WTF?

Just landed in Prescott, AZ. I’m at the university, got a password from a girl at a little anarchist place called The Catalyst. I’ve had an interesting couple of days since my last post… I’ll try to go in something resembling chronological order. I hung out with Jenny the masseuse in Clarkdale for most of Saturday. The massage was amazing. I met a guy named Nick who lived on a nearby reservation a couple minutes after I got off the computer at the deli, he told me he was going into Jerome later for a Major Lingo show, and I should give him a call. So I left my bike at Jenny’s place and rode up the mountain with Nick and his sister around 8:30. I was pretty stoned when we got there, and I decided to stay outside instead of paying the $6 cover, because the band was not as good as Nick had made them out to be. I was sitting outside on a bench and a lady of about 55 or so sat next to me. She started talking to me and looking for any excuse to touch me. I was kinda weirded out, but I figured she was harmless enough and we conversed about nothing in particular. She told me her mother had been an actress and she’d watched her murder her stepfather. Then she casted doubt on the whole thing by saying, “It’s true. Everyone knows it’s true, ask anybody!”, Or something like that. Then she told me she was a cook at a local restaurant and I should come tomorrow and she’d feed me. I said yes, having no intention of actually doing so. She left, and I wandered around. I found a jungle gym, which I used to stretch for a couple of hours. I went into the bar about 11, because it was getting cold outside. The cover was now $3, which was more acceptable. I ordered a PBR, and observed the crowd. Everyone seemed to be really into this band. My musical haughtiness precluded me from really enjoying the generic bar band, but it was cool to see so many people having a good time. Almost everyone in the place was dancing. Many of the girls had flowers in their hair, which is uncommon in the East. I thought that was great. A woman ran into me, pressing me against the bar, and ran her hands down my shirt. She said some things I can’t remember in a sexy tone of voice, and asked me what I was drinking. I told her, thinking she might buy me a beer. She was obviously drunk, and I didn’t show much interest, so she immediately attacked the next guy. About 5 minutes later, on the way back from the bathroom, I saw her getting shot down by another guy. The bar closed right after midnight. As I was outside waiting on Nick, I heard that one of the bartenders had been slapped. It turned out to be the same lady who was hitting on all the guys. Apparently she’d been cut off, and didn’t like it. She was arrested by two male cops, and she screamed and cried and made them carry her to the police car. Nick and I rode back into Clarkdale with a friend whose name I can’t remember, and they dropped me off at Jenny’s house.

I left about noon on Sunday, because she had to go to work. I tried to get in touch with Nick, he’d said we might be able to play some music, but I didn’t hear back from him until the next day. So I pedaled the 4 or 5 miles up the mountain into Jerome. That was by far the hardest segment of biking I’ve encountered so far. I think I climbed about 1500 feet. I stopped at a couple of art galleries (Jerome is well-known for their art), and at the co-op I was given free food from the previous night’s art event. I was told I had another 12 miles to the top of Mt. Mingus. Damn! I thought it was only another couple of miles, and then downhill. Oh well. I biked up to the steps by the Spirit Room (the bar we went to the previous night), and started to park my bike so I could hang out in the playground. One of the girls who was sitting on the steps yelled at me. “Hey man! I just saw you climb that hill! Do you want a beer?” Absolutely. We talked for a minute, and a guy named Colin introduced himself. He was in his 30’s, and seemed to be in pretty good shape, like he spent a lot of time outdoors. He offered me a sticker for Maynard’s new band (can’t remember, it starts with a P), and put it on my bike. Maynard had been in town a couple hours earlier, and had a documentary called Blood into Wine playing at one of the places I’d passed on the way up. I would have liked to see it, but I’d heard the area past Jerome was really beautiful and wanted to see it before the sun went down. So this guy Colin offered me a ride, saying he was heading to Prescott, and could drop me off at my destination on the way. The girl who’d given me a beer told me there was a peach tree down the street with peaches falling off that belonged to her friend and I could go get some peaches. She then offered to take me down there, and Colin agreed to stick around if we got him some peaches. She took me to her house first and we smoked some pot while I played her guitar. She told me there were all kinds of wild animals up on the mountain and I’d better take the ride, and the road had no shoulder, there was loose gravel, bikers get hit all the time, and so on… so I decided I would take a ride with this Colin fellow. Then we went to the peach tree and loaded up about 14 peaches, then headed back. Before we left, I discovered that Colin was new in these parts and nobody really knew him. Then I heard him make a bad joke about a couple having pre-marital sex (to the couple). I figured it was no big deal, and I guess it wasn’t really, but it did foreshadow some later idiosyncracies. We took the wheels off the bike and loaded up. Before we even pulled out, his headlights went out. He said it wouldn’t be a problem, we could make it before the sun went down. The views on the way up were magnificent, and I somewhat regretted not riding the bike. Another reason for my regret was the constant conversation as we were going up, so I had to divide my attention between my driver and the breathtaking landscape. It turned out that Colin had been raised Catholic, and graduated college with a political science and history degree. He proceeded to tell me something about how soldiers defend our right to vote. If you’re friends with me on facebook, you may understand how this made me feel extremely awkward. I told him I don’t care for the idea of democracy, because any government implies the use of force, which I am opposed to from an ethical standpoint. Colin also made some crude remarks about women, and later explained that he and his girlfriend had recently decided to stop having sex… for God. All cluse point to extreme sexual repression, and I hope someday he breaks out of his conditioning. After we crested the peak of the mountain, the engine cut out, and we rolled down for miles in neutral with a car behind us lighting the way. Maybe it was just the fact that I was blazed, but I was really worried that this strange dude was going to murder me or something. I later discovered that he was actually a good guy, and became aware of how much my ego is still manifesting. He called his friend, and had him come out to give us a jump. After we were stopped for a few minutes (this is before the friend arrived), a cop pulled over behind us. I’m thinking “Shit, I’m about to go to jail. I saw this guy drinking, and I don’t have an ID, and I’m in Arizona. Shit.” Colin handled the situation well, and the cop turned out to be fairly sane, and so he went on his way with no problems. I was dumbstruck. Colin said, “You’ve just gotta treat ’em like people, and don’t act like you’ve got something to hide.” Nice. A couple minutes later, his friend shows up, and explains that the alternator has gone out… he needs a new alternator. I tell Colin I’m just going to pedal it from here to Happy Oasis. He gives me directions, and he says, “I’ll write my phone number down for you, and if you’d be so kind as to do the same for me…” Creeeepy. He said he was going to call me in a couple of days and visit me at Happy Oasis. Sure, creepy guy. I headed down the road, and much to my chagrin, I passed the turn onto 89 somehow and proceeded to the next exit, Willow Creek Road. As I’m heading down the road, a truck pulls over in front of me. It’s Colin, once again. He gives me directions again from where I was now. Thanks, man, but you’re still kinda creepy. I finally get into Granite Dells and start searching for Happy Oasis. It’s not clear which one it is, and I look around at addresses in nearly pitch black for about 20 minutes before I find it. I knock on the side door, and wake up a resident named Ted who is renting a room from Happy (yes, the owner calls HERSELF Happy Oasis, so it’s a person as well as the place). I get settled in, and notice a book of poetry in the bathroom written by Happy Oasis. The poetry was… pretty unpoetic, in my opinion, but then I’m a pretty harsh judge of poetry, I can think of only a couple of poets I really enjoy… Shakespeare, Poe, Frost, Dickenson… that’s all I can think of at the moment. Anyway, I drift off to sleep in one of the bedrooms. This would be my home for the next 3 days.

