The onshore wind collapsed my tent with me inside and I had to laugh aloud as I struggled to dress and assemble my gear while I was in it. I had no hope of lighting my propane burner, so had coffee at the bar and grill with the old gal that ran it. Nobody else was there, but being Friday, she was hopeful things would liven up a bit in the sleepy hollow of Matagorda by the time evening falls.

Hwy 521 to Freeport for groceries and a weather update from one of the customers who warned me of a big storm that was blowing through this evening with lots of rain. It should pass quickly, they say, but it is not the kind of stuff for tent campers such as I.

Still going east. Freeport had a Dow Chemical plant that was big and smelled funny. I held my breath as long as I could while passing through it, and thought of the people who lived and worked there but did not have the option.

And then there are the refineries. Port Arthur notable among them. What an enormous facility! The inland channels were chock a block with oil tankers waiting to unload their crude, and of course the entire continent waits at the fuel pumps to load the refined product. Gas here is less than $1 per litre.

Traffic on the Intracoastal waterways

But I am ahead of myself. I followed the coast along the sandbar islands including Galveston Island. It is attached by a bridge to Houston but I reached it from a bridge attached to another sandbar island to the west.

Endless beaches at Galveston

Galveston. Go ahead—don’t sing that song to yourself. I dare you!

Glen Campbell’s dulcet refrains of that famous song rolled around in my mind until I wished I could floss my brain. Indeed there were sea waves crashing, sea winds blowin’, sea birds flyin’ and all the rest of it, but if he was talking about ‘hills where we used to run’, well I’ll tell you what (say the good ol’ boys) —the elevation is about two feet above sea level. Get real, Glen.

Sandbar islands that define the shoreline

For that reason, and in consideration of the big storms that punish these shores at regular intervals, all of the houses along this coast are built on stilts. At Galveston the houses are perched especially high off the ground. In 1900 “The Big Storm” as it is affectionately known here, devastated the place forcing a complete rebuild in the aftermath. All along the coast there is evidence of past storms that have ripped off roofs, siding, toppled structures, thrown cars in marshes, etc. and they have been abandoned rather than restored. Hurricane Ike of 2008 the most recent and second only to Katrina in damage caused, was a category 2 when it reached Galveston.

And then The Bruiser carried us over the border to Louisiana! 

Not a Stetson or a set of horns on the grill of a pickup anywhere in sight.  Where the ground in Texas is dry and dusty, in Louisiana it is all swampland. It’s The Bayou, dontcha know.

The bayou! Looks a lot like a swamp.

If you were born on the bayou, you might have been spawned here.

The first two meals of the day somehow got missed and I was started to fade late in the afternoon, so I stopped at a little food joint at the roadside at Creole and ordered me up an oyster burger, even although fresh crawdads were available, this being Friday and all.

I caught a ferry from Galveston to Bolivar Peninsula, and then another short one across the river to Cameron, LA. Lots of camping opportunities on the long expanse of beach, but that threatening storm that I keep seeing over my left shoulder kept me moving. When I reached Lake Charles I started investigating motel rooms. Parked outside the Comfort Inn where the heartless management demanded an outrageous sum from a poor retired teacher on fixed income—the sky suddenly split open. Curtains of rain fell with sensational forked lightning for added drama. It didn’t actually pass, but when it finally let up a bit I fished out my raingear and headed off down the freeway (in the wrong direction) in search of a more reasonable hotel I had located on my ipod. When I finally sorted it out and made a few of my vintage U-turns (my family will understand) I arrived at a great little motel where I was invited to park The Bruiser under the awning outside my door. Civilized people, these.

After almost 5500 miles I reckoned it was time to do some laundry. I washed my favourite brown shirt in the sink only to find that I don’t actually own a brown shirt.

Wifi and lots of time to surf afforded me the chance to book ahead for New Orleans for Sunday night. I’ll have to find something to do tomorrow (Saturday) since the city is fully booked on the prime days of the weekend.

2012 is election year in the U.S. and every office is up for grabs, from senator seats to sheriff, from school superintendents to judges, and there are campaign signs everywhere. Without knowing anything about anybody, I do have a hunch that some names will suffer a paucity of X’s owing to their unfortunate names. Schlitzlinger, Gay, “Skippy” Jones, Cheatem, and Dullard are finished before they start. Don Cherry will probably do OK, but Steve Harper… I don’t know.

