November 30

Got up at 6:15 this morning and took a peek outside: raining, windy, and cold. Hauled out this machine, which I had packed last night, and looked at the weather report: rain, wind and cold all day. Clearing tonight, wind subsiding tomorrow, but remaining cold.
Should I stay another day for another $60, or ride on, hoping that the rain would stop before noon? The next place with shelter would be Brenham, about 30 miles west. West-south-west, actually, and the wind was north-north-west. And strong, at least 20mph. So I had a bowl of cereal, coffee, and a couple of donuts, compliments of Best Western, and punched up Google Earth, to see what information they might have about my route south. Two and a half hours later I had the whole thing planned, as far as Valle Hermoso, in Tamaulipas.

With my rain gear on, if there are hills to climb, I am usually drenched with sweat after the third hill. Not today. Today I needed those hills to stay warm. Which I did, except for my hands and feet, because my gloves and shoes were soaked. The crosswind gusts were strong enough that I did not dare ride more than about 12 mph, even downhill, where I normally get up to about 25. And at times I thought the rain was turning to sleet. The highway had a good, wide shoulder, but I stopped at narrow bridges until there was no traffic before crossing them, because the gusts could blow me three feet onto the road.

About ten miles west of Navasota a truck pulled over ahead of me, and a long-haired person got out of the passenger side, lowered the tail gate, and unloaded a bicycle equipped for touring and tenting. I stopped, of course. What I had taken for a girl was Geoff, and he and I rode together for the next ten miles or so. Geoff is a twenty-three year old anarchist from Winnipeg. One could not ask for a better traveling companion. He is headed, eventually, for Guatemala, but is going to Austin first, and knowing what I do about Austin and Geoff, I think he will stay there a week or so. He rides a hundred miles a day, to my sixty, so he might catch up with me again in Mexico. We exchanged e-mail addresses, a few stories, and some biography. We rode together for quite a while, but then he said he had to flake our on me. His feet were freezing, and he was going to hitch-hike. A truck gave him a ride before I got a quarter of a mile away.
Nearing Brenham, I stopped at Tex's Barbeque and Catering, and had a large bowl of delicious stew and two corn muffins and a cup of good coffee for $5. Bonnie Benkoski, proprietress, gave me clear and specific directions to this motel. Following them, as I was creeping up a hill on a residential street I overtook a fellow walking. We greeted each other, and he had time to mention that he was trying to scrape up some money to buy gas for his car. I stopped. I gave him $4. Restorative karma, having received aid from that good man in Mississippi.

I'm in a EconoLodge, and in the time it took to write this I've warmed up and my gear has dried out. That's what good karma can do for you.

November 28

A hard and wonderful day. The part of the Sam Houston National Forest that I rode through today is refreshing and restorative, a pine forest with trees of all ages, pines sparsely interspersed with scraggly hardwoods, little or no undergrowth, gentle terrain, ideal for a day or three days walk. But my rump is sore and getting sorer, the hills, while not killers, combine with headwinds to drag me down to my lowest two gears, and there were no shoulders on the road. I was determined to get to Navasota, sixty-eight miles from Coldspring, rain, wind or no, rather than wait out the expected thunderstorms in the San Jacinto Inn. The day started dreary and cool, but I was comfortable in shorts and T shirt. Within an hour and a half there were breaks in the cloud cover, which was revealed to be low and thin. By eleven there were periods of sunshine, and the wind was building from the south-southwest. By 1:00 the low clouds were getting higher and higher tops, becoming cumlulo-nimbus, with dark bottoms, and I had felt a few drops of rain. I stopped in Richards, whose main street was abandoned and looked as though it could have been abandoned in 1920, at a funky grocery that had a grill and served a righteous hamburger, which I had with a bottle of apple juice, and then a bottle of chocolate milk, and rode another twenty miles to Navasota, in two and a half hours. The sky here is clear, and while it is still windy the desk clerk at the Best Western says it never gets cold.

It's starting to feel a lot like Texas. Blacks and Anglos and Chicanos in the stores, blacks and anglos interrelating, chicanos standoffish except with each other. An inordinate number of Chicano women delivering heated rants on cell phones. I can engage blacks and gringos, but Chicanos are avoiding eye contact. Black and white men, my age and older, and white women of any age, and black women who are not met as clerks in stores, are approachable, and outgoing when approached.

The last ten miles were torture. Long steep hills, heavy traffic, all of it half-ton trucks speeding past me, hot, strong headwinds, and a sore rump getting more and more painful. The sweet relief of a motel room and cold beer makes it all go away. But I will soon have to let my rear end heal.

