camping somewhere in here and cruise in anyway; we definitely need to fill up water in the restroom. Some campground meandering miles later and a golf-carting host couple is briefing us about a spot we can camp at, miles back by the entrance. Away we cruise in total darkness. It’s not so bad because the road is smooth and there only campers on the roads. We make it back and we now have water and electric and I’ll just poop in the woods in the morning and…. holy shit this campground employee is expedient as fuck. He collects the $20 maybe 5 minutes after our tent are up. Federales.

The pop-up penthouse is still wet from this morning’s rain. In fact, everything packed has a layer of moisture on it. And it smells a little like manure. I’m fairly certain that I don’t smell much better than that either. Then I fart and even though I’m the only one in here, I really regret it. I can’t even muster a clever pun or reference right now. An entire day of writing has me stinky and sleepy. Then I pass out.

I’m a fucking cowboy and it only took two weeks of two wheels through Texas. There is just so much cattle farming. It’s beefy. Multiple times today, we are rolling with the herd. Sometimes close, sometimes a little farther away, but these future quarter pounders with cheese are down with us. It goes like this: bunches of cattle are chilling along our route; we cruise up; they look up, concerned; a little veal-sized one starts to run; the others all follow. They are moving!! Next thing I know, there’s a cattle run that Jack Palance and Billy Crystal would be proud of. It was definitely the best part of a very long and hard day in the saddle, Curly!

Put one point twenty one jiggawatts into your jetpack and go back to a state park picnic table where I’m thinking about how there’s nothing I love more in life than a bike touring campground morning coffee. Damon calls it “so clutch right now”. I took a shit before the coffee; he takes one sip and runs off to the restrooms at Buescher State Park in Texas. Rookie mistake. I get some quiet bike touring campground morning coffee time. A solid layer of clouds blocks out the blue sky, though it’s warm and was the easiest climb out of my tent yet. The humidity hangs thick like thicc. The force is telling me this could be some hipster magic spell I fell under in the last town back. My weather app is telling me there’s thunderstorms possible in a couple of days.

The ride yesterday and into today takes us from city to suburb to rural town to state park to farm. Texas farmhouse chic then just to straight farm to be exact. It comes out of nowhere. Park roads become farm roads in a flash. A mile out of the state park and I am the passenger in a near death experience. Heavy headwinds and riding a one foot shoulder, I get passed hard and close by two eighteen wheelers doing about 70 mph. Probably twelve to eighteen inches away from me, according to Damon. That is not a three foot pass. I catch HAZMAT IDs 1075 and I think maybe 1994. Look em up and get back to me on how I would have died, there’s six million ways; I’m using a floating holiday on the schedule, so I won’t be choosing one today.

If the earth is flat then something has happened. Maybe climate change? I dunno. but there are hills everywhere. Hill after hill. After hill. Still.

Heading directly into the headwind, I’m absolutely gassed coming 7 miles down highway 77 into La Grange. I am definitely not at peak tour mode. I have zero energy and we’re only 20 miles in. My entire right leg aches. I’m hurt… not injured, coach. What feels like hours later, a left turn relieves us of the headwind. Whew. We find a grocery store but there’s no sign of ZZ Top or the brothel they wrote the song about. La Grange, it’s all headwind and no head.

We eat and drink more coffee. Damon has now joined team post-noon coffee. I doubt he’ll step up and get with the post-6pm cup, but this is cool. Either way the caffeination produces the desired effect. Fully fueled and freed from wind resistance, we pound out on the shittiest of shoulders. More chip seal. All day. It hasn’t really gone anywhere in weeks, I’ve just stopped bitching about it. It sucks. Jars my joints. Numbs my hands. Slow us down. Today it really makes us feel like we’re punching a clock.

We push 10, 20, 30 miles more and are really running low on energy. And water. And daylight. Independence Texas provides the first open store in a while (and the last for another 15 miles). We are talking to the shopkeeper Mike a bit. He’s familiar with the fact that we’re on what’s called the Southern Tier Route and even knows the guy who makes and refines this route for the Adventure Cycling Association. Mike asks me to sign his guestbook. The last name is from three days ago. Mike says we can camp on his land across the street, though he says his wife didn’t cut the grass. We buy snacks. Fill up water. Setup the palaces. A 66° overnight low makes this a no fly zone on the tents. The sun sets and and we now return to anticlimactic ending of eating and sleeping, already in progress.