 I have been riding hard and not finding many wifi spots, so I am behind a day or two.

Heading out of Del Rio I needed groceries and a place to do the wifi thing. As luck would have it there was a WalMart with a McDonalds attached, and right across the street a motorcycle shop with a front tire in stock to fit The Bruiser with the added bonus of having available time to put it on right now. We have been studying that front wheel and agreed that it is time for a new rubber boot. Lickety split it all got done for a good price and we were on the road by 10:00. Unfortunately it is a blackwall rather than the original whitewalls but it really wasn’t worth waiting a week for one to come in. So the socks don’t match. We’re OK with that.

Dry, flat Texas greened up towards what is called Hill Country. For an extra thrill the roads got curly too. So with the nice new treads and The Bruiser juiced up with 93 octane as a special treat we tried on some curves. These roads are called the Twisted Sisters, a Mecca for bikers in the area. We liked it a lot.

So, maybe it’s finally time to talk about riding the corners.

After riding for over 40 years, I learned something interesting on a ride through Oregon last summer. I learned how to steer. That is not to say that I rode in straight lines during all that time, but steering a bike—a big bike—is different from steering a car or a bicycle. In fact, since I got The Bruiser almost 5 years ago I was kind of frustrated that I could not take sharp corners at decent speed. So here it what I learned.

I’m not really certain what it is that we do to steer a bicycle or turn a motorbike around gentle turns. I still don’t. It just kind of happens on its own without thinking. Likely we just lean our bodies and that makes the wheel turn the way we want to go.  But on a bike with considerably more mass than the rider, leaning our bodies doesn’t have to same kind of effect, so sharp turns are tricky. “So,” as my old math prof used to say, “vat to do?”

Unbelievably, one turns the handbar in the opposite direction to the intended turn. It’s true. This is called ‘counter steering’. There is a gyroscopic principle involved, but never mind that. It works and it is a powerful tool for turning sharply at high speed. When negotiating a right turn, one actually pulls the handlebar back with the left hand, causing the right hand to dip and the bike to lean sharply to the right. Imagine a steering wheel that you turn the opposite way to your intended turn. The beauty of this is how it allows great precision in controlling how sharply you want the bike to turn at any point during the maneuver.

This is coupled with another principle which has metaphoric as well as pragmatic value. We have a tendency to move in the direction that our eyes are looking. In a driving context (this is also true of cars), if you are careening around a sharp corner and your eyes are fixed on a pothole, tree or oncoming car in the other lane, you will invariably hit it. So the trick is to lift your eyes and look at the line that you want to follow. Don’t look at where you are or focus on the pothole you don’t want to fall into, look at where you want to go. If you have the necessary skill sets, your body will follow.

I leave it to the reader to consider some metaphorical contexts where the same principle applies. I will tell you that it has come up many times in my work with student teachers who get paralyzed in the moment and stumble, and I think of it often myself when I am working through a problem, a plan, a presentation, or a conversation. Look ahead at where you want to go rather than fix on the current problem and the rest will follow.

This is the heart of Texas. Lots of big talk, big hats, big trucks, big ranches and big ideas. There a recurring wild west theme that shapes the culture and the architecture. And that is just fine—we all live in and recreate our cultural icons and symbols. But I guess I struggle a bit with the authenticity of it. A fabricated steel hitching post outside a post office doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. All of the original structures have either decayed and are lost, or else they have been preserved and restored and are now the sites of a big commercial display. After all this time it is difficult to find something old, natural and still functional. At least in North America. But is certainly not true of Europe or other parts of the Old World. Why is that?

Everything is big in Texas. Why, this is called a Texas Shorthorn.

We look for Utopia all our lives. Who knew it was in central Texas! 

Regrettably, I turned east and missed it.

My interactions with Texans so far have been very limited, but my impression is not of effusive friendliness. It is not unfriendly, just… indifferent. Eye contact or smiles with strangers are uncommon although for the most part they respond kindly to an invitation to chat. One young hitchhiker at the roadside earlier today was waving nicely to all the passing cars as he held out his hopeful thumb, but sadly I fear the poor bugger is still standing there. 

