Little Fish, Big River, Bigger City

So I'm not making the miles I had hoped to each day, but they are adding up. I'm currently just 33 miles from San Antonio which is another 154 miles from Del Rio, a major milestone in my head for some reason as it's against the Mexican border and it's the last large town before I head through desolation up to El Paso. I took off a couple days ago from Rosenberg and was just flogged for some reason. My legs wouldn't work, I got a late start, 1 p.m. and just felt generally ill overall. As I cursed myself for starting so late, I pulled out and a young man in a pick up was letting me in front of him on the highway. He pulled up next to me with his window down and we chatted. Turns out he bikes a lot up in Austin. Like an idiot, I failed to get his name for near the end of our conversation, he dug around in a cardboard box on his front seat and handed me a huge stack of ones for my ride as he thanked me for being an inspiration...there were 60 of them in total.

I'm lost as to what to say about something like that. Never in my life have I ever just driven up to a lone bicyclist or anyone for that matter and forked over $60 to a complete stranger...granted, I've given money to complete strangers before, loads of it...but the IRS doesn't really count when it comes to stuff like this. I couldn't help but think about the generosity and kindness of this guy who seemed fairly young and was actually saying he was headed back to school and would give up his truck in the process. The one thing I keep realizing out here is that the world is made up of all these different "agents" so to speak who go around interacting with each other. You've got the "drones" who just never see you, care, or pay any attention to anything going on around them outside of their little world, you've got the "assholes" so to speak who are just out to yell, gripe, moan, complain, honk, swerve and basically feel it's their job to ruin everyone else's day...and then you've got these heroes out there just wandering about, few and far between who somehow make all the other crap we have to go through worthwhile. I wish there were more heroes but then again, that would flood the hero market and they might not stand out quite so much.

I rode on after getting a Quarter Pounder...I made it 13 miles and pulled into Sonny's Cantina. I just couldn't go any further. I ordered another hamburger, fries and drank a budweiser to celebrate being over halfway done. I set out again, still sloggy. If that's a word...sloggy. I went just a tad further and pulled over into East Barton and then my life changed yet again. I was eating a donut, the one I didn't drop on the ground and drinking a vanilla coffee. Up rides this pristine red jacket, sunglasses, sparkling bike, perfect shoes, perfect everything...set about a stern, no-nonsense face of a woman who meant business. Her name is Reba and we chat for a bit after she gets my details. Next thing I know, we're off and she's riding with me to give me company for the next ten miles or so. She's fantastic and got me over the worst mental/physical hill of the trip in terms of my outlook, mood and state of exhaustion. She's already been across the country once, in 1976 from Astoria to West Virgina. She's ridden 5,000 miles already this year. I feel like a putz, like a weakling that this mother of two has already far outdone me. As we ride along and we talk and laugh about everything from goose hunting to the BOB trailer to the enormous dead bobcat that was about 6 miles back, my spirit returns, my legs warm up, the endorphins kick in and I'm rolling. Reba bids me goodbye and I fly after that. I didn't really want to stop but I did after 77 miles in Hallettsville. The weather was warm, I had a tailwind and the shoulder was wide as all get out. I should've kept going but might've been lucky that I didn't.

The next morning, I got up early, finally, to the sounds of thunder. I checked the weather channel, severe warnings. Yep. They were right. I waited through the morning as an insane rain hit. The winds gusted up to 30 mph at times. I've never seen rain like this...it was similar to Miami. I thought it rained in Seattle, but folks, you need to face it up there...it's drizzle. We're talking rain that floods river banks, storm drains, city streets, etc. I waited until it was all over at 11 and set out. Five minutes later, I was blown, drenched and pummeled by rain. I press on and on and on and finally stop in Shiner, Texas, home of Shiner Bock beer. Great little town. I stop and eat a steak wrap and two side orders of mashed potatoes. The sun eventually breaks out. I press on. I make it to Seguin, just 72 miles further along due to headwinds and hills that pushed my average speed down to 9.3 mph for the day. My highest daily average speed was 13.8 mph. It doesn't sound like much, but that's a huge difference on a ride like this, not to mention how much the hills drain your legs, how much the wind sucks out of you.