I woke up the next morning around 10, and met Happy. She was tiny, but I could tell she was in great shape, and I still have no idea how old she is, but my guess is early 50’s. She offered me breakfast, and I decided on a banana smoothie, which I prepared with her Vita-Mix. Then she showed me around the property, which was gorgeous. There were granite mounds in all directions, a swimming pool, hot tub, organic garden (hey, I thought this was supposed to be a farm…?), and about 5 or 6 tenants. She gave me a list of tasks to accomplish: sweep the pool, pull all the dead leaves out of the plants around the property, clean the bird fountain, put bird feed in the feeders, take a bunch of stuff to her car to be recycled, dig a ditch for the graywater retrieval system. I couldn’t quite figure this lady out, something about her seemed a bit strange… my first clue being the fact that she calls herself Happy Oasis. I started on the pool, but after about 5 minutes the hose came detached from the pole, and the connection was nowhere to be found. I informed Happy, and we went to the basement to look for something to hold it on. No luck there, we decided that she’d just take the fork piece to the hardware store. I proceeded to take the fountain apart, because a previous WWOOFer had put bird seed in it for some reason. I got Happy to take me into the basement to locate something to clean the stem, and almost knocked myself out on the brick over the basement entrance. I cleaned everything I could, figuring I’d ask Happy to point me to a hose later so I could rinse it off, then I started on an area of what appeared to be sweetgrass, removing the dead leaves. I went inside to get some water, and Happy offered me an icepack for my bruised cranium. Happy had several employees helping to organize the Raw Spirit Festival in September, about 6 weeks from now. She asked me if I needed a nap, and I said I would like to lay down for a few minutes. I ended up laying down for more like 30 minutes, until I was awakened by a guy named Milton who asked me to help prepared a salad for lunch. I grated cabbage and carrots, and chopped celery and peppers, and mixed everything together while Milton gathered greens from the garden. The salad was delicious. After lunch, Happy asked me to prepare some raw sunflower seed hummus for the Slow Food meeting later that evening (I think I’d mentioned to her that hummus was one of my favorite foods). I won’t go into all the gory details, but I ended up making 2 kinds, an Italian version and a curry hummus. Toward the end of this culinary endeavor, Happy told me to finish up quickly so I could have Milton show me how to stain the side deck before I left. Milton had me cover all the areas around the deck with tape and paper (there’s probably a name for it, but I can’t think of it), while he painted the hall inside. I covered everything except one small area (I tend to be absent-minded at times) and waited for Milton. He pointed out my error, and as I was finishing up, Happy notified me that we had to leave soon. I came into the kitchen. Happy asked me if I wanted to go, we didn’t have to… I said yes. Happy had me cut up some carrots and celery for the hummus. I’ve never really done this before, and apparently I was doing it wrong, because Happy grabbed the celery and chopped it with lightning speed, telling me to do the same with the carrots. We headed out the door, and we were running a few minutes late. Happy said we’d be a few more minutes late, she was going to pick up some flyers from New Frontiers, the local health food chain. On the way to the meeting, Happy told me that I move slow. This made me feel pretty awkward, though perhaps I had been working somewhat slowly. I mean, I’m essentially volunteering, just being fed and having a place to sleep, but I felt I’d provided a good deal more value to her than she had to me… it’s not like I was just hanging around all day, I’d definitely gotten some stuff done. We arrived at Prescott College right on time, they were just opening up the serving table. Happy told me I’d need to enthusiastically tell people what was in the hummus. Damn, I could hardly remember, there were so many ingredients. As we were coming to the table, she made me practice. We found a spot for the hummus and vegetables, and Happy asked me to grab some spoons from the far side. I went around counterclockwise, which was the wrong way to go, as I had to maneuver around people and chairs up against the wall. I grabbed a couple of spoons and returned to find someone else handing 2 spoons to Happy. “See, you move slow.” Obviously you weren’t watching me, Happy. I felt a sense of self-pity, which I quickly shook off and started to mingle with the people at the gathering. I ended up sitting next to Happy and Molly, the organizer. A interesting-looking girl arrived and sat near me. She had 2 nose rings and a huge earring in one ear, and dreadlocks. She had just moved here last night from Boise, Idaho. After we ate for a bit, Molly declared that everyone who made something would have to talk about what they’d made. I wasn’t aware there would actually be public speaking involved, but I just rolled with it, and if Happy didn’t like it, then she was just going to have to get over it. My turn came around, and I felt like I did a pretty decent job. Later, Happy talked about her event coming up this Sunday, which is a foraging class. She talked about “the sacred salad that’s all around you” and “returning to your primordial roots”. Then a wild-looking dude named Thomas got up and talked about Karma Farm, which he started about 3 years ago. They collect food from local farms and gardens and give it away for free. I was really inspired. He talked about what motivates him, “People are starving right now!” Wow. This is the kind of thing that’s really going to create a better society. Happy had me take a picture of him for the Raw Spirit Festival… it was difficult, because he’s a little scary-looking. I got several compliments on the hummus. I talked to the girl for a while, she had been hanging out with Thomas all day. She was staying at this place called The Catalyst, and I should stop by in a couple days when I leave Happy Oasis. Happy asked me a couple of times if I was ready to go. I said yes, but I wanted to volunteer for Karma Farms on my way out. Thomas was talking to a couple of people, and Happy seemed to be engaged in a conversation as well, so I had a few moments to talk to Rae (that’s the girl with the piercings). He ended up drawing me a map outside, and I said I’d come out on Thursday to help harvest. Happy was waiting for me in the car. There had been an invite to a drum circle at 7:30, but it was now 7:45 and Happy decided it was too late. I said, “Wow, that guy Thomas was really inspirational. I’m inspired.” Happy: Long pause. “Yeah, that was inspirational, huh?” …yeah, that’s what I said. Happy informs me that she’s been really frazzled lately with her festival coming up, and nobody works as hard as she does. In fact, she has 5 employees, and she does 70% of the work. Hm. Maybe she’s just stressed out, and she’ll feel better tomorrow. We agree that I’ll teach a little yoga in the morning. We arrive at the house, and Happy points out the apartment of one of her tenants, Emily, on the way up to the door. Happy had me wash all the dishes from the day, which took about 20 minutes or so. A guy named Stefan comes in. Happy tells me she’s going to call it a night, which indicates that she wants me out of the room. I hadn’t seen my Berkey filter for a couple hours, so I go outside to hunt for it. I notice Emily’s lights are on, and I decide to introduce myself. I fell in love as soon as she opened the curtain. She was 19, and probably one of the cutest girls I’d ever seen… very even-keeled and sociable. We talked for about 20 minutes, and I played her guitar. We made plans to go hiking the next day (today). I headed back inside, still no Berkey Sport bottle. Now Milton was there. I overheard Stefan and Milton talking about the vortexes (vortices?) in Sedona. I’d heard about those on my way through Sedona, but this guy apparently knew a thing or two about them. He said the vortices were more real than “this reality”… trees tend to grow in spirals in these locations. I got his info so I could friend him on facebook. Happy lended me a book on foraging, let me take a shower, and I was off to bed.

