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Monday, January 30, 2012

The Race is On


One of my side projects for this bike trip has been to do some sailing.  As it is my other great passion in life, being away from it for so long is rough.  I miss it a lot.  Brittany and I are constantly pointing out the cool boats we see and wish were ours.

Other than pointing and looking, my side project has failed so far; I have not gone sailing at all.  Theres a few ways I am trying to remedy this.  One of them has been to check US Sailing's website for Instructor Courses; I am certified as a Level 1 Instructor but have been trying to find a Level 2 Coach course for some time, to no avail.

So last Thursday, in Bayou La Batre, AL, I checked the website and there it was, my Level 2.  In St. Petersburg, FL, no less!  So close, yet so far away.  549 miles away.  10 days.  The race is on.

Brittany agreed.  I don't know what she was thinking.  Perhaps she was banking on me bribing her with food and beer.  She was right.

So now we are in Perry, FL.  We've got about 200 miles left.  It looks like we'll make it, but the wind always does what it wants.  Grandpa Bill is waiting for us in Tampa.  We'll get there a day before St. Pete and drop some stuff and then continue down.  We'll tool around for the weekend then work clockwise around the Bay, hitting Clearwater, back to Grampa's to visit with the DeAngelo's and the Pribble's, then onto Tampa to see more family and friends.

Thursday, January 26, 2012

Stormy Thursday

We are stuck again, though this time in Alabama.

Sometimes, bike touring means stopping for a while for weather.  We are right in the middle of a pretty significant storm front while on our way through Orange Beach, AL.  After our leaving our awesome hosts this morning, we got 12 miles down the road before the sky started rumbling.  We checked out the forecast at McDonald's (every smart traveler knows where the free internet is), made a stop at the bike shop, and looked for some shelter.  We are hanging out at the library, watching movies and writing.

Leaving New Orleans was a strange feeling.  It was the longest stop I had made on this trip so far.  Hanging out with old friends and meeting new ones in a place like that is really cool experience.  I thoroughly enjoyed discovering another strange city by bicycle.

On the other hand, a bike tourer must bike, or what else has he got?  I was feeling a little antsy in such a big city, being surrounded by so many people all the time.  I was ready for the road.

My leg was still bothering me a little, so I held onto a cane my mom bought me in New Orleans.  I have noticed that I get treated a lot different when I walk with a cane.  Normally, most people don't even see my leg; they tend to just walk right past me.  But with the cane, people see a limp, then a cane, then the leg.  There is another level to viewing disability when you can see a walking device.  As before, I'm not judging good or bad, I've just noticed this.


We left New Orleans and were back in Louisiana, again.  There are some similarities, but the two places are worlds apart.  We crossed scenic bayous and long bridges as we skirted Lake Pontchartrain and found ourselves in Missisipi Missississippi Mississippi.

I feel like I did not really see Mississiippi Mississippi or Alabama in all their Deep Southy-ness.  It felt a little like Louisiana, but less boozy.  It felt a lot like the Gulf coast towns we have seen elsewhere.  One of our hosts who had done a lot of bike touring and bike tour guiding said that we are not seeing the country as we ride, just a ribbon.  This was no more apparent than these lasts few days.

There were some highlights, though.  I have always wanted to sleep at a bar.  My chance came in Pearlington, MS.  We had no place to stay that night, so we stopped at a fine looking establishment and proceeded to order a round.  After chatting up the bartender, we secured the vital "OK" to take advantage of the generous awning out back and pitched out tent out of the pouring rain.

In Bayou La Batre, AL, there is a 2 mile long causeway and a 3 mile long bridge to Dauphin Island, a Florida-ish looking island just outside of Mobile Bay.  The ferry off of the island deposited us on a beautiful, piney peninsula after giving us an almost tour of Mobile Bay drilling platforms.  The contrast was very striking.



We probably have another hour or so of rain, and hopefully we'll be able to get in some more miles.  The Florida border is only a few miles from here and Pensacola is another 20 or so after that.  We had hoped to make it to Pensacola, but you never can tell.

