Best of Barc's Chair - A Sampling of Lines

WANTED

A publisher or patron to commission an article, a series of articles, or even a full-fledged tome, chronicling this winter's Middle Child Tour, beginning February 3, 2016.  The MCT is a fully-sustainable, organically-grown sequel to last winter's selectively-successful First Born Tour. I speak of bike tours, of the two-wheeled, human-powered kind. More specifically, a father and son, Barc and Emer, cycling (cheerfully, uncomplainingly) from San Diego, California to St. Augustine, Florida.

PUBLISHER'S WHY?

Because you want this guy Barc providing content for your readership, if he does say so himself.  Please peruse the samples below, culled from last year's trip, to form your own opinion. 

BARC'S WHY?

Because if you spend two months straight with your child - 24 hours a day, every day - they may come to the conclusion, all by themselves, that saying bye to Mom and Dad and leaving the nest really isn't such a bad option.  Case in point: Seb is now in British Columbia.  Coincidence?  I think not.

Barc’s Chair - The Sample Edition

Barc and Seb, a Canadian father and son, cycled across the Southern U.S. last winter.  They began, but didn’t end, by pulling a giant chair behind them.  Barc wrote about the experience – hilariously.  Here are some samples…

On sleeping in a sketchy city park in Florida…

“When last we spoke, an anxious night had been passed - a night where a father's concern for his own welfare was unnecessarily complicated by qualms about using his own child as a human shield.”

On the fitness regimes of Alabama women…

 “The startlingly pretty wife of the proprietor had both Seb and I a little tongue-tied when ordering, as we'd encountered precious few Southern Belles who hadn't chosen The Waffle House to cater for their wedding.”

On crossing a Louisiana train bridge…

“So rather than detour 3-5 hours, Seb and I sauntered across the bridge - if you can call ten minutes of epileptic quailing on a narrow metal catwalk sauntering.”

On getting lost in Texas Hill Country…

“But, just pass the henhouse or the outhouse or the doghouse, the little-lane-that-could kept farting along, passing through yet another rusting gate, looking like the Yellow Brick Road ten years after the Munchkin Party repealed taxation.”

On being given a free cabin to stay in…

“Our benefactress is a true Good Samaritan, with no apparent ulterior motive. If I survive the night, I’m going to be a better person tomorrow. The rotting smell under the floorboards isn’t worrisome. I mean, you wouldn’t store bodies under the Killing Cabin itself, would you?”

On blog entries…

“That was two days ago. Like crash-test dummies hitting a brick wall, let’s move forward.”

On agricultural techniques outside of El Paso…

“Turns out you harvest pecans the same way you discipline wayward children - grab them by the neck and shake the idiocy, or pecans, out of them.”

On breakfast at an RV Campground in Hope, Arizona…

“For $3.50 we gorged our physical selves but, more importantly, scratched the spiritual itch that can only be reached by bad coffee in styrofoam cups, an announcement of memorial services for Edgar, a $12.00 jackpot on a 50/50 raffle, and the soothing white noise of loose-dentures slipping over shrivelled gums.”

On finally crossing Texas…

“Texas was interesting in parts, in LARGE parts, but so was Mama Cass, and I expect most guys were glad to be done with her too.”

On camping at a closed-for-repair rest stop in the desert…

“Everybody has private jets these days, but who among the 1 %-ers are pitching a tent beside the "Not All Cacti are Pricks" display at their own private rest stop along the Interstate?  Damn few that’s who.”

On soliciting stories for Barc’s Chair at a San Diego Hostel…

“Seb, on the other hand, has that whiff of a used car salesman on an unusually-long crystal-meth jag, jittery, rambling, possibly well-meaning, but ultimately toxic and on the edge of sticking a knife in your eye.”

On pre-trip planning…

“Apparently I don't handle stress well.  I've been standing paralyzed in the dining room for the last ten minutes, surrounded by Barc's Chair detritus, staring blindly and making little rhythmic mewing noises, like an endless loop featuring the Top Ten Therapist Sounds of Acknowledgement.”