I had set my alarm for 6, but kept hitting the snooze button and eventually just turned the alarm off. Around 7:30, Happy knocks on the glass door and asks if she can come in. This might not be totally accurate, but the gist of it was this: “Aaron, you didn’t feed the birds, you didn’t put water in the fountain. That was the first thing I asked you to do. I thought maybe it was just me, but I talked to Milton and he said every time he looked you weren’t doing anything. It took you an hour to make the hummus when it should have only taken 5 minutes. I’ve had a lot of amazing WWOOFers, I’ve never had a WWOOFer who didn’t want to do anything. I think you’re lazy and selfish, and I’d appreciate it if you would leave this morning before breakfast.” Having just woken up, I was pretty shocked, and I couldn’t think of a logical response except to nod and start gathering my stuff. I felt pretty bad about myself. What could I have done differently? I felt like I’d earned my keep, although maybe not gold star-worthy, I’d done a fair amount of work. I looked outside for my bottle, and once again Happy says, “I’d really appreciate it if you’d leave now. I don’t like having selfish people around. You made me late to the meeting last night, and then you made me late to the drum circle, so you’re hurting my social life. You haven’t done anything. That piece that goes on the pool vaccuum is expensive, and now it’s nowhere to be found. I don’t know if you threw it somewhere or what, but I’m going to have to buy another one.”
I had some Deja Vu from my childhood when my grandmother would accuse me of breaking yard equipment on purpose.
“You’re selfish. You could have offered to feed the birds or fill the fountain this morning, but you didn’t. I feel used.” I explained that I can be absent-minded at times, and it was not my intention to get something for nothing. She had asked me to do quite a few things, and I was sort of jumping around a lot, so some things didn’t get done, or were only partially done. She said she’d send me the bottle if it were found, but she wanted me out right away. As I was walking to my bike, she came up behind me and said, “Aaron, if you don’t leave now, I’m going to call the cops.” I realized I had left my clothes inside while I had gone outside to look for my bottle. “Yeah, make me wait some more”. Geez, lady, give me a break. I realized I didn’t really know where I was going. I approached her again, “Hey Happy, I’m sorry it didn’t work out,” “Yeah, I’m sure today will be better,” “I hope everything goes well for you. So I just keep south on 89, right?” “Yeah, that’s right,” “Okay, have a good day”… So ended my stay at Happy Oasis. I’m not sure what to think about this… my gut tells me that she’s just crazy. Maybe I could have done more, but I feel like I did plenty in exchange for food and lodging, I worked a good 5 hours or more. I can’t excuse her behavior on the basis of stress. Oh well, life goes on. I rode down to Prescott, and got directions to The Catalyst from a coffee shop. Turns out they don’t have any more room, or so one occupant named Aurora informed me, but another girl there told me I could use her password at Prescott College to get on the computer. Rae came in after a few minutes, and we hung out there for a while. She said she was going to the college and I could follow her. So here I am. Rae went to work with Karma Farms, but I decided to stick around and finish blogging. I spent some time sending messages on couchsurfing when I first got here, and just got a call from a guy named Shaun. I’m heading over there now. I’ll be in Prescott til Thursday evening, and then I’m off to LA to meet up with Joel, probably hitching all the way. Meanwhile, I’m going to work with Karma Farms and hit the Peavine bike trail which runs through Granite Dells, I’ll probably do that tomorrow.

Big rocks

I’m at the library in Sedona, AZ, and I only have 30 minutes to write this post.  Here goes:  I left Quemada with Jack on Wednesday morning around 11.  We drove up to El Malpais and hiked the 1 mile trail there.  El Malpais is Spanish for The Badlands.  Apparently some people have gotten lost out there and nobody’s ever found them.  Compasses don’t work out there because of the iron in the lava rock.  It’s similar to the Valley of Fires, but I believe much of this lava actually was launched into the air.  I believe it’s about the same size as the Valley of Fires.  The trail we hiked was marked by mounds of rock.  The elevation changed here a lot more than the Valley of Fires, and I had a lot of fun scaling the mountains of volcanic rock.  We were out there for an hour or so.  Then we got back on 117 and drove past some sandstone bluffs, I think it was called La Ventana.  There was a natural arch in the side of one of the bluffs that I walked up to to get a picture of.  Farther down the road, we drove up onto some bluffs on the other side of the road.  If you didn’t know they were there, you wouldn’t see them.  These bluffs overlooked El Malpais and the the volcanoes it originated from.  Mountains were on the horizon in all directions.  It was much different than anything I’ve ever seen back east.  There were 3 points where the bluffs extended over the cliff, and I got to the first 2 with no problems.  There was a crevice separating the 3rd one, and I had to climb down (with great difficulty) to cross.  It was definitely worth the effort.  On the way back, I decided to climb down from the crevice and look for another spot to climb up.  I found one after a minute or two, and had an exhilerating, death-defying (or at least serious injury-defying) climb back up to the top.  From there, Jack took me into Grants, NM and treated me to a Chinese Buffet.  I had 4 plates of salmon and rice, and one plate of vegetable lo mein.  I rode a half mile to a couple of gas stations on opposite sides of the highway and tried to get a ride west.  After about an hour, a guy told me there was a truck stop about half a mile up the highway.  I headed up there after a few minutes… turned out it was more like half a dozen.  On the way, there was a sign that said, “NOTICE: DO NOT PICK UP HITCHHIKERS / PRISON FACILITIES”.  Awesome.  There was a similar setup at the next exit, with 2 gas stations on opposite sides, right next to 40.  I went back and forth between the big truckstop and the smaller station for about 3 hours until the manager at Love’s (the truck stop) told me, “we can’t have you harrassing our customers, you’ll have to leave the property”.  I obliged, because the last thing I need is cops messing with me.  The other gas station was slowing down, so I headed to the other side of 40, where there was a big parking lot with lots of OTR trucks.  I tried to get a ride there for a couple hours.  One driver told me he’d give me a ride to Flagstaff in the morning, and he’d be leaving sometime after 8.  I ended up camping behind the smaller gas station I mentioned previously on a piece of corrugated steel.  It wasn’t the best sleep I’ve ever had.