November 27

A grey day, but warm. A bit of rain off and on, not enough to get me wet, until I got to my destination, Coldspring, where it started to pour when I got to the city limit. Coldspring is the San Jacinto county seat, and the courthouse is by far the biggest building, by an order of magnitude, in town. It is Greco-Roman revival, in sandstone, and everything around it is frontier style, festooned with white Christmas lights. Antique shops, hair dressers, one interesting-looking restaurant, real estate and insurance offices: about three blocks worth. The San Jacinto Inn (I'm not going to help you with the pronunciation, but there is the right way and the Texas way) is a clean $40 a day place run by east Indians. A couple of jerks, canine and human, on the road today, and a simpatico older fellow in the parking lot of a supermarket who worked in the oil fields, here and in Canada. The bad news of the day is that it's going to continue to rain and get much colder; the good news is that tomorrow I will be far enough west of Houston to turn south. It's a four hour drive in the old guy's truck (he's maybe seventy) to Corpus Christi, which should be a six day ride.

November 26

I was hoping that Texas would be a place I could better relate to. I've been dealing with Texans since I was about eleven years old, and I'm comfortable with 'em, despite our differences. Hell, some of my best friends are Texans. I've even had some of 'em over to the house for dinner. Well, I'm sixty miles into Texas, and it hasn't worked out that way.
First, I immediately ran into the rural poverty I'd been expecting in the deep south, and had not seen until today. Obviously decrepit and barely livable houses surrounded by industrial junk, dogs, and trash. I had been wondering why I had not seen this, ever since I left Richmond, Virginia, and had nearly convinced myself that there has been an improvement in living standards in the rural South. Now I'm thinking that I haven't seen such poverty because Adventure Cycling avoids that kind of adventure: the poverty I have seen in Texas has been interspersed with outfits that are much better off.

Second, I've ridden on two kinds of roads: narrow, without paved shoulders, where the speed limit is sixty five and is exceeded by everyone, specially logging trucks, and four lane highways with wide, smooth, safe shoulders and heavy traffic. I did two samples of twenty each of the types of vehicles speeding past me on US 96 south, about 40 miles north of Belmont. In the first, there were thirteen pick-up trucks, two commercial trucks, and three SUVs. Two cars. In the second there was one SUV and four cars, the rest were pick-ups. Gas guzzling sons of bitches.

Third, most of the people I deal with in convenience stores, restaurants, and motels are from Cambodia and India. Nothing wrong with that. I was expecting Texans, There are many Texans around, but they are fellow customers, and not ready to relate to an old fart in shorts and weird shoes. Sixty miles is 6% of the distance I could travel across this state, so things could change, but I kinda doubt it.

Yesterday afternoon in Merryville, Louisiana (I'm not making this up), I waited in line to purchase my Budweiser behind a young fellow, tattooed and bearded, who was buying his groceries on credit, in yet another gas station-convenience store. The clerk was a man about forty-five or fifty, dark-skinned, probably of sub-continental origin, but without any discernable (to me) accent. As he totted up the young guy's purchases they were talking about Chicago. The young guy had gone up to Joliette to do some work. The clerk said, "Well, if you didn't get past Joliette, you didn't see Chicago."

"Joliette was Chicago enough for me," the young guy said. The clerk shrugged, finished their transaction, and rang up my beer.

"I lived in Chicago for four years," I told him.

"Oh?' Where did you live?"

"On Ashland. 7070 North Ashland."

"Seventeen North Ashland?"

"No, Seventy seventy. Up north, almost to Evanston."

"I lived at Ashland and Touhy," he said.

"I lived a block south of there."

"I spent all my life there," he said. There were other customers, the sun was beginning to set, and I needed to cook my supper by the remaining daylight. I would like to find out more about that man's life.

November 24

Rode about 60 miles and stayed behind the Library in Wye. Beauregard Parish is dry. Lights, dogs, traffic all night, but hey it was cheap, and I ended up sleeping very well.
November 25 Same as yesterday. Cold foggy morning which became 65 by 9:30 and the 70 by noon. I'm in Merryville, about 7 miles east of Texas, at the Historical Society's museum, wondering if Susan Quade will hear from her brother or the young woman in the grocery that I am camping here. If so she might come by and unlock the bathroom for me. Otherwise I'll have to do it in a leaf pile.

Reading through these entries I see how eager I have been to celebrate every kindness shown to me, no matter how predictable. Some of that is wistfulness, in the absence of true friendship, and some is whistling in the dark. I will be glad to get out of the deep south tomorrow. Texas is southern, certainly, but I've dealt with Texans since I was ten.
Kaplan makes logical predictions for the directions various segments of American society will take, or would have taken, from the mid '90's. And his work thus becomes a study in the futility of forecasting, beyond the immediate future. He says the car will remain dominant in the shape of urban growth, because there is an abundance of oil, but neglects global warming and the depletion of biomass as a result of urban sprawl. He predicts further fragmentation of cities, and overall social structure, as greed overpowers patriotism - he could not reasonably predict 9/11. The upsurge of patriotism might be confined to the working class, but it is universal there if a flag poll is an indicator of it, and I know that there is a resurgence of concern in the upper classes about the effects of the politics of oil, as it helps create Al Qaidas and ecological disasters. But greed, for wealth and its indicators, and the status and power attendant upon them, remains as the dominant motivator, and might negate the countervailing emotions generated by such concern.