Good bye for now.

Sunday, January 22, 2012

Stuck in NOLA

So we've become a little stuck in New Orleans.  Not actually stuck.  We could leave whenever we wanted.  But, like a sandal in the warm, mid afternoon Bourbon street sludge, we are finding it difficult to pick up our feet and go.

We arrived over a week ago and have been slowly ingraining ourselves in the Big Easy.  My mother arrived with my brother for a visit, so we spent some family time with them.  This was also my perfect opportunity to eat up without breaking my trip budget.  With my mom's wallet as our weapon, plowed through meal after meal.

Everything was to my satisfaction.  We had etoufee from K-Pauls, the country's best Friend Chicken from Willie Mae's, more boudin and po-boys from at least 5 different shops (but save yourself some time and go straight to Verti Mart; get a fried shrimp sandwich, a to-go beer, then go take a nap).



We explored the historic French Quarter, the old New Orleans.  We spent a lot of time in the Marigny as well, very close to the quarter.  We found some friends from Vermont, too: it turns out NOLA is a hot spot for Burlingtonians escaping the cold of winter.  We also made some new friends.  Jared and Caleb took us to climbing night and Sasha let us stay in his Church-on-its-way-to-becoming-a-house.



I found it a little ironic, that after 5500 miles biking down Hwy 1, over mountains and Death Valleys, through the desert Southwest, the endless expanses of Texas, I sustained my first injury of the trip while walking in New Orleans.  We were going for a walk around the French Quarter and I tripped and fell out of my leg.  I am usually good about tucking my stump in so I don't land on it, but I wasn't quick enough this time.  I landed right on the tip and got a big honkin' bruise.  I couldn't really walk for a few days, but I am all better now.  I think I'm going to stick to bikes; this walking business is dangerous.


So our plan is to leave town today.  We think we'll be a few days through Mississippi and Alabama, with Florida on the horizon.  Because I know everybody is dying to send me granola bars and Snickers, I have for you another general delivery address:

Chris Childers
General Delivery
Panama City, FL 32401

We won't be there for at least a week and a half or so, so you have plenty of time to get yourself together.

Until next time, enjoy your cold, snowy winter.

Monday, January 9, 2012

Still Alive

The Intracoastal Waterway in Southern Louisiana


So its been a while.  Things have been happening in the world of Chris, but they have been left unblogged.  Tragic, I know, but this will now be fixed.
The world famous, Prada Marfa

Its been a full month since my last complete post.  You can probably correlate this fact with other events, specifically the arrival of Brittany, my girlfriend.  I wouldn't causate it, though.  Correlation doesn't not mean causation.  

Leaving Alpine, TX

Other things have also slowed pace in the last month, namely book reading, journal writing, and, heck, maybe even bicycle riding.  Its true that my miles per day statistic has dropped, but my sights per mile statistic has increased (do I detect an inverse relationship, perhaps?)
Ville Finale in the King William District of San Antonio
Brittany has not slowed me down.  Rather, the bike trip has changed character with the changing cast.  While it was just me and Ross, we were known to bike 70 lies in a day sometimes.  We even did 50 miles before noon one day.  Thats unheard of.  Bert (as she prefers to be called) and I are often seen at about the 5 mile mark around that time of day.

As for the changing cast, Ross has been traveling parallel to us, in another bike touring dimension, if you will.  He is in the same state, often the same town as we are, but having his own trip, different from our own.  He prefers to eat up the miles a little more than Bert and I do.  He is known as the Lance Armstrong of the extreme Northeast to the southerners.
Napoleon's Death Mask

My bit of philosophy for this post will be brief, but highly applicable, as usual.  I am currently reading John Steinbeck's Travels with Charley, a great book about his own travels with his dog across these United States.  He said "you don't take a trip. A trip takes you".  Our adventures, as much as we try to plan and shape, usually end up planning and shaping us.  They change with the personnel, the scenery, the weather.  
Remember the Alamo