I woke up around 7, and went to a grocery store to get some bananas.  I arrived at the truck stop around 7:40, and discovered that my ride had left without me.  I kept trying the OTR truckers, but most were going east, and those who were going west seemed to be unwilling to risk taking a hitchhiker either for insurance reasons or company policy.  I headed back to Love’s, and the manager from the previous night had gone home, so I was back on the grind.  After about an hour and a half, I scored a ride to Holbrook with a man named Steve Reid and his wife in their pickup truck.  At first he told me I’d have to ride in the back, but hen he moved some stuff out of the back seat and let me sit in the cab.  My time’s up, so this will be continued later…

Ok, now I’m in Clarkdale.  I’ll continue from where I left off.  Steve is the owner of Kodiak, a produce wholesaling company.  He answered my multitude of questions about the produce industry.  We stopped somewhere outside Holbrook at a little tourist trap jewelry store.  There was a bunch of petrified wood outside.  That stuff is as hard as granite.  There was a storm to the south, so Steve offered to give me a ride all the way to Flagstaff.  He treated me to lunch (or dinner, I guess) at Cracker Barrel.  If you are vegetarian or vegan, Cracker Barrel is not an ideal place to eat.  Steve asked me if I was independently wealthy.  I said no.  He gave me $20.  I am racking up a serious debt to humanity…  I told him I’d pay it forward.  I left Cracker Barrel and got directions to downtown at a hardware store.  I stopped at an outdoor area near a bar, and struck up a conversation with a cute girl.  A waitress came outside and told me I had to leave because I didn’t have an ID.  I headed to the NAU campus because a couple of people told me that new students were moving in.  I found out this was not the case, they won’t be moving in for about 3 weeks.  I found some students outside one of the dorms.  One was a former soldier who got a military discharge due to shin splints.  I tried to tell him the truth about the war in the most diplomatic way I could, and managed not to offend him too much.  They let me into the dorms so I could take a shower.  I had to use the soap from the hand sink, but it was better than nothing.  I headed toward Buffalo Wild Wings, which one of the kids at the school told me I might be able to get into.  I stopped at a coffee shop on the way, and I saw this beautiful girl sitting outside with a stack of books and papers.  I swear I saw steam coming off her.  I went inside and ordered a cinnamon roll, which was much less tasty than it looked (pastries are my biggest weakness), and asked what there was to do in town with no ID.  The barista recommended the observatory.  I decided to talk to the girl outside, figuring I had nothing to lose.  She was really interesting and intelligent, and we had a lot in common.  We ended up going to a nearby Mexican restaurant to have some drinks, and somehow neither of us got carded.  We had an amazing interaction.  Outside, I kissed her for a minute, then she left.  I called my friend Josef to get some advice on how I might have done better, and he told me I might have held my cards a bit close to my chest, so to speak.  Still, it was better than I’ve done previously.  I headed over to Buffalo Wild Wings, and there was not much going on there, so I headed down to 89A toward Sedona.  I camped out near a sign that indicated there was 10 miles of downhill ahead.

I woke up at about 6, and headed down the slope.  It was the most magnificent stretch of road I’ve encountered so far.  It seemed that in every moment I was seeing the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.  It was almost all downhill to Sedona, down through the mountains.  The second half of the trip was into the red rocks (maybe that’s supposed to be capitalized), which were equally awesome.  I stopped at one of the first places I saw when I got in town, the Sedona Art Center, where they told me there was an art event called First Friday later that evening.  I cruised around town for a while, and ended up at the libary.  After my 2 hours on the computer, I read a whole stack of Mother Earth News magazine while waiting for the 3:30 free yoga class.  It was Dahn yoga, which I’d never heard of.  It was different than any yoga I’ve done, lots of repetitive motions.  From there, I headed north back into town, and stopped at New Frontiers, a health food store.  Sedona is the most health-conscious town I’ve ever been to.  I got some organic sprouted pita bread and organic probiotic raspberry chipotle hummus for about $5.50, not a bad deal.  I rode back to Sedona Art Center, where there were a whole lot of middle aged white people drinking wine and eating cheese and crackers.  There was a trio playing Indian music, and they let me play one of their hand drums.  Then I started on the wine and had a few crackers.  After I’d been there for almost an hour, I headed to the next gallery and had some more wine.  There was a couple playing jazz witha standup bass and acoustic guitar.  At the next gallery, there was a young kid about my age playing guitar and singing some beautiful original music.  I had a little trouble finding the next place, but I stopped at a tour company and they gave me directions.  It was another mile or so on the bike, and by the time I got there it was almost 8, which was the end of First Friday.  The last gallery I went to was the James Ratliff Gallery.  I was pretty tipsy, and talked to the people working in the gallery about my trip.  The owners offered to put my bike in their van and give me a ride toward Jerome, saying they lived very close.  I agreed.  As soon as this happened, I got a call from someone I’d contacted on couchsurfing, saying I could stay at their place.  I declined, as I’m trying to get to LA.  They ended up letting me stay at their place.  It’s a good thing they did, because there was a storm last night.  They fed me a salad and a PB&J sandwich on brown rice bread.  We stayed up for a couple hours talking about all sorts of things.  They went to bed, and I watched the end of a Dennis Leary special on Comedy Central, then passed out on their really nice guest bed.

I woke up, took a shower, ate some oatmeal, and headed out.  I was going to the local library, and on the way I saw a girl on the sidewalk.  I said hi.  We started talking.  She’s just hanging out here at her friend’s deli.  I talked to her friend, and now I’m on his computer.  Apparently the library’s closed for renovation.  Jenny is the girl’s name, and she’s a masseuse… and she’s about to give me a massage 🙂

Change of plans

I need to stop trusting that people have accurate information, especially in regards to geography. I don’t think anyone has been deliberately misleading, but people sure do know a lot of stuff that ain’t so. Right not I’m near Quemado and Pie Town, in the middle of nowhere, staying with a retired military guy named Jack and his wife Rhonda. Since the last post: I hung out with Jenny yesterday morning, then I went to the wellness center and did another Insanity workout. It was the abs routine, which it turns out is the shortest one. This turned out to be a blessing, because I had to ride a pretty good distance in the last 24 hours, and I’m still sore. Then I played some basketball by myself (the only people in the gym were middle and high school kids), and tried the climbing wall. I have a newfound respect for people who rock climb, it was extremely difficult. Emerson, one of the personal trainers, guided me through the second-hardest path after I realized that I couldn’t do the hardest one. I didn’t want to let the rope support my weight, I felt like I was cheating… but he told me it was okay. I kept saying I was ready to give up, but he kept pushing me to reach the top, and eventually I did. My forearms still feel really weak. I wasn’t able to get Archie to tell me any Navajo stories, he referred me to Emerson. Emerson talks painfully slow, a lot of it was vague and he spent quite a bit of time trying to remember people’s names. Eventually I was able to extricate myself from the situation, and headed back to the Beres’s house. I ate some rice and showered, and they dropped me off in Magdalena. David had taken my umbrella out of the car and forgot to put it back, so I now have no umbrella. Well, life goes on. I rode about 10 miles west from Magdalena to a rest stop they’d told me about, all uphill. I wanted to sleep on one of the picnic tables, but they were a little to close to the road so I put my mat on the grass and used the space blanket and the rain jacket. It must have gotten down into the low 50s, so I didn’t sleep too well. Morning dew is not your friend in cold weather, I’ve discovered.

