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.