On parenting skills…

“Full night had fallen as Seb, who's never pedalled a fully-laden touring bike, followed me out into blackness, like the only-surviving duckling of a really bad mother duck.”

Should you wish to reach Barclay Dowd, please email:  dowdfamily@sympatico.ca

Over and Out

Dear Son,

When you're shopping your children's book

And doors are closing in your face

We'll always have this trip

When you meet the love of your life

And she's the only one you'll ever think about

We'll always have this trip

When you're changing the diaper of your screaming baby

And you wonder what the hell you've gone and done

We'll always have this trip

When all is well but you're overwhelmed

And the open road is closed for repair

We'll always have this trip

When your father acts like a jerk again

And you're embarrassed for your kids

We'll always have this trip

When you visit me and I'm barely there

And a word from you brings a gleam to my eye

We'll always have this trip.

Thanks for the memories, Son.

Love always,

Dad

Coming Closer

When last we spoke, an anxious night had been passed. A night where a father's concern for his own welfare was unnecessarily complicated by qualms about using his own child as a human shield. But, like many an uncomfortable moral hypothetic, it never needed testing.

From the heart of darkness in Chattahoochee, we pedalled with a survivor's light heart to Tallahassee, capital of Florida. Choosing destinations on the basis of syllable-count may seem whimsical to some, but we crave structure in our nomadic lives. We landed at The Bike House, a non-profit social experiment combining Marxist themes of each-according-to-his-ability (to pay for or fix a bike) with Haight-Ashbury themes of whatever-turns-your-crank and free love, the latter fuelled by a steady stream of co-ed volunteers from the adjacent Florida State University campus.

The enterprise is run by Scot, a former pro bike racer and business consultant who, in 1997, while standing on a street corner in Boston, underwent a sudden, involuntary life change when he was smushed by a vehicle, and spent the next two years in hospital, the first 8 weeks in an unconscious state. He emerged with a new forehead, a new eye socket, a new outlook, and, purely speculation on my part, the absence of a "t" in his first name, possibly still stuck to the grill of the car that hit him. If you want to meet someone who's learned to live in the moment and make the most of each second, hang out at The Bike House. Carpe Diem.

We slept on a MOUP (mattress of uncertain provenance) on the floor of the parlour, pizza parlour (as in, Bond, James Bond), an extinguished business in the process of annexation by the two-wheeled empire.  Well, not technically on the floor. Actually, on a stack of particle boards and 2x4's providing a comfortable buffer between our MOUP and the tomato-stained tiles. A restless night. I dreamed of Cher and double salami.

I was so anxious to repeat the dream that we spent a layover day in Mama's Kitchen (Seb's needs and desires are like distant thunder - I'm aware of them, in a remote way, but they don't have much immediate impact on me.) Among other things, we: took in an FSU vs. University of Miami tennis match; took out The Bike House trash and swept the floor; ate eight $1.00 tacos; attended a First Friday block party of music and art; and hung out with Susie and Craig. Susie is tenaciously clinging to technical Canadian citizenship while being gradually co-opted by American mores and mannerisms - not a pretty thing to see. Harper, yes. Susie, no.

But the road beckoned. As Seb was jonesing for an alligator sighting, Scot suggested we depart (again) from our old-school, paper, ACA map set and take a different route to Gainseville, a route guaranteed to provide, if not a gator, at least an intolerant redneck spewing diesel spoke at the pussies on bikes. Well, he was right on both counts, but we only snapped the gator, cuz the redneck's confederate flag was too big to fit on our memory card.