November 23

Another fine day. Warmed up enough for me to ride in shorts and T shirt, by noon, for the first time since I left the Haas-Cienda. I’m in St. Landry parish, which declares itself the heart of Cajun country. There are stands of hardwoods, undergrown with sawtooth palmetto and interspersed with pools of muddy water: I take these to be bayous. But mostly what I've seen is highways, straight and flat, or curvy and flat, and huge farms. The roads, as everywhere else I've been from Richmond south, are lined with small frame houses, trailers, modest, and mostly new, brick houses, and 250,000 to 500,000 dollar homes. The big houses are closer to the towns, for the most part, but occasionally form enclaves of exurbia.

I'm in a motel for the fourth straight night. It has been too cold, or late, or dangerous, to camp. After I checked into the be-and-breakfast in St. Francisville I went for a walk through the city park next door, which would have been a good place to camp. And the mayor of Simmesport, whom I met in his hardware store where I got some Gorilla tape to repair my kitchen's cover, has offered his city's parks to cyclists on the Adventure Cycling route. And there is a campground five miles back on the route that I would have stayed in tonight, but the office was closed 'til three, at 1:30, and I'd as soon keep riding and pay 20 dollars more for a motel room. There is camping available in a city park here in Opelousas, but there are too many unfriendly and rough-looking dudes around. I've become a wimp. Those cold mornings did it.

If the weather warms up, as it looks like it might, I will keep pushing west to the Big Bend, and then to Ojinaga, and then southwest to Chihuahua. But if it gets cold again, I'll head south to Corpus Christi, but still going as far west of Houston as I can.

November 22

The Magnolia was closed. As I was walking back towards the St. Francisville Inn, looking for a place to eat or in which I could get information about such, I passed a barbershop. I needed a haircut. I went in, and there was a man in the chair and two waiting. I asked about restaurants, and they suggested several places, all of which were at least three miles away. The sun had set, it was close to 6:00 PM;

I explained that I was traveling by bicycle. They came up with a fried fish place about a block away. Not being the sharpest knife in the drawer, it did not occur to me that there might be significance in the fact that this was not one of the first four places recommended. I was about to leave and then asked the barber what time he closed, and he said six, and I said I'll wait. I sit down and they asked, and I told them, about my trip. The conversation turned to football, and I listened. I didn't know so much could be known by four men about football. It took the barber almost an hour to do two and a half haircuts: I noticed that he charged $10, and was given at least a two dollar tip. I listened carefully to their conversation, and enjoyed their humor, and their diction, but I still don't know much about football. When I got in the chair the barber and I were alone, and the conversation changed to the kinds of people I had met: he wanted to know who were the rudest. The rudest remark I had heard so for was from a girl in a car that had pulled up beside me at a stoplight in Poughkeepsie. She wanted to know if I had escaped from the old people's home. I told the barber about that. Then he wanted to know who had treated me the best. I told him about the people in the gas station in Baton Rouge, and told him that Dave had said it was a rough area. "Scotlandville?" the barber asked, and I said, that's right. I had already figured out, from his accent mainly, that he was Cajun, and when he recommended a place across the street, now closed, for lunch the next day if I liked spicy food, I said would that be Benoit's, pronouncing it ben-wah's, and told him that there were a lot of Acadians in Nova Scotia. That was news to him. He wanted to know about dangerous people next, and told me a story about a friend who had been accosted in Scotlandville, by a nigger, and I told him about being accosted by the guy outside the gas station, and the results of it, we talked about something else until he finished cutting my hair. I gave him a twenty and he gave me fifteen dollars change and wouldn't accept a tip.

You and I would be mistaken to draw universalistic conclusions from these anecdotes. But let me add one more, that occurred this afternoon, when I was doing my laundry in Simmesport, LA. The Laundromat was unstaffed and had no vending machine for soap. There were eight people in the place, four of them small boys and the other four really big, if not necessarily tall, women. Three of the women were black and the other was a Chicana. They were all talking loudly and angrily, to each other and the boys, except the Chicana who was talking loudly and angrily in Spanish on a cell phone. I interrupted one of the black women, the youngest, who was yelling at the two black boys, to ask where I could buy some soap. She said one of the other black women would sell me some, so I asked her. She was the oldest and the biggest. There was some discussion about what I was doing (just one load of wash) and how much soap powder I needed, and what machine I was going to use, and how come my clothes weren't in it, and she told the youngest black woman to put a cup of soap in my machine. And would not accept any payment for it. I said, "Oh, come on. I'd have to pay a dollar for that much if they had a machine in here," but she adamantly refused payment. I got today as far as I expected to. Tomorrow is thanksgiving.

November 21

I've fallen way behind, especially in the last ten days. Stopping early in the afternoon, staying two days at the Haas-Cienda, side trips to gulf Port and Baton Rouge for bike parts. And headwinds and hills for the last five days. I think my load is heavier - I've added that camp stove and I carry more food, and the clothes I bought yesterday - but then, I’ve lost at least fifteen pounds, so overall I'm probably moving less mass than I was when I left.