I went to bed late, 2:30 a.m. and got up at 8. I attempted to change my chain ring so I could have more gears for hills and mail off my spare parts to home to save weight. After several hours, I can't get the pedal arms off. I break a wrench in the process and bend another. The pedal arms are on there...I shower, pack up and am going to find some sort of automotive shop that can help me pull them off with a certain tool, a "gear puller" I believe it's called. I may end up looking for a bike shop in San Antonio. I'm a bit glad that I'm slow to get there as I almost pushed on last night but by hitting it during daylight, I can see THE alamo!!!! yeeha. I love Texas. The shoulders are HUGE here. I thought it was for bikers. Turns out it's for farm equipment. Cool by me. The shoulder is one and a half times the width of a regular lane so I feel like I've got my own highway most of the time. Dropping down to Alt 90 was a great move on my part. Okay, I need to run now as I'll never get these pedals arms off nor will I see THE Alamo if I don't get going. I'm 1933 miles into this thing and simply cannot wait to pass the 2,000 mile mark later today. I will get to the Pacific at some point, it's just a question of "when"...

I apologize that I've not given good updates until now. Connectivity has been zero since T-Mobile erased my service accidentally. I'm connected now but am about to head into a non-connected area for maybe up to two weeks. The trip has been better since Mississippi and I'll give a full update at some point. For those of you I've met, those who have helped me so much along the way (wade, laura, etc.) thank you thank you thank you. Here's a quick rundown of the last few days and what is to come. I realized after looking at the maps this morning that I'm headed toward the worst of it. Huge mountains. Lots of them. Hundreds of miles between towns, etc. I probably won't be able to update for a long time after the next couple of days but don't worry, I'll be fine (I hope). That said, I've found that I simply love this life of just getting out here and doing this. I wish I could somehow be a tv personality that does stuff like this so others could experience it firsthand without having to leave the comfort of their homes. This is in many ways extremely dangerous. I've had too many narrow misses from speeding cars to speak of. Inches at times. I feel like a magnet for bad drivers.

I made my way through Mississippi hit tons of rain, wove through Louisiana and lost a big chunk out of my left knee by going over my handlebars just five miles from Texas. It was my 13th fall. I also fell over and knocked my head into a police car while riding along the tail end of a small town parade. That was a classic move for being my 12th fall. I was adjusting my foot as hundreds of people lined the streets and were watching me ride along the main drag. I wiggled too much and my heel went into the spokes of my rear tire and I was stopped cold. Down I went. BONK! Embarassment galore. Luckily I didn't dent the police officers car door.

Texas has been great. I rode through 8 hours of rain one day to make it to Houston. I then wasted a day riding around looking for bike parts. My rear brake is gone. My gloves were toast and I needed new gears to tackle the upcoming mountains. I'm now loaded down with too much weight until I make the gear changes. I just went over my maps here in my motel in Rosenberg, TX. I'm about 1782 miles into the trip.

Next up is San Antonio in about 160 miles then I hit hills then mountains and then more mountains. The road conditions don't read very well from some of the maps I'm looking at. I called the highway patrol to find out about riding on Interstate 10 which everyone has said I should do to bypass the mountains and just get across.

I'm not going to make it home for Christmas or New Year's even. This is hard. Much harder than I expected. If you do this, ever...go west-east and go in fall or spring. Never winter...never summer...at least that's what I've learned related to weather. I'm building character. Tons of it. My hands seem to be cramped into a natural curve to fit the handlebars now. They don't straighten out any longer and if I force them, It hurts like mad through my knuckles. Each day when I start riding, leg cramps set in within five minutes then they subside. The motels have been colorful but I miss camping. There hasn't been any camping to speak of since Florida. The next leg is all about camping and I'm looking forward to it.

Please know that when I finish the ride, I'll be updating my website entirely with all the finer details of every day, the things I've seen, the people I've met, where I've stayed, photos, etc. I simply can't do it from the road easily. But I do have a small voice recorder that I'm keeping constant notes on so I don't forget anything.

The highway patrol told me that I can ride on interstate 10 but it's not a good idea as they've had several bicycle fatalities. Not sure what that means as the side roads seem just as dangerous if not more so when the shoulder disappears and I'm just riding along with no room for cars to pass me at 80 mph in the supposed 45 mph zones.

I'm fearing the mountains ahead. I've ridden up some steep bridges and a few minor steep hills so far, but no mountians. I'm going to opt for the mountainous route since this is probably the only time I'll do this ride. For some reason, riding the flat shoulder of an interstate doesn't seem right and since I'm not going to make it home fast anyway, I may as well build some character and quadriceps so I have something to look back on when I'm old and gray.