I woke up around 5:30, and immediately gathered my stuff and got on the bike, teeth chattering. My 3 outside toes on both feet stayed numb for the first 8 miles or so. I passed 2 other rest stops, and mentally berated myself for not going farther last night. I tried to make it to the VLA in time for the sunrise (turns out it’s the VERY Large Array, they like their modifiers around here). I didn’t quite make it, but it turned out they were 4 miles off the highway, and I wasn’t all that motivated to go 8 miles out of my way to get a better look at them… even though Contact IS one of my favorite movies. The San Agustin plains were extremely boring otherwise. It used to be a big ass lake, now it’s… pretty much nothing, and a couple of cows. I stopped at a cafe about a mile before Datil (rhymes with cattle, this is the town I couldn’t remember the name of), and just my luck, they’re closed Tuesdays. So I go to the local gas station another mile down the road, and wait to try and catch a ride to Springerville. No luck for about an hour and a half, when I meet some guys from Austin who are here to rock climb. We talk for a minute, and the guy who was driving the SUV, Matt, offers to give me a ride to Pie Town after he drops his friends off at the crag. I accept. Matt returns, and we load up the bike and head to Pie Town. We stop at the cafe and he orders a whole pie for him and his crew, and I order a slice of the mixed berry pie. I go to the bathroom, and I return to find that he’s already paid for my slice. Thanks, Matt! I stick around and try to hitch a ride with everyone who comes in. No luck… and the cafe closed around 3. I ride down to the local grocery store (like a small town 7/11), and make a sign that says “Springerville” and strap it to my bike, then pedal toward the next town, Quemado. The sign didn’t work. It was a good ride, however, I felt a lot better than I had this morning, and the miles unwound beneath me. I stopped at the first gas station I came to, and didn’t very many cars, so I asked if there was another gas station in town. There was another one, just down the street, so I went there. This gas station was also a service center. There I found out that the Petrified Forest Road was actually another 50 miles from Springerville, not 2, like someone told me… can’t remember who for the life of me. Also, the painted desert is NOT in the same area, as I had thought (not sure where this idea came from either). A guy there named Leroy offered to true my wheels and give me some of his spare tires (he’s a biker as well). I asked if he could adjust brakes, because my rear brakes had been giving me trouble. He did, but they still rubbed the rims. I was getting ready to get back on the road, and was readjusting the rear brakes, when Jack pulled up and asked if I was having trouble. I said no, it’s just the brakes. We rapped back and forth for a minute, then he asked if I needed a place to stay. I said I could use a shower. He said I could stay at his place and he’d give me a ride back in the morning, when I’d have a better chance of catching a ride. I gladly accepted, and here I am. Rhonda fed me a salad and some rice. His place is pretty close to 117, which goes up to 40, where I should be able to get a ride straight to Flagstaff. He actually agreed to take me up 117 tomorrow, and we’ll hit some various points of interest along the way which I can’t really remember at the moment… I neglected to mention that he’s also supplied me with alcohol. Yuengling Black and Tan is a fine beer, if you haven’t tried it. So I should be in Flagstaff tomorrow night, with any luck.

on the reservation

Where to start? I’ve been on the reservation since Friday night. It’s been uncommonly rainy here for the last few weeks. Everything’s green, but apparently this is the exception. My host, David, is a teacher here, and he’s going back to school tomorrow morning. The teachers will be there for 2 weeks before the kids go back. The school here is a grant school, which means they have to jump through myriad hoops in order to keep receiving tax money. This mainly consists of filling out tons of forms on demographics, making sure attendance is high, and lots and lots of tests. It’s a bureaucratic nightmare. Yesterday I met David’s friend Alison, a second-grade teacher at the school. She is a character. We went hunting for cool stuff out in the wilderness in the early afternoon. To Alison, cool stuff includes rocks and old pieces of glass and metal. She wanted to show us the skin of a horse, but apparently someone or something had dragged it off (the fact that there was a horse skin means someone ate a horse). Horses, dogs and cattle roam around freely here. I was on the lookout for snakes and scorpions for photos, but didn’t see any. After walking around in the hot sun for an hour or so, we went to the baseball field. Baseball is the big event on Saturday. David and Alison recognized only a few people at this particular game, which they said is unusual, as there are only a couple thousand people on the reservation. It was some sort of league game against a nearby tribe. There was a concession stand by the field, where I was able to sample a local staple food called frybread (yeah, fried bread). After I’d eaten almost all of it, Alison informed me that it had been cooked in lard :/. This is the food that the federal government gives to Natives, white flour and tubs of lard. We got back in Alison’s Jeep and headed toward UFO. UFO is a mountain where a local had set some tires on fire and rolled them down the side, and the local fire-and-brimstone preacher (yeah, their culture has been seriously damaged) claimed it was aliens, and the congregation should go get their guns and fight them. Needless to say, the preacher lost some credibility. We were only there for a few minutes, but it was long enough for me to get some good shots of UFO and a broken-down Spanish home made from rocks. The Navajos built with the same stones, but their buildings are always circular with doors facing to the East, and the Spanish built with square walls (not that you probably care). We headed back to the local store, which has a giant wall of Coke products. That was definitely the saddest thing I’ve seen here. Across the street, candidates were proselytizing and trying to get votes in the upcoming elections. Corruption is rampant here in the form of embezzlement. We sat down and I listened to Alison and David talk about how the kids here have basically given up, and they just don’t care about school or anything else, and also about how the administration is constantly making impossible demands, and how teachers generally don’t last more than a year here. We headed back to the house, where David’s wife Jenny had prepared a huge meal of turkey, potatoes, yams, and broccoli. I skipped the turkey, but had some leftover salad instead. Jenny and I stayed up while David slept on the couch and had a great conversation.