Today I indulged myself, again. Didn't get started till 10:10, when Dave finished up. Dave is a Viet Nam vet, Marine Corps, has a "W in '04" sticker on the back of his Volvo, was overflowing with caution about the criminality of the neighborhood I was staying in, and has fallen out with dubbya over the immigration issue (didn't know Bush had done anything to favor Hispanic immigration, but then, I'm deliberately avoiding that kind of input). And Dave is a hell of a nice guy. When he cautioned me about a certain neighborhood that I shouldn't ride through, I told him that I had stopped in a gas station (from now on, when I say gas station, understand that a convenience store will be attached, and there will be no hoists, mechanics, or any such greasy things) there to ask directions and was treated like royalty. He had no response to that. Then I told him about the crazy guy outside the store when I left, who was accosting everybody, shouting at them, wanting to know what was going on, what they were doing. He was in his twenties, a big guy, dressed in cool, expensive clothes, and when I was starting to get on my bike he begged for change from me. I was wearing sweats without pockets, and I patted myself and said I couldn't carry any money. He asked if I had been in the military, and I said a long time ago. Long time ago, he said, that's good, man, that's good. He was smoking a cigar. He made the brotherhood fist, straight on, which I joined with mine and we told each other to be cool. I'm no threat to anybody, nor is 5'6" stocky 58 year old Dave. Neither of us would have presented a physical challenge to this guy. But Dave might have had a different parting. You know I'm talking about a black neighborhood, and that the crazy guy was black, and that white Dave suffers from racism. But goddammit I still like the son-of-a-bitch.

So I rode north on Highway 61 to St. Francisville. Yes, that highway 61. The one Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf took, along with about 25,000 other black men in the late 1940's, walking, getting rides when offered, from the Mississippi Delta to the South Side of Chicago. To 65 th and Cottage Grove, the center of the South Side, two blocks from where my racist grandfather Joe McAbe owned a small apartment building, where he and his family lived, and where my parents met, in 1920, when blacks first settled there. Joe died before I was born. And now I'm in St. Francisville, a very pretty little town, that seems to have an inordinate number of snooty rich white women, and a funky bed-and breakfast, and some old houses and warmer weather, and one hell of a good used book store, where I bought a copy of An Empire Wilderness: Travels into America's Future, by Robert D. Kaplan, who, along with Tocqueville, Carrick, Steinbach, and William Least Heat-Moon, have made the trek through these loosely united states. And now I will further indulge myself with a supper at the Magnolia Café, highly recommended by Dave and another reactionary I met in the bookstore.

November 20

The neighbor got quiet as soon as the race ended. I was restless through the night, thinking that I would be cold, but I never was, except for my feet, which get cold as soon as I start pedaling, and never really warm up. Thing is, I hadn't noticed this until last night when I felt my feet and they felt very cold to my hands, but not to themselves. They feel warm to themselves in the sleeping bag.

Got up to a dry tent, had oatmeal and tea for breakfast, took a hot shower, and was on the road to Baton Rouge at 8:45. I need new tires for the trip into Mexico. My front tire is bald on the side on which I habitually stand on the pedal to give my poor bum some relief. Got give the other pedal equal time. I got on Highway 61 by 9:00, and I'm still on it at the Shades Motel, if not exactly in Baton Rouge then very close. I had visions of a lively city, with coffeehouses, bookstores, bars and cafes. Perhaps, somewhere, but not near the Shades. Macy's, Sears, Home Depot, Wendy's, MacD's, and of course Wal Mart, where I bought $32 of food and worried about the bike getting stolen.

I called Dave, of Dave's Bike Repairs about a pair of new tires. But first I had gone to Academy Sports (remember them from Gulf Port) to see what they might have. I felt that my disappointment in their selection of camp stoves had prejudiced me towards what else they might offer. It did, and rightfully. The guy who recommended them said that they were the Wal-Mart of sporting goods, and he nailed it. They have nothing worth using. Except, I hope, clothes, because I bought a pair of jeans and a belt. My old ones are too big, no matter how much I eat. Anyway, Dave has the tires I want and will bring them to the motel early tomorrow morning and put them on the bike. He works by appointment, and does long tours alone whenever he can. Meanwhile the weather remains cold, and the wind out of the northwest. I'll settle for that if the alternative is tornados.

November 19

A cold, clear, pleasant uneventful day. Narrow hilly roads without shoulders, but also without traffic. Rode on obscure deserted rough roads through some mysterious woods, and not so mysterious fields. Lots of cattle being raised in this area, which is along the Mississippi-Louisiana border, east of the big muddy. I should ask the people I talk with what they do for a living. Camped tonight at the Happy Acres, or maybe Green Acres campground, listening to a Neighbor's television set, which is too loud, broadcasting a NASCAR race, and his even louder commentary.