Now, it may well be that I am the one who does not appear approachable, what with the grizzled grey beard and black leathers and all. That is entirely possible.

There IS a kind of an attitude here, don't you think?

Pausing at one small town for gas, a rest and a snack I ventured into a biker saloon to use the restroom. Let me tell you it was scary in there! Luckily I had the foresight to park my Japanese bike a block away. The town had about a dozen businesses—three of them were bars, and one was a taxidermy. Walls are festooned with the ghoulish, disembodied heads of hapless forest creatures. I skeedaddled lest I became another one of them.

If they tell you to "get Stuffed" in Campwood;, Texas, take it as a hint to get out of there.

It is a place of inconsistency. A shop will have a display of religious books written to give guidance for families, self awareness, bible study and things of the like. On the rack literally right beside it is a display of demonic teeshirts with images and horrifying slogans that would make a sailor wince. Two bumper stickers on the same car: One "Radio Station KLMN, Love and Encouragement" and the other: "I'll have my Gun, My Freedom (and something else... I forget) And You can Keep the "Change'".

Guns, God and Old Glory are the central symbols and there is no apparent contradition.

Is a river still a river if it has a channel, a name, bridges over it and not a lick of water?

Just wondering. But there are lots of those down here. Maybe that is what made the west wild in the first place—just too damned hot and dry. That will make you wild after a while. Little did I think that before the end of the day I would be swimming in one of them. Guadeloupe River State Park is about 50 miles from San Antonio and the river is cool, restoring, and wet.

WATER! And a place to swim and beat the heat.

As I write this on my little picnic table, swarms of fireflies are blinking in the darkness. I would say that the evening is still and serene, but for the swarm of elementary school kids screaming and chasing one another through the campground. They are on a field trip that has many worthy curricular intentions, I am certain. They are nice kids, very entusiastic and have a ready smile for me. But I am plugged into my little ipod, the blues are blissful and really, all is right with the world.

 THE NEXT DAY

The kids settled down quite early. What woke me up was a skittering and then some loud quarrelling outside my tent. I rushed out with my flashlight to catch a couple of raccoons making off with a bag of food that I carelessly left on the table. They would have gotten away with it if they hadn’t start fighting over it. All I retrieved that I really needed was my little coffee maker. That would be a tragic loss as I am quite useless without my morning coffee.

A few of the towns in this area north of San Antonio have a German flavour to them, owing to the early settlement. It still has the wild west theme as well, so it makes for a curious architecture. I especially liked the little town of Gruene.

Me and the Bruiser girded our respective loins again and hauled down the freeway to San Antonio, less than about 50 miles away. One easy exit and we were right in the part of the city that I came to see. Three bucks to park on the street (in a space that a car would never fit into) right by the entrance to the famous Riverwalk. The meandering river has been beautifully developed with a promenade on both sides, hotels, restaurants, shops, bars, you name it. And is it ever cool! It is like a little Venice. I chose to walk the circuit rather than take the little tour boat just because I really need the exercise.

The Riverwalk--a little Venice in San Antonio

Right next door to the Riverwalk is the site of the famous Alamo. The battle was fought in the mid 1800’s between a small number of Texans stationed there and a large number of Mexican/Spanish who wanted them gone. The outcome was predictable, (at least in the short term) but the bravery of those 80 men is highly praised. Jim Bowie (the guy with the knife) and Davie Crockett were two of the more famous of this squad. A fair amount of the original walls and buildings remain and of course many of the artifacts are on display.

Remember the Alamo!

I had a thoroughly satisfying cruise through the area, and then a somewhat less enjoyable time trying to locate The Bruiser when I emerged back on to the contorted streets. But we are together again and all is well. A very helpful woman stepped up and made some intelligent suggestions that panned out for me. Coincidently, I met her in traffic 20 minutes later and we shared an unheard laugh.

My goal is to reach New Orleans by my scheduled turnaround time on Monday (four weeks in, then four weeks back). Requires that I scurry periodically, and after my planned stop at San Antonio, this was scurrying time. Today was my longest leg so far at over 500 km. I did stop to enjoy cruising slowly through some of the towns that have an historical flavour, and actually that is quite a few of them. Goliad and Edna were two in particular. The building facades have embossed dates between the 1880’s and early 1900’s.