Today I woke up around 11, and we headed down to Alison’s house to help her move some of the heavier junk that she has filling her house. Alison used to be an auction scout, and ended up buying a ton of random stuff which now makes it nearly impossible to move in her Frank Lloyd Wright-looking duplex apartment. After this, David, Jenny, and I headed to the Wellness Center, which totally blew me away. It’s like a YMCA, really state-of-the art. Fully equipped weight room, 10 really nice stationary bikes, basketball/volleyball court, showers, and there’s even an indoor climbing wall. They also have copies of P90X and Insanity. I’d never heard of Insanity until today, but I gave it a shot. David and Jenny kept telling me I might not be able to make it. Fortunately, I picked a workout from the recovery week which wasn’t all that difficult (it wasn’t labeled as such). Jenny did the workout with me, while David walked on the treadmill and milled around the various machines. Tomorrow, I think I’ll try one of the harder ones and see if it’s as big and bad as they say. Right after I finished, one of the personal trainers, and David’s friend, Archie invited us to dinner at his place. This was the first time David and Jenny had been invited to the home of one of the Natives, so we cancelled our plan to watch Princess Mononoke with Alison. When we arrived, Archie had a wood fire going on the grill. I was surprised to find out that he had multiple fruit trees growing in a small orchard— apples, pears, peaches, and plums, all organic. I was able to eat some of each right off the tree, and even got to take a couple pounds of plums and peaches with me. After some steaks had been cooking on the grill, about 9 Navajos began to emerge from the house. Archie and his wife had family from Mississipi who’d come in the same day as me. I passed on the steak, but there were homemade tortillas and potatoes which were quite good. Archie will be working at the Wellness Center tomorrow, and apparently he knows all the traditional Navajo stories. I’ll have to set the alarm to make sure I have time to talk to him. I met a couple of Navajos earlier today at the basketball court, and there should be more there tomorrow. I neglected to mention… I was going to leave this evening, but it looked like there was going to be some heavy rain, and David suggested I stay another night. I agreed. It turned out I would have probably avoided the storm… but I’ll be heading out tomorrow after David gets off work. The plan is to get to the Large Array around sundown and take some pictures, then ride toward Pie Town…. there’s another town on the way there that I can’t remember the name of. Anyway, it seems there’s a bunch of hippies in both of these towns that live in adobes, so the plan is to see if I can meet some people and get inside one. Pie Town is famous for their pies (shocking, I know), and they’re really cheap, so I might gain some weight. I’ll try to hitch from Pie Town up to the Petrified Forest Road, which is about 15 miles long. The Painted Desert is there as well, so I plan to spend quite a bit of time there with the camera. Then I’ll bike up to Hwy 40, and try to hitch out to Flagstaff, where I’ll stay with a guy named Kennedy who lives in a van. So that’s the plan for the next 2 days.

The bends

I’m in Alamo, New Mexico, on a Navajo reservation. I think I’ve gone through more changes in elevation in the last couple days than any other time in my life. Since the last time I posted… Aldo and I had an animated conversation for several hours about politics, human nature, and traveling… mostly politics. I got him to agree that government is immoral in nature, but he still thinks it’s necessary. Aldo has been very involved in politics for years, especially the anti-war movement. I never got around to explaining the concept of DRO’s… talking to him was like being caught in a tornado. In any case, I learned a lot from him. Maybe I’ll get him to come around to anarcho-capitalism, he seems to be reasonably open-minded. I left his place the following day around 2. I was on the hunt for a yoga class before I got back on the road. I stopped at the Roswell contemporary art museum and took some pictures. Then I went to the gym farther down the road. They didn’t have ay classes that day, so I went to the Raquetball Club. Same deal. Then I went to the senior center Aldo told me about. They also didn’t have any that day, but they directed me to another place… the Adult something-or-other. Turns out they didn’t have one either… but they let me use one of the empty rooms to do some yoga. On my way out of town, I continued down Main St., which happens to be the wrong way to get where I was going. I went maybe 4 miles out of the way, altogether. At the last gas station at the edge of town, I tried for about an hour to hitch a ride to Hondo. I hitched with a mustachioed man named Ed, who said he was going about 17 miles outside of town. Apparently Ed likes to drive down 380 in the middle of the night to look at the stars. He ended up giving me a ride all the way to Lincoln. Lincoln was once the home of Billy the Kid, Ed told me as we rode through the mountains. I tried to pay attention, but I was so overwhelmed with the mountains that I had trouble listening. I felt like a newborn, totally awestruck and wide-eyed wonder. We had some good conversation, though. He told me about how the geology was all upside-down due to a buckle fault, but nobody really knows why. He dropped me off at a campsite in Lincoln. I tried to just pass out on a picnic table, but the night got colder and colder, and I had to pitch the tent. I was definitely not prepared for weather this cold. Needless to say, I survived, and somehow kept all my fingers and toes.

I set out this morning around 10 and rode the 15 miles to Capitan, home of Smokey the Bear. The mountains were breathtaking. I stopped at a gas station with a Mexican grill inside and ordered some beans with a tortilla on the side. It was quite a lot of food for not a lot of money, so I had more. Outside, I asked a guy if he knew the forecast, and he told me I should probably get going to Carrizozo if I wanted to avoid the rain. His name was Jason, and he showed me some photos he had taken of that particular route earlier today. He also gave me a rainjacket, which I was fortunate enough to not have to use. It was another 20 miles to Carrizozo, the first 12 of which was more spectacular mountains and valleys. I stopped at a fruit stand just before Carrizozo and talked to Scott the potter about anarchy (it’s a pattern). I wanted badly to see the Valley of Fires, which was just past Carrizozo, so I rode right through (the Valley of Fires is the result of a pyroclastic flow that covers about 40 square miles, if I’m not mistaken… you’ll have to check the encyclopedia). It was a lot more verdant than I’d imagined it would be. It was still pretty cool, though, and I took lots of pictures. I then stood by the highway and stuck my thumb out, trying to catch a ride to Socorro. The bugs were pretty bad, so I decided to pedal back into town and try the gas station, as I’d had luck with this method before. It took me almost 2 hours to get a ride. It was Bill and Debra, who were heading just north of Soccoro, coming back from Ruidoso (I spelled it wrong before). Bill was a federal environmental agent. I brought up the subject of the Capitan free newspaper, which was extremely… Republican. Debra asked me what I thought about Obama, and I went off like a rocketship. They surprised me with their open-mindedness, I had been worried when I’d first learned that Bill worked for the government that I’d say something to get my ass kicked out on the side of the highway. They dropped me off in Socorro, where David Beres (my couchsurfing host) picked me up, and now here I am on the reservation. I will be able to meet some of the locals tomorrow. I’m excited. I apologize for the sub-standard quality of my writing tonight, I am tired and I’ve been eating horribly. I’m off to bed.

Aliens!!! and other stuff too!!!!