Passing lightly over the next couple of days (see forthcoming bestseller) we headed straight for The University of Florida in Gainesville to satisfy Seb's healthy, and my unhealthy, appetite for youthful pulchritude. Picture then our state of mind when the Warmshowers Host-de-Jour turns out to be The Love Shackteaux, a domain where one may leave their bourgeois notions at the door, and a mysterious sense of equal opportunity sexual freedom pervades tout la maison. Smart people, rock climbers and bikers, unshackled by conventional norms, living life on their terms. My personal prude-ometer was in the red zone. Seb wants to go back.

I write from Palatka, Florida, a disappointment from a syllabic point-of-view but gamely compensating by it's proximity to St. Augustine. Today's the day we touch the Atlantic. The networks begin coverage at 4 pm. Set your PVR's.

Au revoir.

- 

See All Evil, Hear All Evil

Once upon a time, a father and son (who looked like brothers) cycle into a small town with a large name in the Florida Panhandle. Chattahoochee. Pleasing to say. Evocative. Playful. 

Our heroes-in-their-own-minds head for a city-managed campground down by the river, next to all the vans. They turn off the main road, unwittingly saying farewell to civilization, the rule of law, and toilet paper, and descend into a pre-apolcalyptic setting Cormac McCarthy may well use in his next novel "The Road Kill". 

Halfway down to the water, they take a spur road, following faded billboard signage, to a Bates Motel office last painted when Janet Leigh looked good without a bra, and find it locked up tight, or as tight as... never mind.

A shirtless male emerges from a nearby structure - picture an overgrown outhouse large enough to hold a single soiled mattress scattered with Kleenex - and tells them, between conversations with himself, that they have to go up to city hall to get a permit to camp. The youthful-looking father scorns this bureaucratic pettiness and informs his son that, by God, they'll pitch their tent down by the river, near the playground, maybe even on the bandstand, and worry about the paperwork later.

So that's what they do. They pitch their tent right on the covered bandstand, beneath towering pines, a mere frisbee throw from the playground to one side and the standard-size outhouses on the other. It really is beautiful. The father goes off to Hardee's to consume fat and write a blog, and the son paces around the tent in a manner suggestive of a compulsive motion-disorder, eating oatmeal, granola, bananas, protein bars, raisins, rice cakes, and canned anything-to-make-him-fart.

When the father gets back, the son, by way of casual observation, remarks that the park seems to be the local haven for drug transactions - cars pulling up beside each other, brief exchanges, and cars leaving. Only then does the father realize how isolated the park is. How, 500 feet below the car bridge, they are 500 years from civil society. The river that once looked so beautiful now looks like the perfect place to throw a body. Or two bodies, both young-looking and quite fit.

The father's night is ruined.

The following is an internal-dialogue excerpt from "It's All in Your Head - Anxiety Disorders and their Impact on Campsite Decision-Making", Volume 74.

[First person personal. Father perspective.]

6:03 pm - "I'm such an idiot. It's not too late to change campgrounds. The sun hasn't even set yet. Shut up. Don't be an idiot. Such a chicken shit. No way we're changing campgrounds."

8:12 pm - "Fuck. It's too late to change campgrounds. We're stuck. If we leave now they'll know we're pussies and jump us."

10:04 pm - "I'm staying in the tent. They don't know what's in the tent. They may not attack if they don't know what's in the tent. Even I have to piss in my water bottle, or not in my water bottle, I'm staying in the tent."

11:39 pm - "That car is definitely idling at us. It's leaving. Probably going to get more guns."

12:03 am - "We should have brought our 'VULNERABLE AND STUPID' banner and hung it over the tent. We're going to die, all because I was too lazy to change campgrounds. Don't any cops ever patrol this place? Shouldn't we get rousted? Why can't we get rousted? Jail would be safer."

1:43 am - "That sounded exactly like the motorhome from Breaking Bad."

2:36 am - "They're waiting til after 3. Middle of the night. Sitting ducks. Meth Team 3 to Squad Leader, commence operation."

3:34 am - "Cunning cocks. Waiting til I let down my guard. Not gonna happen. But what am I going to do? Polite them into submission? This sucks."