November 18

Left Franklinton at seven thirty and got to Easleyville at eleven thirty, about thirty-five miles. Stopped because there is a campground here, and a store, and there is no place on the map, the Adventure Cycling map, for shelter for another fifty miles, which I could not do on flat ground with a tail wind before dark. I need the security of knowing that a campground or a motel are at the end of my day. If I see someplace where I could safely camp for free before I get there, so much the better.

I need to get out more. I'm stuck on my bicycle seven or eight hors a day, and when I do take time off from riding, I type. I've got most of the journal transcribed, and I going to try to make the new entries directly on the laptop. The morning I spent walking around Wilmington was a relief. I am still concerned about the weather though. It has been just at the freezing point these last two days, and as I need to get to Austin, which is higher and further north and twelve days away, to get new tires for the bike, before I head south again, I can expect colder weather. Riding in cool weather is fine, but I hate having to force myself out of my warm bed to put on cold clothes and shiver.

Louisiana does the best job I've seen in road signage. The roads might not have adequate shoulders, and they might need repair, but it would be hard to get lost. There are a few patches of wilderness along these back roads, but precious few. I get depressed riding through ten and fifteen mile stretches of clearcutting. And most of the "woods" that is standing has been planted. Neat rows of pine trees all the same age, no stand more than twenty years old. We can do better than this. We must do better than this. I try not to preach, but I would say to these loggers, and paper mill owners, and contractors, That while we will always need lumber and paper, we could get by with less than a tenth of what we now use if we built with stone and adobe, and banished paper towels and unnecessary packaging and newspaper and magazine advertizing.

A great deal of my malaise is caused by seeing so much that I see is killing this beautiful planet, and I imagine that those witnessing this crime are smug in the comfort they are provided by it.

November 17

It hadn't occurred to me until last night in Franklinton that I can cook in motel rooms. It is not the safest thing to do, and I should be evicted if I'm caught at it, but it saves money, and I get the food I need. Today I rode through a huge area that has been devastated by clear cutting, leaving grey soil and the debris of the woods that were demolished. We can, we must, do better than this. So much is ruined by greed.

November 16

I had bent the hanger of the rear deraileur by trying to get my loaded bike onto the Haas- Cienda stage, and it would skip from one gear to another no matter how I tried to adjust the cable tension. I stopped on the side of a deserted back road, and was about to go to work on it when a man on an ATV came out of his lane, followed by two big dogs, who commenced barking at me. He asked what was wrong, and said that he rides a bike, and offered me the use of his shop. We went back to his house and hoisted the rear of the bike off the ground and tied off the front end so the bike would stay upright, and I straightened the hanger as best I could with a pair of his channel-lock pliers. His help was efficient and wise. I didn't have much faith in my repair job, and thought I should get to a bike shop. He knew of a good bike shop about twenty miles south of there, and called them to get exact directions. He was about 70, and said he had worked in Saudi Arabia, and wanted to know what my career had been. There was a good café down the road, he said, where he often had lunch, and we agreed to meet there.

I got on the paved road again, and started for the café, which was on the way to the bike shop, but off the Adventure Cycling route, and the bike was shifting just fine, and staying in gear. It was only 10:15, and I didn't feel like hanging around the café for an hour and a half waiting for him, so I got back on the route and rode into Louisiana. I regret standing him up, and if he should someday read this I hope he forgives my bad manners.

November 15

I stayed another day at Haas-Cienda, catching up on this journal and waiting for the wind to die down. The sky cleared in the afternoon. Heather serves a good, standard breakfast, and I had the makings of a lunch. She told me there was a bomb shelter under the restaurant, where she and her kids would go if there was a tornado warning. I like to think that somebody would have made the effort to invite me.

November 12

Cold this morning, and stayed cool past noon. I was joined, shortly after I entered Mississippi by a man named Tim, who was riding a road bike, out for exercise. We rode together for ten or more miles, riding beside each other and conversing when traffic would allow. He does design work on AutoCAD for a shipbuilding company, and is Cajun, from the Lafayette area. He has two daughters, both university students, and a wife who also rides. It was good to have company for forty-five minutes or so.

I had thought, when I started planning this trip, that I would cook my meals on a stove I made by drilling forty holes around the sides of a gallon paint can, in which I would burn scraps of wood that I gathered from the roadside. That never happened. The only time I used that stove I gathered deadfall in the Islands Provincial Park. As punishment for removing those sticks, which should have been allowed to rot and help form soil, my stove overheated and I permanently blackened my pan. It is also hard to find the ingredients for a meal except in supermarkets. Country stores, as I have observed, are mainly convenience stores. I carried Sterno as a backup for the paint can, but Sterno is inadequate. It will not produce enough heat to cook a meal.

I ate cold food for five weeks, and then, may the saints of ecology forgive me, I went to a Wal-Mart in Suffolk and bought a Coleman one-burner gasoline stove. I've had it for a month, and I've spent $1.04 on fuel. Now I will buy an onion and a green pepper (bell pepper down here) a can of diced tomatoes with green chilies, a can of meat or a package of shrimp or fake crab, and whatever other veggies might appeal to me, and cook it all up in a 9" skillet with a folding handle (also from Wal-Mart).I have a pie pan that doubles as a plate and a lid for the skillet. Breakfast is oatmeal laced with trail mix and 12 oz of tea. Lunches are whatever I can get in stores along the road, but I keep bagels and trail mix for those times when there aren't any stores.