I am currently in Roswell, NM.  I will attempt to relate the events of the last few days in as much excruciating detail as possible.  So… Lisa and I became close pretty quickly, and I ended up staying for almost a week instead of one night as I had planned.  I left her house at around 3:30 Sunday morning.  As soon as I got to the interstate (2 or 3 miles), I stopped and stretched for almost 2 hours in front of a paint store on the access road.  I started pedaling just before dawn.  I stopped under an overpass after about 10 miles or so and ate a cucumber that I’d purchased at the Abilene farmer’s market.  Then I rode to Trent (pop. 318), where I tried to see if I could get out of the sun for a couple of hours.  They were a little sketchy, and maybe they thought I was a little sketchy, because they suggested I camp by some picnic tables… which when I came outside I discovered were in direct sunlight.  So I kept riding, and after a couple miles I discovered Trent ISD (Independent School District), which has a really nice football stadium for a town with only 318 people.  I waited out the heat of the day in the shade of the concession stand, and read a big chunk of On The Road, given to me by my first couchsurfing host, Russ.  Around 7, I got back on the bike and rode toward Sweetwater.  I was on the access road, and it suddenly diverged from I-20 in such a way that I couldn’t make it back without considerable effort.  I began to get slightly worried that I was heading into the middle of nowhere, but after a mile or so there was another road leading back to the highway.  Around this time, I began to feel a light rain.  By the time I was back on the highway, it was a full-fledged thunderstorm.  I came to a rest stop before I got thoroughly soaked, but I was far from dry.  I decided that I was too tired to ride past the rain to find a dry spot to camp, and I’d hitch a ride to Big Spring.  I had gone maybe 30 miles by this point.  The first person who agreed to give me a ride was a farmer from Lubbock, who was taking his daughter back from her future alma mater in Southern Texas.  He said he could get me to Snyder, which is on Hwy 180, and I could hitch a ride to Carlsbad from there.  So we passed Sweetwater, then went north to Snyder and passed the biggest wind farms I’ve ever seen.  I regret not having my camera in the cab of the truck, but you can google them… those things are massive.  Once I was dropped off in Snyder, I headed west in search of a truck stop.  There were none.  I made it about 23 miles toward Gail (all pasture, as far as I can recall), and slept on my pad in the high grass off the side of the road.  This was around midnight.  I woke up several times in the night and had to change positions, because this pad is not quite a Sleep Number, and it was colder than it’s supposed to be in west Texas.

I got up at 6:45, streched for a minute or two, and headed into Gail.  I was hoping I could catch a ride to the next town, which was Lamesa, another 33 miles.  No such luck, Gail doesn’t even have a gas pump.  I was able to get water, though, and I rode through what has been the most beautiful landscape I’ve seen so far on this trip.  The first 20 miles or so was verdant mesas in the distance, like a pop-up card, with valleys of stubby vegetation from the road all the way out to the mesas.    I climbed the longest hill I’ve encountered thus far, which I found out later was putting me on the Caprock (I don’t know if that’s supposed to be capitalized or not).  After another 15 miles or so (yeah, I know it doesn’t add up to 33, shoot me) of nothing but cotton, I reached a picnic area just outside Lamesa (apparently it’s pronounced Lameesa), and slept for a few hours.

A couple woke me up and offered me some tater tots, which I accepted gratefully (I’m not about to turn down free food, that stuff costs money).  They said they were coming back from Riodoso (Riadosah).  About 7:00, I attempted to ride toward Lamesa, but apparently I failed and ended up on some other highway.  I stopped at a house and got directions.  After carefully observing the instructions of the middle-aged directions-giver, I stopped at the Lamesa Country Club to get water and possibly further directions.  The men at the bar were generally impressed by the fact that I’m pedaling a bike across the country, and supplied me with beer and snacks.  One of the guys, Treg Addison, showed me how to play golf… well, how to hit a golf ball with a club, anyway.  My second shot went into the pond.  We headed back to the clubhouse, and Treg and his 3 cousins and I started hitting balls down the fairway.  There was a bet made, and somehow I wound up riding on the back of a golf cart while the 4 cousins played a hole (I was pretty toasty at this point).  Treg told me I might be able to work for a day or two if I stayed in town.  I was hoping this would be the case, as the bartender and I had a bit of mutual attraction, and I told her I’d see her the next day.  The Addisons took me back to their ranch, where we continued to drink and played Rockband.  I was told that, unfortunately, there was in fact no work for me.  I was told that the Carlsbad Caverns were not all that special, and they would be more out-of-the-way than I’d anticipated.  As I was already behind schedule, I agreed that I could always see them another time, and I’d head to Roswell instead.

I left the following morning after taking a shower.  It was 8 miles north to Welch, all flat, cotton and sunflowers.  I don’t know if they were being grown as a crop or had simply taken over the fields, but pretty much everywhere I’ve seen in Texas has sunflowers beside the road.  I stopped at the post office there and shipped my bike computer to my aunt’s house (the computer has to be closer to the sensor than I can have it with my handlebar bag on, so it’s not much use).  I also asked about where I could get a bite to eat.  The post office employee sent me to a little burrito stand around the corner.  There was a man there talking to the Mexican lady who owned the stand.  The man and I chatted about what I was doing, and he paid for my $2 potato-and-black bean burrito, which was possibly the best burrito I’ve ever tasted.  The man turned out to be the local Baptist preacher, and he prayed for me.  This made me feel a bit strange, but hey, that’s why I’m doing this, to be more comfortable with the vicissitudes of life.  I didn’t even lecture him on why the Bible is evil!  I was proud of myself.  Moving on… I had another 20 miles to Brownfield, so I headed north again.  After about 8 miles, I came across a sign that said T & S Produce.  I decided to stop and check it out.  Turns out it’s a storefront for about 6 farms that all grow watermelons, which are shipped around the country.  If I’m not mistaken, they are the biggest watermelon grower in the country (6 million/year of the most common variety).  Unfortunately, their melons wouldn’t be ripe for another week or two.  However, they also grew peanuts, and they had a big ol’ sack of raw peanuts from last year sitting in the back.  I sat and shelled peanuts for about 2 hours, listening to Steven tell me about his career as a firefighter and his brother who was also a long-distance biker.  People call him “The Claw”, because he’s missing the last two fingers from his right hand, lost them from an electrical burn when he was young.  I ended up with maybe 3 lbs of peanuts, and red thumbs and forefingers.  I go outside to get back on the bike, and discover my front tire is flat.  I had parked on the steel edge of a weighing platform, and I guess the heat melted the glue on the patch.  Fortunately, an elderly man named Sonny came by just then to inquire about watermelons, and he happened to be heading to Brownfield.  I rode with him, and listened to him tell me about how there are no trees on Hwy 380 in New Mexico that haven’t been planted, and how the city changes, but the country stays the same.  Unfortunately, he was hard of hearing, so I couldn’t do much besides listen.  He dropped me off at Wal-Mart, and I bought an emergency blanket and some patches, and replaced my tube with a Slime tube, stowing the used one in one of my panniers.  While I was finishing up, some high school boys came in and chatted with me for a few minutes, and told me I could probably catch a ride west at the Philips 66 at the other end of town.  I stopped at the grocery store next door, looking for hummus.  There was none, so I got some spinach.  That didn’t quite fill me up, so I turned at the next big road a couple miles down looking for somewhere to get some grub.  I rode up maybe half a mile, and ran into the high school boys again.  I confirmed the location of the gas station, and headed back toward it.  I decided on a Chinese buffet (Happy China, I think), and got a large order of white rice ($2).  My fortune cookie read, “A four-wheeled adventure will soon bring you happiness”.  I was writing those very words in my journal, and one of the cooks offered me more rice for free.  I accepted, of course.  The second serving was topped with chicken and broccoli.  I’m generally vegetarian, but I figured it would go to waste otherwise, so I ate it.  At this point, I was stuffed to the rafters.  I headed down to the gas station to try to finagle me a ride west.  It seemed everyone at this station was en route to Lubbock.  I approached one 30-something lady who said she was heading west, and just as we were about to discuss the details, a deputy sheriff who was at the next pump in an unmarked car flashed his badge and said, “Can I help you?”  So he basically killed the mood.  I continued to try after he left for a couple more hours, then two more police showed up, and I decided I might just better pedal myself to the next town.  All in all, I was at this gas station for 3.5 hours.  Once I left town, the scenery was not much different than it had been, miles and miles of cotton.  Closer to Plains, I started to pass oil drilling machines… I think they’re called Iron Horses, but I’m not sure.  About six miles before I reached Plains, I got picked up by a Mexican fellow named Isaiah and his wife in their SUV.  They dropped me off at the Allsup’s gas station just inside town, said I should be able to hitch from here.  I tried to talk to the night shift guy, Tim, but he was on the phone the whole time.  One older guy came in that was headed to Carlsbad, but he didn’t have room in his truck.  Very few people were coming in, and I was tired, so I slept in the empty lot across the street.