4:28 am - "6 o'clock is morning. Not allowed to murder in the morning. 'Nother hour and a half til not dead."

5:59 am "Can't believe Seb slept through the night. Hope he appreciates that I saved his life. Again. Of course he doesn't. Jerk."

6:01 am - "Don't feel very good. Tired. Going to sleep."

And they lived happy ever after.

THE END

A Sheltered Life

I'd like to say a word or two about this whole Warmshowers thing...

Once you get over the initial trepidation of asking total strangers if you can crash on their bed, couch, or yard, the result has been, as far as I can tell, pretty favourable for both sides. Here are a few statistics that I've managed to compile:  

Host Demographics

41% - Former touring cyclists looking to pay off their karmic debt after staying at the homes of former touring cyclists looking to pay off their karmic debt.

37% - Individuals and families who, supported by a $35.00 search from geneology.com, can provide documentation showing a distinct, if sometimes tenuous, family link to Mother Theresa.

14% - Scientific households wishing to understanding the link between touring cyclists and mental illness.

6% - Mentally-ill people thinking of becoming touring cyclists.

2% - Shower salesmen.

Guest Demographics

63% - Genuine Long-Distance Cyclists of Extraordinary Fortitude Who Stay with Hosts Not Because They're Cheap But Because They Value the Interactive Experience

21% - Genuine Long-Distance Cyclists on Multi-Year Tours Who Effectively Have No Home Anymore and Feed Off Proximity to Stability

15% - Moocher Freaks Who Pretend to Be Touring But Haven't as Much Money as the Genuine Long-Distance Moocher Freaks

1% - Canadian Cyclists Who Defy Categorization, Often from the Greater Belleville Area

The above figures have strong whiffs of truth. And sometimes, we guests are even helpful. For example, one experience involved transporting a sofa bed from a farmyard outbuilding to a farmyard second-story loft. Before beginning we decided to remove the mattress and cushions to make things a little lighter for Seb.

Setting Description: It was night time. The light didn't work in the shed. There was a hint of reflected illumination from a truck headlight. If I hadn't had to pretend to be brave for Seb, since Seb is the merest child, I would have been scared.

Action Description: With only a vague suggestion of light, we pulled off the cushions and flipped open the mattress. Sometimes, partial blindness is a good thing. The sudden scattering of large rodent forms, a genuine rat's nest, was heard but only dimly perceived, like a parent unexpectedly coming downstairs at a teenage party. 

But it wasn't dark enough. The stain of rat piss was about a yard wide, and it smelled like our bike seats. Never fear, said our hostess, she had just the thing to clean it. At this point, I was aware of a tipping of the scales with respect to my enthusiasm for moving rodent-infused furniture. Nevertheless, we gamely carried the non-rat portion of the sofa into, and partially up, the winding staircase to the loft, breaking first a light bulb, then the light fixture - darkness being the evening's dominant motif. Here we got stuck in one of those profoundly frustrating moving-furniture-where-furniture-won't-fit experiences familiar to us all. Despite hernia-inducing efforts and the traditional, testosterone-fueled bout of "we'll make this work", we simply couldn't get it up, as they say. In the end, we left the couch on top of shards of glass and ceramic at the bottom of the stairs, walked calmly away, and accepted the disappointed looks and Canadian's-suck eye rolls with steadfastness and aplomb.

(Author's Note: I'm drinking sweet tea at a Hardee's in Chattahoochee, another town we had to stay in because of the name, but I fear I have to go - in so many ways.)

Altered States

Mississippi, the first state where we've encountered the southern tradition of calling a lady - any appropriately-shaded lady, of any apparent age or relationship status - "Miss" Something. As in, the 400-year old lady at the campground in Vancleave - Miss Lacie - will be here all night if y'all need anything. There seem to be a lot of unmarried-sounding maidens around these parts, more than these two Northern gentlemen can handle: Miss Heather's Cafe, Miss Lucy's Salon, Miss Matilda's Mud Wrestling and Bingo - like that.

