Houston, oh Houston

It has been a while since I've updated the blog, and there is a very good reason for that- I've been getting around very little over the past several days, preferring to sleep and eat large amounts and relax in Corey's apartment. (thanks for putting up with me and my bike and my stuff on your floor, Corey!)

Houston isn't exactly a nice place to bike around either, as I indicated with my (slightly) exasperated mobile update on the 3rd. It sprawls excessively, many of the streets lack any sort of bike lanes, and plenty of roadways are in poor repair. I find it odd that thus far Texas's rural roads and highways have been much cleaner and better maintained than the urban and suburban roads around Houston.

At any rate, we are overdue for more pictures and stories.

After spending an afternoon and night hanging out with my dad at a hotel in Kinder, Louisiana, I packed up the next morning  to continue my westward trek on 190. Before leaving, we got one of the room service guys to take a few pictures of us with our respective rigs.

After a few hours riding west on 190, I turned on to LA 12W, which I took into Texas. At this point I'd traveled around 60 miles, but there weren't any decent camp sites along the road, so I kept going. Fatigue set in around 65 miles, but I pushed through it, and around 75 miles I got a serious second wind. So I rode on through the evening, stopping for a pint of ice cream at a little convenience store along the highway. As I sat in front of the store eating my off-brand cookies'n cream, an older lady stopped to inquire about me, my bike, and my trip. We chatted for a little while about a traveler her son had brought home years ago, and who was doing a similar thing to what I am now doing. Before leaving, she insisted on giving me all her spare change! This is the first time I've ever been the recipient of anything resembling a handout, and I'm still not sure how I feel about it. It did, however, pay for my ice cream treat and I was touched by her generosity as I rode on into the night.

Dinner that night was a subway footlong, which I devoured under the disapproving stares of a buttoned-up church group with whom I shared the joint. I suppose I looked like an undesirable transient to them, and I've no doubt that they were glad when I rode on, leaving them to discuss in peace the chicken salad at last week's social gathering.

At 85 miles, I decided that I might as well try to make 100 for the day, which I did without trouble. I wasn't even that tired when I finally camped around 11 PM and the 105 mile mark, but I found a good (if thoroughly unremarkable) campsite two hundred feet off the highway and didn't know when I would find the next decent place to stay.

The next day was spent riding Texas back roads through nowhere. The landscape was curiously reminiscent of Northwest Florida and parts of Eglin AFB. 

I'll let you guess what the actual posted limit was...

I found the Big Thicket preserve research station!

After a relatively short day of something around 50 miles, I made camp outside of Liberty on the west bank of the Trinity River.

This was the best campsite of the trip so far- besides one angry opossum

The campsite was ideal- about 30 feet off the bank of the river, secluded and relatively mosquito-free. I settled in, chatted with some people on the phone, and prepared to go to sleep. Until the noises began. Now, I was pretty sure that it was an opossum at the time, and I'm not concerned about an opossum doing anything to me, but it is still almost completely impossible to sleep with something making a noise like that in the background. So the night went like this: I'd listen to the opossum loudly proclaiming its displeasure with something until I couldn't take it any more, at which point I'd unleash a litany of curses and throw a few things in its general direction. Silence would ensue for around two minutes, and then it would start again. Around 1 or 2 AM it either piped down or I simply passed out from exhaustion; either way, I managed to sleep for a few hours that night.

In the morning, crabby and far under appreciative of my lovely campsite, I packed up and hit 90 west. It was a long, boring ride, as 90 tends to be, odd sights notwithstanding. After about 20 miles 90 turned into a freeway, and cresting a bridge I got my first sight of the Houston skyline off in the hazy distance.

Yep, that's mobile home sitting on the shoulder of 90

Houston!

As I slogged towards Houston, 90 got busier, and more interstate-like, to the point where I felt like I was riding down the side of I-10. Shortly after entering the city limits, I was treated to a rude surprise when a sign abruptly announced that all lanes would shortly turn into I-10, and the only exit went to I-610. So, I ended up riding the wrong way down the side of a soon-to-be interstate and descending into the outskirts of Houston. A portentous greeting.

I was blocked in on two sides by freeway, so I ended up backtracking, riding under 90/10, and grinding straight through the middle of the biggest warehouse/industrial section I've ever crossed. This place was seriously the size of Pensacola- but consisted only of railroad tracks, warehouses, semi truck depots, and scrap yards. The roads were filthy with dust and debris, and an afternoon thunderstorm soaked me and covered the edges of the lanes with a filthy brown mud which shortly coated me, my bike, and everything attached to it.

I knew that alt 90 crossed somewhere through this section of town, but I was unable to locate it due to the fact that it was COMPLETELY UNMARKED. I rode under it three separate times, assuming each time that it was just another nameless causeway, since apparently the city of Houston cannot be bothered to put street signs at the on ramps of major roads.

After the third pass, I located it by process of elimination and then took it the rest of the way across the city. This was fairly uneventful, in spite of the fact that there were no bike lanes on a road with a 45 mph speed limit. I would have hopped over and taken local streets paralleling the road, but the frequent freeway crossings meant that taking anything other than main streets was an exercise in frustration. At any rate, I was all out of cares to give, so I simply turned on my lights and took a lane of traffic all the way across town. Surprisingly enough, not a single person honked at me or told me to get off the road the entire time. This probably had something to do with the fact that I looked like a filthy, deranged and possibly dangerous hobo at that point.

Once I finally arrived at Corey's place, I got my aforementioned ice cream, ate it, and proceeded to sleep until she made it home. After a hot shower and a change of clothes, we went to eat at a fantastic Greek/American place called Niko Niko's, saw the new Spiderman, and crashed for the night.

The next day we did our own little 4th of July celebration, complete with hot dogs, apple pie, and (more) Ben and Jerry's.

Deeeeelicious!

I don't think you can look much more American than this

Since then, I've been sleeping a lot, eating a lot, repairing various broken things on my bike, cleaning clothes, and restocking on supplies for the next leg of the journey.