Thanks to everyone for their emails, etc. but again, I will most likely be out of range for at least the next two weeks over the next 1000 miles. I have 773 miles or so to El Paso from here, then I've got 550 miles from El Paso to Tempe, then 430 miles from Tempe to San Diego and my final destination, the Pacific Ocean. So this means, mileage-wise that I've got about 1753 miles to go and I've done 1782 as I said earlier so I'm over halfway..finally. It should be all uphill from here. Ha. Why is this taking so long? The weather...period. I can't ride very far in the cold or the rain or the headwinds and the moutains are about to be added into the mix. It gets dark at 5 p.m. and everyone seems to drink and drive here. I was plugging along and riding late into the night if not all night at times but I think I'm pushing my luck with the way people weave all over the roads down here. Once I lose daylight, I feel like my chances for becoming roadkill increase considerably. I really dislike stopping at night, but it just doesn't make sense from a survival angle. I need to be alive for the next adventure by taking my time on this one despite being in a strange place, on a strange road without my dog or friends and family for the holidays. But I'm fine with that...had to accept it today after a map perusal. Life is about doing what you've got on your list...and crossing this off the list soon will be something I will always carry with me. You simply can't buy stuff like this. You have to create it yourself.

So, before I lose connectivity for Christmas, etc. some of you may be wondering what I wish for this year? I wish for everyone to treat everyone in their lives a bit better. I wish for people to chase one dream, even a small one after reading this. I simply can't say enough how good this is for the soul. I wish for a big executive from a TV network to call me and offer me a job as the host of my own show where I go out and do stuff like this. I wish for a publisher to call me and offer me a sweet book deal writing about stuff like this. I think I could take on anything after this except a desk job 9-5...at least while my body is still capable. That could all change in the next 1753 miles, though. Okay, time to pack up and roll through the last flatlands I'll see for a long, long, long time. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. I leave you all with my favorite recent quote which I have to paraphrase since I've misplaced the scrap of paper I wrote it on:

Greatness is achieved by listening to the whisper which is heard by you alone.

Happy Holidays to all and I promise more once I reach a more connected state. So to speak.

It's about to get even tougher. That's my new saying. I thought that I had a tough go of it with the headwinds and cold of Florida, but that was just a warm up in retrospect. After leaving Mobile, Alabama on a perfect sunny day and biking toward Mississippi, I had no idea what was in store. I was beginning to think that this was all too easy so far. Sure, a bit hard physically, but nothing overly exciting other than a pile of falls at a dead stop. Little did I know...

I wove my way along and eventually stopped near dark at a gas station to get an ice cream bar (snickers, of course) and some gatorade. I chatted with the cashier a bit and went outside. I chatted with a mom and son who had their Christmas tree strapped in the back of their pickup. I thought about Christmas and the fact that I might end up just on the road somewhere in the middle of nowhere during the day.

I left and crossed over a bridge into Mississippi. No sign, nothing to mark that I had reached a new state. However, the drivers became rude. Honking, no...laying on the horn is more like it. I didn't have a lot of shoulder if any and I just took it in stride. The sunset and I took a picture of it over a cotton field. I kept pedaling as it got colder and colder. I thought about stopping after several hours but couldn't find a campsite. It was 11 p.m. I went down a residential road that looked like it might have contstruction and open lots where I might sleep behind some trees for a bit to warm up. Nothing. I asked a man coming out of a house if there was a campsite nearby. He was rude beyond belief. Told me to just keep riding and get out of there before I was attacked by dogs down the street. I'd just gone the length of the street and back without a single bark. Whatever, dude. Fine.

I rode on and encountered a few dogs here and there. You don't see them but you hear them. I think the trailer confuses them. I do some weaving to hear their claws skitter on the asphalt as they chase me off and on over the next 7 or 8 miles. I would ride along and then out of nowhere snarling and barking was right next to me. It was a fun game to play and I made sure that as I pedaled, I went at 80 or 90% so that I would have some room in my legs for a quick "dog burst sprint" when needed.

Eventually I stopped at a gas station to get out of the wind for a bit. It was 33 degrees. I was still okay, but getting colder. My map showed a campground several miles ahead. I contemplated an all-night ride vs. sleeping a bit up the road. I set out to make for the next campground about 18 miles away. I went about 12 miles and pulled over when I heard a car. I was at an intersection with a large dirt area for parking. I stopped to rest and stretch. It was a sherrif asking me what I was doing. He warned me to be careful of drunks. I plowed on after losing one of the small foam covers for my earphones on my mp3 player. I was wearing a facemask to keep the wind off. I must've been a sight. Six miles later, I hit an instersection and look for a campground on the map. I can't find it but I am in some sort of forest area. I take the road as indicated on the map. Mississippi doesn't believe in road signs at intersections so you have to ride down a road before you find a sign saying which road it is. Lovely.