Many of the private homes and plantations have really impressed the country mouse in Seb and me.

Some real...

Some imagined...

Speaking of imagination, we pulled into Franklinton, Louisiana, population 3,857, the other day with the full intention of staying the night at a campground, or at least pitching our tent on a relatively-level patch of ground, whether or not we paid for the privilege. It took me about 34 seconds to decide that there was something wrong with the town. You know how you arrive in a place and it speaks to you, often in a wonderful way, as in "I'd like to live here!" Well, this was a town that, for reasons more Stephen King than Martha Stewart, said to me "You're going to die here!" So we packed up and carried on another two hours to Bogalusa, mostly cuz it's fun to say.

If you listen to this little voice too often, your useful life, your functioning role in society, may grind to a halt. But heeding it when it speaks clearly is probably a good idea. We'll never know what fate might have befallen us in that strangely discordant town, but I can live with that.

The picture below was taken as we overtook the trailer in our rental car outside of Baton Rouge. The two thoroughbreds, Spot and Fido, were gulping the air on the interstate at 70 mph - a spectacle neither of us had ever seen. Seb, always kindhearted, fed them each a cube of sugar as we passed.

I wrote my previous post, One Track Mind, amidst the hanging gardens in the gazebo pictured below, part of a little Eden connected to a take-out-only Cuban and Cajun Cuisine joint in Grand Bay, Alabama. The startlingly pretty wife of the proprietor had both Seb and I a little tongue-tied when ordering, as we'd encountered precious few Southern Belles who hadn't chosen The Waffle House to cater for their wedding. Amongst the cognoscenti, the Fatkins Diet is pretty popular down here.

Barc's Touring Tip of the Day: Dark pants hide urine stains. 

Our route through Alabama has been gorgeous, marred only by the occasional brush with vehicular death. The "OVERSIZED" loads, the one's preceded by a pickup or cop car with flashing lights, are the most likely to cause unintentional voiding.   If the truck driver happens to have a casual attitude with respect to the fragility of species positioned on the shoulder of the highway, the shock to your system is positively electrical, then liquid. Unhappily, I've learned that if I look over my left shoulder, I often unconsciously turn the wheel to the left too. Combining this inanity with the aforementioned "SOUTHERN BELLE" load, on a road with no or narrow shoulders, has led to near-cataleptic seizures at times - being a nose hair from death will do that to you.

We enter the state of Florida shortly. Even though we still have 700 miles to go (actually, more like 900 cuz we're probably going to cycle from St. Augustine to Tampa to make up for the 180 mile hitchhike we did in Texas), it's a pretty cool benchmark. Florida is WIDE along the top, like many of the grain-fed Misses we've met along our merry way (and that's my last slam at the calorie-dense Southern Belle, y'all). Sunshine State, here we come.

One Track Mind

So we're back on the bikes, rested taints uncomplaining. Strangely, the hiatus doesn't seem to have done much for my reasoning faculties, for 30 miles into today's ride a minor navigational error, the kind anyone might commit if they chose not to actually look at the map, led to what appeared to be two options:

1) A 3-hour detour involving the crossing of a 4-mile bridge on a 4-lane road with 4-inches of shoulder (we drove over it in the rental car, remarking that anyone who tried to bike it would surely be smeared silly in seconds) or...

2) A 5-hour detour on beautiful country roads, some of them, possibly, with shoulders.

Here's the thing: I don't know about you, but when one has been planning to ride from A to B and abruptly, owing to one's profound stupidity, one has to ride from A to Z, one is irritated; bad feelings ensue, nerves get frayed, lashing out occurs, grown children are treated like little children, and desperate, potentially-regrettable measures are considered.