I leave a great deal of trash. It all goes into trashcans or dumpsters, but I produce much more than I would at home. And half of the trash I produce at home goes into blue bags or a green cart.

I help further global warming by staying in motels: towels and sheets get laundered after one use , heat or air conditioning in poorly insulated rooms is wasteful, and so is running a gallon and a half of water out of a tap before it warms up enough for a shower.

To my credit, I stay in motels less than a quarter of the time, and I use electricity only
for this laptop and to recharge my cell phone.

November 14

I have been trying, on this trip, not to think in nor speak nor write with pejoratives. They are symptomatic of hindrances to right mindfulness. But riding through this section of Mississippi in the last two days about half the dwellings I've seen have been trailers, and from their (sizable) lots have issued all three of the pickups I've seen with Confederate flags pasted on their rear windows. I've been chased by five or six dogs that came out of their yards. "Trailer trash" arose in my mind and would not be suppressed. Nor would Dawn's story of the riposte to a poor southern lady's observation that AIDS is God's means of punishing gays: "Yeah? Well tornados are God's way of punishing trailer trash."

This campground is populated by the occupants of about 15 RVs, who live here year-round, and work in the woods and in construction. They drive pickups and own dogs. The campground has an office that is crowded and cramped because it doubles as the office for a construction company that many of these guys work for. There is a tiny and very clean swimming pool next to the office, and a laundry, and primitive, dimly lit, clean bathrooms with showers. And a little restaurant that seats about ten. Brock had told me about the restaurant and Heather who runs it, and recommended it, "If you like home cookin'" I had supper there yesterday. Meat loaf, rice with gravy, baked beans, pan rolls, and chocolate cake, for $7.00. (The campsite cost $10) Kids were in and out, as were some of the guys, but I was the only one eating that early. There was a big TV in the corner, with an interview with and videos of Reba McIntyre.

Heather is a good-looking woman in her early thirties, the mother of at least two of the kids, and she treats me, like she does everybody, with generosity and humor. A big guy comes in, asks about what's for supper, and is worried about his runaway dog and the weather. Heather switches the TV to the weather channel, and on the map is a big, bright red section centered on Poplarville, surrounded by a bigger orange section, which is surrounded by a bigger yellow section, and the meteorological expert is telling us that while only 42% of tornados hit at night they account for 57% of tornado-caused deaths. There is a tornado watch in effect from New Orleans to Mobile and from the Gulf Coast to northern Mississippi, with the area in red having the highest probability.

Heather becomes pensive. The big guy says, "Hell, tornado watch ain't that bad. Now if it was tornado warning, that means somebody saw one and you can kiss your ass goodbye." A little later Heather shows one of her kids where they used to live, in South Carolina, on the weather map, and says, "They don't have this kind of weather there. We got rain, sure, from hurricanes, but not this kind of stuff." A little later the big guy's dog came to the door and his return was celebrated. When I paid for the meal Heather's mood was cheerful again. At sunset I was pensive, but snug in my tent. By 9:00 it was raining and the wind was blowing, hard.

Sociologists have observed a fatalism common to what they call the lower classes, in regard mainly to their powerlessness, and summed up in the expression, "You can't fight city hall."

I shared that fatalism last night. My alternative for shelter was a bed-and-breakfast in town. I, and all my gear, would have been soaked if I had tried to get there, and I didn't know that it would be any safer. Here, at least my tent was sheltered from the rain. I was vulnerable to a tornado, along with Heather and her children, the rest of the people living in this campground, and all the people who live in trailers in the red area of the weather map. The lightning, thunder, rain and wind were fierce last night. Sheltered as it was, the rain reached my tent, and it would have blown away had it not been weighted down by me and my gear. I waited for the noise of a nearby fast freight, which is what I've been told a tornado sounds like. I was fearful, but calm, accepting the outcome of my decisions. Too many good people get called "trailer trash".

November 13

On Dauphin Island and in many other campgrounds I have seen tenters arrive in their pickup trucks or SUVs, fully loaded with all kinds of "camping" gear. The idea seems to be to visit Wal-Mart and buy as much as will fit into your vehicle, drive a couple of hundred miles to a state park, and set up all the gear. There was a woman at Dauphin Island, camping with her two young daughters. Each had her own tent, each of which was larger than mine, and each of which was filled with an air mattress inflated by a noisy 12-volt pump connected to the giant SUV's cigarette lighter. She struggled to erect, in addition to the tents, a 12-foot square collapsible pavilion, but gave up, letting its frame and sagging cloth roof eat up space. Darkness was encroaching, I had cooked and eaten my supper, and brushed my teeth, and ready to get into my tent and sleeping bag, and she was still assembling chairs and yelling at her kids. I'm not really all that different. I just can't carry as much. When I was fifteen we used to spend summer weekends on a small lake in northern New Mexico. Five of us with all our gear (sleeping bags, fishing tackle, and a box of food) fit into a '49 Ford.