Goliad. Notice the store on the right advertizing furniture, coffins and caskets

As I approached the Gulf Coast the land flattened out, rivers and streams filled with water and some lakes appeared. There is lots of agriculture on these fertile coastal plains, and finally the cowboys are replaced by fishermen. We are camped tonight on the beach at Matagorda. The sun set like a fireball and the lovely marine scented breeze (and it is a stiff one) is blowing onshore. Again I had to chase after my tumbleweed tent rolling over the dunes.

And guess who was waiting for me to get up this morning?

Hey Rocky--you up yet? Relax, Boys. He's just sleeping.

With the tent fly removed I had a clear view of the starry sky all evening just like sleeping in the Planetarium. All the birdie sounds silenced after sunset, then the mammals started up. Javelina were oinking and squealing in the bush behind me, and one lone coyote was wailing for his wayward pack. And then some fuzzy tailed tree rat made a series of chatters like a squirrel every five seconds (I timed the little bugger) for hours on end. I wanted to throttle him, until another of his species got tired of it too and they had a spirited conversation about that until he finally shut his nut trap.

A road runner sprinted across the campground but I had no better luck squeezing off a picture of him than Wiley Coyote ever had hitting him with an Acme cannonball.

Today was a relocation day. I blew through typical west Texas backdrop along a laser straight road. Traffic was so light it was unusual to meet a vehicle. Motorbikes were at least equal in number to cars. The only town of interest I encountered between Big Bend and Del Rio on Hwy 385 and 90 was Langtry, the home of the famous Judge Roy Bean. Roy Bean was a saloon keeper in the town who was appointed Justice of the Peace for the region. His responsibility was to establish order and deal some justice west of the Pecos River. He had just a single book of statutes to follow which he purportedly never read, and dispensed justice on the porch of his saloon before a live studio audience. Every offense was punishable by fine, which he would put in his pocket. He named the town after Lilly Langtry, starlet of the 1890’s by whom he was quite smitten. 

The saloon/courthouse is preserved in its original state.

As it was...

... as it is.

 In Langtry when you appeared before the bar, you appeared before the bar.

Finally The Bruiser has had an oil transfusion. Considering the high running temperatures I used a thicker grade, and he now purrs like a big cat. If he could turn around and lick my face I am certain that he would.

We are the sole occupants of a campground at the Amistad reservoir near Del Rio. Just as I was unpacking I heard a roar across the campground, and looked up to see the biggest dust devil I have ever encountered. It tore through the centre of the campground in a fury of noise and swirling dirt, picked up a garbage can from the site across the lane and pitched it 60 feet towards me as it followed the road out. My maps went flying but it otherwise missed me. Ha!

Noodles, beans and canned fish are getting tiresome. It is time to eat something green. Old cheese doesn’t count.

Today was the shortest mileage yet covered, but in many other ways it was the greatest distance.

Flowering prickly pear cactus lined the roadway east. I heard tell there was a hot spring down there somewhere and sure enough a sign announced it, indicating a gravelly road for about 2 miles. The Bruiser, as you know, is not fond of these sorts of roads, believing he is regally bread for smooth pavement rather than the dirt trails reserved for the common off-roaders (no offense intended, Gerbie! He just doesn't know better). So we had a little talk about that and he is a trooper. It was kind of like dressing up a hippo in spandex and sending him off to run a steeplechase, but we did just fine. The trick is to be light on the grips and not fight the tendencies to twitch off course. The horse knows how to navigate the trail better than the rider.

The road in

Abandoned bathhouses and stores marked the entrance to the hot spring trail. This was a very popular place a century ago. With the right marketing this could have been another Harrison Hot Springs.

And much longer than that, one would presume from evidence of the odd petroglyph and pictogram etched on the rock. One information sign suggested an age of 1000 B.C. for this one that depicts spear points, they reckon.

Geothermal water of 105 F was contained by siltstone rock slabs patiently assembled and remodified over the centuries by forgotten labourers. It was right at the water’s edge of the Rio Grand.

Enticing but when the air is body temperature and this is 105F...

Water levels are so low that one could walk across it without getting wet, as in fact the neighbours to the south had done. Handmade trinkets were offered for sale on the honour system. I made a charitable donation (I expect my tax receipt is forthcoming), but these delicate items would never survive my trip home.