I hit another intersection and take the indicated left then a couple miles later I take the indicated right. I pull over again to rest as a car goes by. It turns around and comes back. It pulls up next to me and stops. I can't see the driver's face, just a mustache and chin. The car drives on after sitting next to me for a minute. I wait a minute and head down the same road.

The car that just stopped next to me is oddly parked sideways on the shoulder. I ride on by. It follows me, pulls up next to me as I stop and pull into deep grass. He stops. He stares for a minute then keeps driving. I ride on, he's coming back toward me, slowly. I pull off again. He stops, stares then drives on. I get on and ride some more wondering what the heck this freak is up to. He comes back down the road behind me. I pull over, he stops, drives on. This goes on for about 45 minutes over about four miles. Seven times he does this. I've had enough. I see him ahead of me, turning around. I turn off the lights on my bike and helmet and put it into high gear and give it everything I've got. He passes me and I watch his taillights in my rearview mirror disappear behind me around the curve. I can't see anything. There is no moon, it's 3:45 a.m. and there are no houses, no streetlights, just woods. I make out a dirt road and pull in. I ditch my bike to one side of the road and hear his car tires screeching as he turns around. I dash across the dirt road to the other side and just like in the movies, stumble through a muddy ditch I can't see. My left leg and foot are soaked midway up my calf as I stumble though brush and trees and dive down to hide as I see his headlights and hear his engine racing toward me. I think to myself "please just blow right by me" but he slams on the brakes and pulls into the dirt road.

I hold my breath so the steam doesn't show as his headlights pass a couple inches right over my body and reflect off the branches above me. This is a movie...this is a movie...what do I do? Hopefully, he'll see my bike on the other side, get out of his car to check it out. Then while he's on the opposite side, I'll jump in his car and roar off to the nearest town/police. He slowly drives past me down the dirt road, turning his car back and forth to search the sides with his headlights. He starts to back up. He backs out of the dirt road as his headlights pass over my body one more time as I lie there as flat as I can. His headlights turn off and he begins to drive away at one mile an hour in the direction I needed to go. What now?

I stayed motionless, listening for anything, daring not to move or break a twig in case he's turned off his car and walked back to find me. This can't be the end, I think. I'm not going to become some unsolved mystery at four a.m. on a backwoods road in Mississippi. I wait 45 minutes and decide to get up. I make my way back to my bike to get my cell phone. The battery has all but died in the cold. I try calling 911. I get through but am cut off after giving my initial location. I had fully charged the battery in the morning and hadn't used the phone. I figure it's dead from the cold so I warm it up on my stomach for 20 minutes. I hear a car go by fast. I can't tell if it's him as I've dived back down to hide. I try the phone one more time and get through to the sherrif. They have sent two cars to find me.

I tell them to turn their lights on so I know it's them when they come back. I see police lights, thank God. I run out, waving my arms. The cars speed off and then pull u-turns about a tenth of mile away. They stop for a minute. I don't realize it, but I still had my face mask on and had scared them thinking it was an ambush. They had raced off and loaded their shotguns while calling for back up.

I'm pulling my mask off as they come back. They pull up warily and then all is good when they realize it's me, the guy who called. I've got minor hypothermia. I can't really think too clearly and my hands are frozen. They eventually take me to a motel 15 miles back the way I had come. Along the way, the sherrif tells me that I was in a "crystal meth corridor" and that I did the right thing because people are constantly being shot or disappearing out there. For some reason, the adventure cycling maps don't have this information on them. I check into the Travelodge at 5:00 a.m. in D'lberville, Mississippi. I go to my room, sleep for three hours, wake up and realize one glove and my cell phone are still in one of the cop cars. I call the station. It takes me all day to get the cell phone and glove back because the girl I kept speaking to thought the sherrif had the car at home and it was his night off that night. I'd have to wait until the next day. I called again at 11 pm and a new girl finds out that my phone and glove had been sitting in the car at the station, not the officer's home all day. Another sherrif brings it over at 11:30 p.m. I want to leave, but no way am I going out again in this neighborhood at night. I wait until morning and decide to scrap the advenutre cycling route. I'm going for the main highways for a bit. They're much straighter, they have shoulders for the most part and I'm not going to be stuck out in the middle of nowhere with what the sherrif called "in-bred jed" chasing me down. I'm alive, I'm way behind schedule but I wait until morning to leave.