(January 11)

Day 17 - Johnson City to Kerrville TX

Runs like Buffalo

 

 

When I know I have a long day of riding ahead of me...like I knew I had today...I'm up well before dawn to grab breakfast as close to where I'm staying as possible. This morning it was this oasis in the dark: Ronnie's BBQ.

Note the direction my bike is pointed (left to right and which matches my direction of travel for the day). Now, check out the direction the flags...blowing out from the flagpole like they were sheets of steel...are blowing. Not good.

It amuses me that the State of Texas approved this sign, manufactured this sign and installed this sign. Someone in the "Blue Signs Pointing Out Points of Interest Department" has a sense of humor I can appreciate.

This is a classic. Note that this little patch of tarmac is simply a pullout on the side of a two-lane highway. Nothing except a little place to pull your car...or bike!..over to eat a snack or search for that lost cassette tape rattling around underneath the passenger seat and driving you crazy.

Despite the fact that any patch of this little pull-out is exactly like every other patch of tarmac here, some government genius decides WE NEED A HANDICAPPED PARKING AREA! So, some poor crew comes out and paints one right there. You really can't make this stuff up.

Some of you readers may know this, but for the rest of you benighted heathens, Fredericksburg is the beating heart of the German settlement in Texas. Lots of Lutheran churches and THIS wonderful array of options for lunch. The Knackwurst and Pepperwurst were excellent!

 

When you are riding 6 or 7 hours a day, your mind roams. A lot. So this morning as dawn is just giving me enough light to believe I won't be immediately killed by a driver who can't see me as I ride through the heart of Texas wine country very early this morning, I notice something in the sky above: the clouds are racing in the heavens. I mean VISIBLY MOVING across my path left to right.

 

Now, as a confirmed desk jockey my entire professional career there are precious few days when I know what the weather is outside. And noticing nature's weather signals? Never happens. But when you live outside most of every day all day, weather starts to take on a whole new meaning.

And as I noticed the clouds racing across the sky, my mind does what it normally does: hallucinate. Suddenly, flashing across my mind was this movie scene from a Cavalry-fighting-the-Indians western in which I play the "Indian Scout" character:

 

SCENE OPENS: The handsome Indian Scout, clad only in a loincloth, is crouching on the ground with the reins to his pinto in his hands. Behind him is a cavalry troop lined up by twos and stretching back over the hill

CLOSEUP on Indian Scout: He reaches down to taste the dirt in front of him (ever wonder what in the world tasting dirt could possibly tell you? Makes no sense to me, but its what good scouts always do while crouching close to the ground so it made it into my hallucination), seems to contemplate the taste of the dirt and then looks up to the sky while squinting one eye.

INDIAN SCOUT: "Clouds running like buffalo! Strong wind like cutting knife! We ride like wind before tracks gone!"

 

Indian scouts always know what nature has in store for them. And, sadly, seeing the clouds racing across the sky this morning, even I, nature dummy, knew what was in store for me: suffering.

 

With 20 mph crosswinds and headwinds, I found the third stage of bike journeys. Stage 1 I've dubbed "The Cyclist" stage. Stage 2 I found to be "The Bike Tourist" stage. And Stage 3 I now know is "The Bike Masochist" stage. This stage is characterized by a) knowing that you can't go back no matter how much it hurts to ride your bike because it would be far too disheartening, b) knowing that if you ride only 10 miles every day you'll be riding to San Diego until next Christmas so you can't stay in Fredericksburg and c) knowing it is nearly 60 miles or wind-fueled hell until you reach Kerrville, but also knowing you HAVE to reach Kerrville.

 

Look, West Texas isn't France or England or Germany. There isn't a quaint little village literally over every hill and down in every little valley where you can stop and eat baguettes any time the mood strikes you. There are LONG stretches of nothing: no water, no food, no lodging. So, you either make the distance no matter what or you collapse on the side of the road and cry yourself to sleep hungry, cold and thirsty.

 

There were hills I climbed today that I still really don't know how I made it. LONG ones where I was in my lowest gear for over 15 minutes straight. Not as steep as yesterday, but with the wind: very tough.

 

And every time I got to one of those hills and I knew I'd just be slogging up them as slow as my bike could carry me, I thought back to my Indian Scout hallucination from this morning. And realized I'd never given myself an Indian name. I mean, who plays an Indian in a movie and doesn't have one of those cool names like Crazy Horse or Buffalo Thunder or something?

 

So, naturally, my mind immediately went to my newfound roadkill expertise for inspiration.

 

If there is a PhD in roadkill, I now have one. And I can state with certainty that possums are the slowest, dumbest critters in the entire South. I've seen a raccoon, two skunks...even a bird. But I've seen DOZENS of dead possums. Some as flat as pancakes from having been run over so many times. Some who seemed to have died, belly up, only moments before I arrived. But regardless of their condition, Darwin has done for them all. Their tiny brains miscalculated the speed and distances of the cars rushing to kill them. Their tiny little legs failed them as they attempted, at the last second, to avoid their doom.

 

In all seriousness, I can state with the full authority of a certified roadkillologist, that if you are a possum that lives anywhere near a road, your days are numbered.

 

And that's what I decided HAD to be the only name which could ever capture the true essence of my demonstrated wind-riding, hill-climbing ability:

 

Rides Like Possum