After a grand total of 40 miles (20 of which I will have to retrace tomorrow) I settled in to a very quiet, cool and grassy campground at Rio Village. Indeed I was the only one here at 5:00 as I sat on the grass enjoying a very large, cold beer. As I read, mused and dozed I was brushed with gentle (as opposed to gale force) breezes and rays of sun through the branches that warmed rather than seared my face. No vehicles, no unhappy children or barking dogs. Just a cacophony (thank you, Spellchecker) of bird songs sounding like an undisciplined orchestra of unfamiliar instruments.

For any birders out there, what is a bright scarlet red bird about the size of a sparrow that sports a big tuft on its head?

The pigeons here are in disguise—they are much slimmer than ours, grey-brown colour with interesting markings on the tips but the song and familiar goofy walk gives them away.

Speaking of wildlife, what do you think of this one?

I have only seen one as a road casualty, but I heard them oinking all night.

After a dinner of camp gruel I strolled along the nature trail to an overlook of the river. Encountered a display of the wares of another hopeful absentee vendor from across the river.

Look! Exotic desert vegetation!  :)

Well, the gentle breeze is kicking up again and threatens to make tumbleweed of my tent so I’d better get in it and pin it to the ground..

Sunday

Or was it buffalo hunters and Indian soldiers?

Same difference.

Today I read a monument to one of the pioneers of the region in the 1850’s that speaks of his efforts to settle and civilize the area in the face of “hostile Apaches”. But for the life of me I can’t imagine what might have pissed them off.

Our driving itinerary today involved zigzagging south to the Rio Grande and following it east to Big Bend National Park. We visited Alpine, a character town with a university, then Marfa that had little to offer. I promised the Bruiser an oil change, and Marfa really wasn’t the place for it.

But we’re getting closer. I bought the oil and I now have a wrench that fits the drain plug.

Neither is Marfa the place to shop for a gently used vehicle

On the road south to Presidio the scenery started to get quite interesting with rocky bluffs appearing, exotic desert vegetation that I never tire of, and much evidence of old communities with forgotten ambitions that came and went. Shafter is one such place, a self styled ghost town with a dozen or so inhabitants. Rachel Jones introduced herself to me as one of them. (She said there were six of them in church this morning). A retired park warden, she is a custodian of this place and quite proud of it. She showed me the shattered old brick houses, the remains of the silver mining industry, the cemetery with unmarked crosses (and six little ones all from the same family that were victims of some kind of epidemic), and a little brick building which houses the history of Shafter in photos and stories. I was honoured to have had such a tour. Thank you, Rachel Jones.

My first glimpse of the Rio Grande stopped me in my tracks. Literally. As did many vistas I smacked into today, and accordingly my progress was kind of slow. But as I was framing the shot I realized there were people in the river and a car parked on the north shore. Either folks on this side decided to take a dip with their clothes on, or someone on the other side (we’re talking Mexicans here) was in the process of immigrating. If only I had been packin’ heat I could have done something about it, but decided instead that I should take off before they took exception to me standing there with a camera.

The Rio Grande. In the middle of the photo there is a head in the water, presumably attached to a new immigrant.

Rachel related a story about her truck breaking down and the U.S. Border Patrol happened  by.
“We may or may not be able to help you, Ma’m”, says one. “But first I must ask, are you an Illegal”?

“No”, she replied. “I live here”.

“Then I’m sorry”, he said.

Another fellow told me about once camping beside the river near a rusty gate in the fence. They were kept awake all night by the squeaking of the thing swinging open. What was really needed was a turnstile and a counter to at least keep inventory.

Down the road (on Hwy 170 if you are following this) Lajitas is a remade little town in an historic area, but its present claim is a nice green golf course in this water-starved desert, high end restaurants and lodging and a tourist version of a cowboy town boardwalk.

The Bruiser at the Rio Grande!

Terlinguas is somewhat more authentic. Here is another of a series of ghost towns that has been resettled and reincarnated for its funk-value with funny little shops and saloons. Rachel told me to make a point of sitting on the porch at the general store along with everyone else and passing the time of day. So I did, and met a couple of bikers from San Antonio that were doing the reverse of my ride, just coming out of Big Bend and speaking highly of the experience.