It's like this...  halfway along our route was a river. A big river. The map showed Hwy 10 reaching this river and, stick with me here, carrying on from the other side of the river. What I didn't notice, because I didn't have my face pressed up against the laptop (we were off the grid of our ACA maps still) was the absence of a small line indicating a man-made structure actually extending over the body of water. My brain made an intuitive leap that a highway travelling up to one edge of the river and continuing from the opposite edge was, naturally, connected in the usual, post-industrial way.

Alas, no. Turns out, they used to have a ferry crossing there, dating from pre-industrial times, but the horseless carriage has been as unkind to Melville, La as it has been to Flint, Mi. Soooooo, as I was taking a breath between beatings of Seb (Adrian Peterson lent me a switch), I heard the sound of a train... coming over the water... how is that possible? 

Seb (arms held aloft in a defensive posture): Father, what is that sound?

Barc (massaging his cramping arm): It's a train, boy.

Seb (lowering his arms and crawling unsteadily toward the river): But it sounds like it's on the other side!

Barc (practicing lashes with his left hand): Of course it's on the other side, idiot child. It went over the bridge...

The bridge! The single track, old-school train bridge of story and song!! As it happens, a likely lad was walking by and I hailed him.

Barc: Likely Lad, can you walk across the train bridge?

Billy Joe McAllister: The Tallahatchie bridge? Well... I knows you can go part of the way...

So rather than cycle 3-5 hours, Seb and I sauntered across the bridge - if you can call ten minutes of epileptic quailing on a narrow metal catwalk sauntering. Wondering if we should lie down when the train comes. Wondering why we thought certain death was preferable to a 3-5 hour detour. Wondering why the colours never looked so bright...

But we made it. Obvee. And even though it was a dirt road on the other side, and even though the downed power lines sizzled as we descended from the train embankment, there was a Chevy on the levee and the levee was wet, and the colours remained vibrant for hours.

Automatic Reactions

 Travelling by car is weird. And fast. You don’t have time to see stuff. You can’t smell stuff as you go along– the olfactory equivalent of swimming through pockets of lake water as they change temperature. After six weeks in Outside World, driving a car is like being Bubble Boy (especially in a VW Beetle). Speedy, yes, but terribly, horribly removed from elemental life (Whoa… this is pretty heavy stuff – I… I have to go sit cross-legged for a while and commune with Mother Earth. brb).

[Author’s note: I’m not sure the communing totally took. The following paragraphs were written with my arms crossed and my lips pursed – no mean feat - the disapproval wafting off me in waves of hypocrisy.]

Sometimes insulation is good: when Seb and I spent a few hours strolling through the French Quarter and environs yesterday – I could have used a bubble. Forget the sweet smell of success, Bourbon Street radiated the sour smell of excess. The area cleaning lady, Katrina, retired in 2005 and no one, apparently, has been hired to replace her.

Be careful where you step. Be careful where you stand. Be careful where you stay. Or don’t. There was epic evidence of uncareful choices all around - stretched on the cobblestones, holding up street signs or each other, many beyond care. Every fifteen feet a variation of Statue Man stood frozen before you, hand out. In between the statuary, topless women, dabbed strategically with body paint, beckoned you to pose for a picture with them - $20 and they might peel back the nipple tape. The sharks monitored the marks, pimps of all stripes running the show, shearing the willing sheep, predators and prey.

If I turn my brain, possibly aided by a few chemical stimulants, I can see the Big Sleazy in a completely different light. But yesterday I was an observer rather than a participant, and I’m told that can make all the difference between Heaven and Hell.

(I've just inserted the pictures of the French Quarter and they so completely DON'T capture the spirit of debauchery and menace that, if my shoes didn't still smell of vomit, I'd swear it had all been a dream.)

But that was yesterday. Today is The Great Gumbo Search. Seb has been jonesing for a big bowl of authentic gumbo and, with luck and Google, today he'll get to scratch that itch. It's been a busy morning: we've checked out some original plantations along the Mississippi River and now we sit at a Starbucks next to a huge outlet mall south of Baton Rouge, eagerly waiting for it to open so that we can carry a few more pounds of unnecessary gear the last 1000 miles - good thing I never aim my disapproval at myself.