Today, near Perkinston, Miss., I met Brock, a man eight years younger than me, who is riding the same route that I am, in the opposite direction. He started riding in San Diego, will go to St. Augustine, and then to South Carolina to visit a daughter who is in university. He too is pulling a BOB, and has all of his gear in it. His load is half of what mine is. He has a tent and uses it much more than I do mine. He is a very nice guy, and we talked for twenty minutes on the highway. He was surprised that I have been lonesome and homesick; he is thoroughly enjoying his excursion. A storm was brewing, and he suggested the Haas-Cienda campground in Poplarville, Miss., where I am now, safely out of the oncoming rain, with my tent pitched on the campground's stage, which is roofed over and walled on the south and west sides.

November 11

The excursion is boy scouts, with a few cubs. Met the scout leaders this morning. They took an enthusiastic interest in my gear and my trip, and took my picture, and had me address the troop. It was kinda neat to be offered as a role model. I rode this morning through increasingly bad weather to Bayou le Batre, where I ducked into a motel.

November 10

Well, it was a beautiful place, and quiet, except for one campsite of university students who had visitors until 1:30 AM. They weren't very loud, just loud enough. At one point I heard someone say, "I'm reading my script," and I thought, oh no not drama students. There was a family camped across the way from me that I think were living in the campground. Three kids aged 10 to 17, and their parents. They were gone all day, but their tents (2) were pitched and laundry was hung out to dry. They came "home" at sunset as I was getting into my tent, and were gone again this morning before 8:00. I was on the road by ten, and soon into Alabama, on the Gulf Coast Highway, a hot, flat, boring ride, with Luxury high-rises on my left and fast food outlets on my right for twenty or more mile. Took a ferry to Dauphin Island, which has a cheap community-owned campground where I am ensconced amid an excursion of some sort, involving a dozen or so teenage boys.

November 9

This is too good to be true. I'm sitting in the shade, and glad for it, at the picnic table for my campsite in Big Lagoon (Florida) State Park. The sky is perfectly clear. There is a light breeze, and I'm surrounded by sand and pine trees. Pensacola Naval Air Station is about 3 miles west. When I rode past it this morning I saw two flights of 3 planes each take off in formation. They were WWII vintage prop planes. I'm thinking Grumman AT6's, and the Blue Angels flying them. The campground will fill this afternoon, with people getting a good location to watch an air show this weekend.

Last night I spent $83 on a motel room, having run out of options. I should say that I ran myself out of options by riding past urban sites next to or behind supermarkets or banks. Somehow I could not generate the will to sneak. So I went to bed feeling guilty, and slightly depressed, and doubtful of my ability to get from breakfast to lunch in Mexico, given my very limited Spanish. Not the best ingredients for a good night's sleep. Add two more pints of beer than what I should have had (for a total of 4) and a cold supper cobbled together from items available in a limited convenience store, and you got trouble. At 2:00 AM, wide awake, I got on the net and searched for Buddhism in Alabama. Surprisingly there is a lot of Buddhist activity in Huntsville. Surfed a little more and found a document about meditating in the moment, which was defined as essentially being aware of the emotions, and examining them, rather than act on them, as they occur. Sound advice, for me, in this time. And now to transcribe.

November 8

I've got my dates mixed up, and I've lost a day somehow. It rained all morning after I left Ponce de Leon ,and by noon my gear and I were soaked. Got a motel room in Crestville where I dried out. Two months today. Am I a changed man? I am a lighter man. 168 lbs, dressed lightly, in a supermarket here. But a supermarket scale sho' ain't gonna tell you you fat, 'less it has to. I decided that I must be starving myself, so after I finished my more than adequate motel room supper I went across the street and got a hamburger and a milk shake at McDonald's. God, I am so ashamed!

I got an email yesterday from Al Heuback of the Lunenburg Bike Barn, congratulating me on not having any flat tires on the bike so far. I've had two on the BOB trailer, but those are easy to fix. And the morning I left Crestville I got a flat on the rear wheel of the bike. I was close to a gravel company, and used a sink in their office, having convinced the pretty little secretary that I wouldn't damage anything, to find the holes (3of them - used the last of my patches). Fixed it, got everything back together, rode five miles and it went flat again. But there was a woman on a lawn tractor mowing the grass next to the highway, and she offered to help. I took the tube out and pumped it up and dunked it in her rain barrel to find the leak (she had patch material) and then remembered that I was carrying a new tube. But the old one wasn't leaking. A glitch in the valve, I guess. There was a bike shop in the next town, where I got the tires rotated and the derailleur tuned up, and I headed for Pensacola at two thirty.