A 1 H.P. ATV 4x4 

Eco-friendly, bio-fuel, organic exhaust emissions. But not equipped for highway travel. Note the solid line in my lane which prevented me from legally passing for about 5 miles.

I must confess that I hadn’t heard of this national park prior to this trip. But the setting is very familiar to anyone who has ever watched a western movie. These hills have appeared on the silver screen innumerable times over the decades as a backdrop for cowboys and Indians that chased and shot at each other for one reason or another while we stuffed popcorn in our yaps. We even happened upon one most interesting little Mexican style village that was actually the movie set of “The Streets of Laredo” with James Garner, as well as a half dozen other films.

The Streets of Loredo. Not.

Roads led me to the Chisos Basin, high in the hills and another gobsmack in the scenery domain. A black bear sauntered across the road in front of me as I approached it, then regarded me thoughtfully from his new vantage point probably wondering what festering vittles I might have in my saddle bags. This campground sits in the middle of a crown of jagged and colourful peaks. The sun settled magnificently into the notch behind me as I write this, with Venus hanging like a splendid jewel over the western horizon.

The view off my back porch

Monday So Far

There is a bumper sticker that advises “Don’t drive faster than your angels can fly”. Similarly, a traveler should be advised not to travel faster than his appreciation for the place he is in can be absorbed and assimilated. Life should not be lived in fast forward.

So I slowed down today and decided to pack leisurely and take a morning hike in these hills. Signage at the trail entrance warned about mountain lions, bears and hostile Apaches and suggested that when confronted one should stand tall, make a lot of noise and throw rocks, sticks, cigarettes and spare change. Sorry. I made the last one up.

Juiced up with a bellyful of water I set off for an hour or two. Apart from some skittering lizards the only wildlife encountered were a half dozen vultures soaring beautifully in lazy circles; their broad, white tipped wings hardly moving, ugly red heads like plucked chickens, and with hags’ eyes that regarded me with patience, vigilance and buzzardly hopefulness.

I will not speak more of the beauty of this environment until I can think of another term for “exotic desert vegetation”. However, you will not be spared further descriptions of the geology encountered on the long road ahead. Suffice it to say it was a beautiful thing to just slow down and marinate in it today.  One thinks (and writes in one’s head if that is what one is inclined to do) rather differently in such a place and at slow speed, not being distracted negotiating tight corners or contending with the obscenities of freeways.

I met just one hiker on the trail, a young researcher of astrophysics at a California university. Her area of study is investigating the probable conditions at the moment of the beginning of the universe. She was ‘skipping out’ from her work to take some time for herself, but we rationalized that one must study the conditions at the endpoint of cosmological evolution such as might be found in the high desert in Texas if one is to understand its beginnings. Certainly worthy a footnote and a citation, we agreed.

We laughed and moved on in opposite directions. Then something struck me that was profound enough, at least in my own mind, to cause me to stop walking for a moment to digest. Permit me to share it out loud and you may make of it what you will.

At successive points in our lives we find ourselves at moving endpoints of our own cosmomlogical evolution—that is to say, this, now, is the culmination of all the actions and conditions and events and decisions that conspired to bring us here. Everything comes from that which came before it. Therefore it is absolutely true that a study of the endpoint leads to a conceptualization of the Beginnings, and that it is a worthy investigation to conduct.

As I taught my weary students many times over the years, the universe began at The Big Bang and everything shaped and reconfigured itself as it rolled along. Now, at the centre of our own universe is this deep and personal thing that is called the Self which became what it is because of its origins and evolution. Where we now locate ourselves on the road in our own particular journeys is a consequence of all the paths taken so far. And it is not a trivial thing to consider.

"Remember backwards, live forwards" the saying goes. Not to live in the past, in other words, but certainly to acknowledge, appreciate, even celebrate, but not regretting or wishing to revise or foolishly attempting to relive it. But living well in this moment of the journey must certainly command an understanding of what paths delivered us here.

The picture I see daily on the start up screen on this computer is of Grandpa’s First Hold of little Olive as a newborn. Looking into her eyes is a window into the beginning of that personal universe.

In the beginning...

And the only one who can see mine, is me.