The same landscape is so vastly different on a sunny day than it is in a cloudy headwind, and rightly so.  We so often hear the advice from locals or other travelers: go here, avoid there, this was great, that was the worst thing ever.  But different people's experiences in the same places frequently contradict each other.  Our experience with the Texans was great: they were open and gracious and inviting; some fellow travelers found them private and suspicious.
The famous BikeSnake of the Austin Bike Zoo
My lesson has been this: go into every situation with as open a mind as possible.  Every place and people has the opportunity to be positive or negative and it often has mostly to do with what we bring to the table ourselves.
The mighty Pecos River

The last month has seen some of the most diverse and incredible landscape of the trip so far.  30 days ago, we woke up in the northern reaches of the Chihuahuan Desert, and headed for Big Bend National Park, nearly the last National Park we'll see on this trip.  After a stop in the "ghost town" of Terlingua (there sure was a lot going on for a supposedly dead hamlet), we braved the park.  
Stoopin' it in Terlingua

The weather was against us, as it should have been.  T'would not have been fair to Brittany to begin with sunny weather and tailwinds.  Instead, it was cold and the wind seemed to find our faces whichever way we turned.  A brief warming up in the Hot Springs by the Rio Grande was all that got us through.

The next 10 days saw no improvement as we worked our was towards San Antonio.  No actual rain, but enough dewey mornings leading into cloudy, cold days to make us think it might never warm up.  The desert high and dry gave way to lower, moister regions and the return of trees.  I hadn't really seen a forest in a loooong time, and it was much appreciated.
They told us not to climb fences in Texas

We poked around the Alamo, so now I can Remember it, the Alamo that is.  Pee Wee was a much better man than I, but I saw no sign of a bike shop there.  Great hosts from WarmShowers and CouchSurfing transformed our view of the area as we made our way towards Austin.  Austin itself left us wanting, though we were severely sun deprived.  I estimate we'd had roughly 12 hours of sunshine the 2 weeks getting to Austin.  We saw a Gospel band play a Christmas brunch, made some new friends, and fixed Brit's bike, and then we were on our way.

Ross was here...

From Austin, we headed for the coast.  The scenery changed even more and we found our sandy feet in the Gulf of Mexico in Galveston, TX.  It is a really beautiful city when its above sea level, but tropical weather has left its mark on the island over the years.  Hurricane Ike in 2008 had many residents still recovering and the island with a suspicious lack of big trees.  High water marks in downtown told of 12 feet of seawater engulfing the entire island.  Woof.

Coast to Coast, Freeport, TX

A chain of convenience stores in SE Texas
Biking on the Beach

Nearing the end of our Texas Odyssey, we made for Louisiana, only to find Ike had taken our highway from us.  We had to go around, through the Oz of southeast Texas, Port Arthur.  Having recently struck oil here, the city is inundated with factories and horrible smells and bad drinking water.  We camped behind Wal-Mart for the second time in a month and left early the next morning.


Louisiana had been a long time coming.  Over a month and 1200 miles in Texas and we were ready to leave.  The promise of Cajun culture was a sweet one and it has been incredible.  We spent some great days with great hosts taking in the sights, but mostly eating and drinking.  Catfsh, crawfish, redfish, speckled trout, boudin, couvillion, meat pies and more.  The cuisine is amazing.  Tomorrow we need to try the Drive Thru Daiquiri's:  "as long as they don't put the straw in it, it's not an open container".
Can't Wait

We'll be in New Orleans in 2 days to meet my Momma (The Waterboy references never stop down here) and my brother, Christine and Julia (if they can convince someone to drive them out) and probably Ross again.  We asked for some suggestions on places to eat and were given a list 2 pages long.  But we are diligent and we'll work through it.
Good old Ally Gator

I don't have another address for General Delivery yet, but I will figure one out when I get a chance to catch my breath in the Big Easy.  My photos are officially updated, so peruse them at your leisure.
The Cypress Swamps of Acadiana

At least for now, au revoirs.
Bayou Sunset