November 7

I've ridden past an awful lot of small stores in small towns that will never open again, due to urban sprawl. And for the same reason, many of the people who work in the gas station/convenience stores that have replaced the old country stores do not know very much about the area in which they are working. Customers in such places are often the best people to ask for directions. I was in one of the surviving country stores today, a grocery and fishing tackle store with a great butcher counter. I bought my lunch and supper there, a basketful of things, which came to $16.50 (which is the main reason urban sprawl has killed off such places - it's cheaper to drive twenty miles to do your shopping). I had been told by clear-eyed 35-year-old overweight blonde outside the store that the lady at the counter inside had lived here all her life and would know where to find a campground. This is in Ponce de Leon, population 435, eleven miles east of Defuniac Springs and 67 miles west of Sneads.
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I browsed through the store, pleasantly surprised that they had stuff like the steak, frozen gumbo veggies, olive oil, and diced tomatoes with green chilis, which became my supper, which I eat as I write. There were six to eight other men in there, many of them talking volubly about fish. The largest and loudest of these guys came up as I was waiting in line, and wanted to push in to the counter with his two loaves of white bread and four bananas. I wasn't going to let him in ahead of me. I was tired, it looked like it would rain (still does) and I needed information fast from that lady at the cash. The ol' boy compromised by saying, "I'll just put these here for now," and placing his stuff on the counter. Hell, I could have held that stuff for a week, and he was bigger and stronger than me.

When the lady at the cash, who was probably the Agnes for whom the store is named, had hurriedly rung up my stuff, bagged it, and given me my change I asked about campgrounds. She knew about the one on my map, but didn't seem to have a high opinion of it. "But," she said, people camp up here behind the city hall. They got water and restrooms and picnic tables."

So that's where I am. As comfortable as anywhere I've camped on this trip, lacking only hot water, but I had a shower this morning at three rivers.

November 5

The country around here is much hillier that what I've become accustomed to. Chatahoochee sits on a really high hill. Another uneventful day. Just riding and stopping at stores once in a while. Didn't strike up any conversations. I'm a couple of miles north of Sneads in the Three Rivers State Park, another beautiful site. An uneventful life ain't bad.

November 4

Tallahassee. Rode too far, got here too late, and had no option but to pay way too much for a room because there is a Seminoles game tonight. Had a late breakfast in a diner packed with good ol' boys who turned out to be good people. And that was the highlight of my day.

November 3

I spent last night at the Suwanee River State Park, about 60 miles west of Tallahassee. There were four men tenting in the campsite next to mine, who complained to each other and anyone else who would listen (not me - I was comfy in my warm sleeping bag reading a novel) about how cold it was. Made me feel kinda smug when I got out my tent at 2:00 AM, dressed in my boxer shorts and shoes, to have a leak.

November 2

A hot day, but I covered some ground. From Hawthorne to Gainsville I rode on a paved rail-to-trail. Took an hour and a half to ride through Gainsville where I hoped to find, but never did, the 42nd St. Deli, that two girls who had been jogging on the trail told me about. I finally settled for a convenience store lunch on the edge of town. Rode from there to High Springs where I hit a supermarket for supper goods. As I was leaving the parking lot a woman asked me if I needed a home. I laughed and said, "No. But thanks for the offer." Rode from there to the Ichetucknee State Park, expecting a State Campground. There wasn't one, but there was a very pretty, deserted private one. I tried calling the office with my cell phone while standing in front of it, and a lady answered but she couldn't hear me. So I tried the door, and it opened into a bar with three pool tables, and nobody around. Above the bar were living quarters, which I hailed, and got no response. Nobody out back either. I started to leave, but I met a woman on a bicycle on the road, who said the campground ought to be open. Her name is Linda, and she is a neighbor of Olive, who owns the campground. We went back to the campground and she hollered for Olive but got no response. She suggested that I set up camp, and pay Olive when she showed up, which I did. By the time I went to bed I still had seen nothing of Olive, but a truck came in and unloaded six canoes. The guys in it waved when they came in and waved when they left, and there was still nobody asking me to pay for my campsite. The next morning I got everything packed up, tried the office once more, and was about to ride away when Olive hailed me. She was on a balcony of the living quarters, wearing a towel. She said the doctors had told her to stay in bed, which is why she didn't answer me the night before. We talked about Mexico, where she wants to retire. She didn't charge me anything for the campsite.

November 1

After two days of typing (and drinking beer) at the Ramada Inn, I'm back on the road. Had an easy eighty-mile ride, which ended at the Ranch Motel and Campground, one mile south of Hawthorne, Florida. This is the worst campground I've been in yet. It is bordered by US 301, a four-lane highway, on the west and the CSX Railroad tracks on the east. Activity that looks like dealing going on amongst the trailers. While I was eating supper a dude came by to tell me he walks his dawgs at night and don't let them bother me. He's carrying a 16 oz can of Miller's. Tried some of that at South Port. It's still lousy beer. I said I hope I don't bother them. He said have a good night and I said you too. He said, "Always do."

Florida, on the backroads and backstreets I've ridden through, remains beautiful.