Advertisement
Published: November 16th 2006
Edit Blog Post
What time is it?
It's PARTY time! Shawne and Jo say...
Day 30
Miles Today: 73.5
Total Mileage: 1218.9
Flats Today: 2
Total Flats: 36
After a quick breakfast, we packed up and made our way down the frontage road parallelling I-10. The chipsealed pavement made for a rough ride, but there was no traffic. We rode side by side, taking up the whole lane for miles. We noticed a large amount of big rig traffic on I-10. Jo came up with a game...counting how many big rigs would pass by on the interstate without a car going by. Our record was 15.
The frontage road ended at a truck stop and an overpass. Crossing over the bridge, we coasted down the onramp and merged onto I-10. Our speed decreased and the grade grew steeper up the Carrizo mountains. A pleasant downhill met us on the East side after we passed into the Central Time Zone (there was a sign! yay!). We stopped when we saw a bobcat on the shoulder that must have tangled with traffic and lost. It was a big cat, making us hope we wouldn't encounter any like him while we camped tonight.
We exited onto the I-10 business loop that took us
Big ol' cat!
We hope none of these visit us in the night. into Van Horn. The road greeted Shawne with yet another flat tire as we pulled into Pizza Hut for lunch. The high school lunch crowd had wiped out the pizza buffet, leaving only crumbs. Shawne fixed his flat and we cruised down the street to a Mexican joint. Outside, the restaurant advertised that it was the 'John Madden Hall of Fame'. Once inside, we saw that the walls were plastered with pictures and articles of John Madden (and Jesus). It turns out that he stopped there one day in his tour bus to eat. Ever since, he's come back once a year to enjoy the food and watch a big screen T.V. in the dining area. Madden even mentioned the place on T.V. and in print! There is a large table directly in front of the television with a special chair marked 'Madden' on the seat's back. The table has a 'reserved' card and is set with fresh linen and silverware every day in wait for Mr. Madden to show up.
After eating the overpriced meal, we couldn't figure out why John Madden liked the place so much. We would rather go to Taco Bell. At least we were full,
and our tummies weren't rumbling anymore. Heading down the frontage road, we played our truck-counting game and waved at passing trains.
Shawne got another flat, and we were near a picnic area off of I-10, so we walked the bikes up and sat at a picnic table while he fixed it. We saw a road crew putting in new turtles, and marveled at the process. A truck drove by slowly with a man hanging off the side, putting a spot of tar on the pavement. A second truck drove behind the first, and a man hung from the side in a bucket just inches off the ground. He'd grab a reflector, or 'turtle' from a box in the back of the pickup, and stick it to the tarred spot on the road. It seemed to us that there should be a better and safer way to do this. He must get paid a lot of money.
A woman approached us with her dog, and wanted to talk about our trip. This was the kind of woman who gave dog owners a bad name. She never actually looked us in the face, and never spoke directly to us. For about twenty
minutes, she spoke to us through her dog...
"They have really nice bikes, don't they Toadie?"
"I wonder where they're going, don't you Toadie?"
"I bet they're headed a really long way, aren't they Toadie?"
"My sister road across the country with her friend on horses, didn't they Toadie?"
"They even stayed at a medicine man's house on a reservation in Montana, isn't that right Toadie?"
"We're waiting for your daddy to wake up from his nap so we can keep driving, huh Toadie? That's right, and then we're gonna get back in the car, Toadie!"
We politely answered her questions while she continued talking to her dog. Finally the flat was fixed, so we took her picture, and she waved the dog's paw at us so Toadie could say goodbye. We carefully walked the bikes back to our road, hoping we wouldn't get another flat until we were far far away.
After twenty miles, the road suddenly ended. Our map directed us to walk over the dirt shoulder and cross both sides of I-10 to continue. We waited for a break in west-bound traffic and ran across the lanes beside our bikes. Shawne said, "Be careful! Don't fall!", which
of course made Jo very nervous as we dashed through the short gap between trucks. We made it safely to the east-bound shoulder and continued on.
The sun was very low in the sky and we still had eighteen miles to our exit. We pushed hard up and over hill after hill, trying to beat the setting sun. Big rigs rushed past us as the last beams of sunlight warmed our backs. We stopped to turn on our lights, admitting defeat in our race with the daylight. We finished the last few miles of interstate in the dark, finally arriving in Kent, TX.
Our maps showed a grocery store and a gas station in Kent. We found the gas station, but it had closed an hour before our arrival. We snooped around the building and adjacent lot for a good stealth-camping spot. The fuel islands were 24-hours, which attracted too much traffic and strange truck drivers to make for a good campsite. We decided to go on with the route in the dark until an opportunity arose.
Highway 118 was dark and lonely. Our headlights illuminated the road as strange grunting sounds came from the brush on the right shoulder.
We scanned the roadside for dirt roads and gates. We came across a dirt road with a cattle gate. There was no 'Keep Out' or 'No Trespassing' sign, so we decided it was an open invitation to us.
We snuck through quietly and surveyed the brush for a clearing. There were no lights announcing homes anywhere in the distance, just a constant stream of headlights and taillights of trucks driving into the night on I-10. We settled in and cooked a dinner of dehydrated meals in the middle of the dirt road. We only had to duck down once as a single car passed by on 118. Still keeping an ear out for strange things that go bump in the night, we fell asleep.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.049s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 9; qc: 23; dbt: 0.0252s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
Nicole
non-member comment
???
So are you in Florida yet since this blog is dated October 24th and it's November 17th???!!!