I’m outside the holy land that is this Austin Whole Foods on our way out of town. Groceries still needed doing, however the fuck it is that someone can grocerize. One of Austin’s own approaches, 88% shirtless. Likes that we bike. He covers a lot of ground on foot. So on and so forth. Let’s call this guy Travis. He’s definitely a Travis. Here in Travis County Texas, no less. Well, Travis also has a rooster perched on his right shoulder the entire conversation. My 36 hours in this city coming to a close, I’m ready to see how famously weird Austin can still be — so I say to Travis “hey, nice cock.” Damon breaks down and chuckles, but Travis doesn’t even flinch, he just keeps going on and on with his spiel about whatever and something on Facebook or something. We roll out, bidding city life adieu until the NOLA and the bayou; bidding steady head winds hello again.

These here particular winds are ferociously sustaining at 20 mph — with 30 mph gusts and mostly in our fucking face. Four letters word required. When it’s not in my face, it’s kicking me from the right, trying to knock me into suburban traffic through Montopolis. Every other second I’m pointing and yelling nail. Must have been over 100 of them in a 3 or 4 mile stretch. No flats. I don’t like flats. Unless we’re talking about chicken wings, then it’s flats all day bitches. I ask Damon which wing he’s into. “I dunno bro, I haven’t eaten wings in a long time”.

Anyhoo. It’s a sit and grind kinda day; I’m living in my drop downs, pedaling hard as fuck to go 8 mph downhill into this wind. Some uphills I’m at just under 2 mph. 1.8? I didn’t know I could do that. So I learn something about myself today. Yay. Damon walks his bike faster than I perform a total-street-wide-zig-zag-approach to climbing hills. That whole time I look at the ground three feet in front of me and wonder, how many extra miles will accumulate from this side to side riding by the time I reach the Atlantic. What’s the over/under on that? I don’t gamble, so I don’t know. Let me know.

When the wind eases and I can ride a bit, I notice how quickly the scenery and climate is changing before my eyes. Not only is the green getting greener and greener, there is actual humidity and legitimately wet bodies of water. Delta.

Still, this wind is better than the weather here two weeks ago. Deep freeze, snow and ice would have sent our ride down to shitter. Russ and I talked a lot about the lasting effects that the rare cold weather is having on the city of Austin. The water is potable, but there’s a lot yet to be done. I see a lot of people living in tents.

Once outside of Austin, I notice another change: we’re now in the portion of Texas with population. There’s services more often. First up is a place called Bastrop.

In Bastrop, we connect with Zaalo, another music world friend of mine. Haven’t seen him in years. He and I did a couple awesome parties during SXSW years ago, one of which the cops broke up. Put some spec on it. Zaalo’s now living the farm life in Bastrop, refurbishing a shuttle bus into a camper van so he and his lady can live on the road. We meet him at the Tough Cookie Cafe and enjoy some bomb vegan cuisine. I’m digging the dark roast blend. Damon goes extra hard on a vegan peanut butter brownie. Zaalo has been volunteering a lot of time helping the people in the area recover from the sever weather here as well. It’s good to see him doing well. We peace out into the rolling hills of Bastrop State Park.

The roads are quiet and winding. The winds are back to the in-our-face or on-our-side variety. I love these park roads though. No traffic. Clean air. The smell of pine throughout the air. A gorgeous snake in the road. Deer alongside me. So much more enjoyable, even in the uphill and upwind sections. Feels like that tour stride. Physical and mental aligning and we’ve normalized riding a bunch of hard miles in the day and tenting in town parks. It’s what we now do. Delta.

We decide to get fancy and pop for the state park for the night tonight. $15 prepaid in an envelope gets us water and a shower and a campsite. Living large!!

I notice one last glitch in the matrix before cashing in the days chips: the bugs have now joined the ride. Yes, we now have bugs. It’s nothing like Mississippi in July but these motherfucker mosquitos are big. Fortunately Damon has this “good for your skin” bug repellent. Oils and nutrients and chemicals free. Mine is branded as 40% more feet or something. One way or the other. Shoutout to Blondie and Dangermouse on the day’s playlist. I leave the fly off in a 60° low and I’m under some screening in a light breeze. One could say that the titties were off. I could say zzzzzzzzzzzzz.