This morning, I woke up around 6:30 and headed back to the gas station.  At about 7:45, I caught a ride with a farmer named Spencer to the border of New Mexico.  He offered me $10… this was the third time I’ve been offered money, but the first time I accepted.  I’m not really sure why.  I guess I’ll have to pay it forward.  I rode about 15 miles to Tatum, which is maybe 2 or 3 times as big as Plains, which is to say, not big at all.  After about an hour, I caught a ride 72 miles to Roswell with a couple who were heading to the Four Corners area for a funeral.  They were very cool, and gave me some idea of what to expect on the way into Arizona.  It was raining when I got into town, but it let up soon after.  My first stop was the International UFO Museum.  It was pretty interesting, and they had quite a library.  I would have probably spent some time reading had I not been so sleepy.  I stopped at a little alien store and got a sticker for my bike.  I headed up to a coffee shop on the north side of town, which turned out to be more of a bookstore.  I conversed with the kid at the cafe for a while, and he told me I could crash on the couch if I wanted… right after I took a shot of espresso to stay awake.  So I laid down for a while, then a group of mentally handicapped adults and their… um… chaperones (?) came in, and made a decent racket.  I was able to relax for a while, at least, and recover some energy.  When I sat up, one of the mentally handicapped guys started telling me about the toothpaste he uses.  I couldn’t really understand him, and I tried to converse with him politely, but several people in the group yelled at him to leave me alone.  There was a boy on my left who allowed me to use his computer to see if anyone had responded to my requests on couchsurfing since I’d last been online, and fortunately, there had been.  I’m currently using his computer.  His name is Aldo.  He’s from Mexico, and we’re at his parents’ house.  We just ate burritos and salad, and we’ll probably head out to a bar or two in a minute.  In the meantime, he’s been working on his mom’s car.  …And that’s all I have to say about that.

Abilene

37 hours, 125 miles, and 700-something feet of elevation later, here I am in Abilene. There were a lot more hills than I was expecting. I went about 50 miles between 8:30 Saturday night and 9:30 Sunday morning. I slept on a picnic table off the interstate. I slept maybe 3 times for a couple hours at a time. I started to head out around 7:15, but I discovered my front tire was flat. I’m getting pretty quick at changing them, I headed out around 7:30 or so. Right away, I had to climb a huge hill for about a mile. After I turned off to an access road at the top, a lady standing outside a car asked me if I’d just climbed the hill and told me I was a “baaad man”. In Ranger, I stopped at a mechanic’s shop and adjusted one of my front brake pads (which, as far as I know, had been rubbing on the tire for the whole first half of the way here), inflated my tires, and re-adjusted the position of my rear bag so it wouldn’t hit the spokes. One of them is broken because of that, but no big deal. Also got some fat cable ties to keep my front panniers on, and removed my kickstand, which at that point was useless from being bent in different directions from all the weight. It took me a lot longer to get here than I’d expected, but then I did take a lot of breaks. My butt and my hands are pretty sore, but my quads are feeling good. I was able to rocket up the last few hills on the way here (currently at a college I can’t remember the name of with my couchsurfing host Lisa). Time to go to sleep.

Bout to set it off

I’m back in Weatherford. Austin was incredible, despite the fact that I couldn’t get into most of the bars (my DL got stolen at Bonnaroo). My faith in humanity was flagging, but it has been restored. There are actually other people like me out there. And I now have a *burning* desire to spin poi. I got to do improv TWICE in the 3 days I was down there. I may have to move back to Austin in the winter. I can’t imagine winter is the best time to be in Portland.

I was planning to head out tonight, but the movie Inception derailed that plan. There’s a heat advisory on ’til Sunday night. I’m glad I got that golf umbrella, that will definitely come in handy. I was hoping to have a bit more water storage capacity at this point, but I’ll make it work somehow.

Austin ho

Rock Band is awesome. I am going to miss it. I unsuccessfully tried wakeboarding the other day, and went back to the lake yesterday for some skiing and tubing. I have secured a place to sleep in Austin for the next few days. I’ll be heading back up here on Wednesday or Thursday, and pedaling toward Abilene on Friday. I don’t need to get there until Sunday afternoon, so that’s 60 miles per day (not counting Sunday). Maybe I can leave Friday night. I didn’t get to see Dallas except in passing, but I don’t mind, I really just wanted to go to Austin. I haven’t even ridden the bike since I got to Weatherford, but I have an excuse in that my tire was flat and it’s been raining. I think it’s time for a ride… I’ve got nothing else to do, and I’m currently unable to think of anything to post to facebook.

Weatherford

I just touched down at my aunt’s place in Weatherford. I’ve been at the Southwest Vipassana Center for the last couple of days, meditating and helping out with the landscaping. There’s a 30-day course beginning tomorrow… good luck to those folks. I can’t imagine doing that right now, but maybe sometime in the future. I might stay until late next week, because my cousin Lindsey is heading down to Austin next Monday. I was planning to leave here before then, but I’ve got some time to kill. I’ll be leaving here in a minute to hang out with my cousin Will’s girlfriend and her familty. I have a new destination! I’ll be stopping at Carlsbad Caverns on my way to Roswell. So… that should be fun. Hopefully I don’t get eaten by subterranian lizard people.