Tomorrow we're back on the bikes and, may I just say, not a moment too soon. A long day on the bike beats a short day in Real World almost every time, and it was only when I rented this car that I realized how much I'm not ready for that big stop sign at the end of the road. Bike touring is one of a million bubbles of our own making, I guess, and I sure don't want this one to burst.

Okay Bayou

We've turned our backs on Texas. We’re in Louisiana, at last (I’m going to suggest “Louisiana At Last” as a state slogan to the guv’nor when he and I share a PB & J [Po Boy and Jameson] next week){I love brackets}. Texas was interesting in parts, in LARGE parts, but so was Mama Cass, and I expect most guys were glad to be done with her too.

INTERMISSION

(we’ll just pause here to allow a portion of my audience to leave the building, shuffling sideways down the row, muttering in a disappointed way… all because I couldn’t resist some cheap, sophomoric humour)

I write from inside our tent, set up on a covered, fairground stage in Merryville, La., population 1128. Why, you ask, do they call it Merryville? Because a hundred yards in front of me pennants fly from the big top of a travelling circus - in town for one night only - bringing me back full circle to my formative days as a billposter for Martin & Downs Travelling Tent Circus. At the safe remove of a single American football field, Seb and I can eavesdrop on an evening of dramatic music, needy performers, and, of course, the profane-laced cacophony of teardown – that’s showbiz, folks.

It’s now morning. The circus convoy just pulled away, spewing diesel and strewing popcorn. Merryville has reverted to Melancholyville. But, in the middle of the night, as I was anointing the grass from my mark on stage left, dim shapes moved about me. By the final clench and shake, I could make out 5 ponies and one camel, apparently free-ranging about the bandstand. It was weird and it was wonderful. I felt safe. I knew why they were there… to protect me from the clowns.

10 Hours Later…

Seb and I were treated to another dose of southern kindness today. We’d stopped at Walmart for Seb to fill up on protein bars, bananas, and hummus, and got talking to an employee named Joseph. He and his wife were leaving soon for a three-week bike tour to Oklahoma, and for awhile we shot the breeze about The Life Cyclatic. Then I asked him if he (or Walmart maintenance) had a pair of vise grips I could borrow to remove the cleat that’s been lodged in my pedal since it ripped out of my shoe three days ago (my own tools weren’t up to the task). He came back with a pair that was a tad too small, that failed to do the job, so we said thanks anyway for trying, saddled up and headed out of town (trust me, we’re getting to the good part now).

Imagine our reaction when, I kid you not, 4 miles out of town we were flagged down by Joseph waving a set of larger vise grips that he’d bought with his own money for us to use. Whaaaaaaat????? They worked beautifully and, after turning down the offer to take them along with us, we thanked him as best we could, a little overwhelmed by his over-the-top consideration, and carried on feeling warm and fuzzy and plenty alright. Wowza.

More time passing…

Our tent is now backed up against the Sheriff Department building in Oberlin, La. First we tried: the fire department – nobody home and all locked up. Then we tried:  the ambulance house – nobody home and all wide open.  And finally we met Sheriff J.W. Pepper swaggering down the street and he was kind enough to let us pitch our tent for a spell (actually, we talked to dispatch in at the office, and I guess the Fire Department was monitoring her conversation with the Sheriff, because they called dispatch and demanded dibs on the Canadians since we’d tried the fire department first. Dispatch told them to go climb a rope, the exotic, foreign cyclists are cop business now.

I write from the Main Street Café, quietly blogging while the chicken n’ dumpling special works it’s way slimily through the inner man. The look of my just-consumed dinner special was pretty disturbing: mouse torsos in a dust and cobweb sauce – I felt like Oliver eating gruel before the invention of colour, or happiness.  

Quite a few more hours later…

Nowwwww… we’re in Opelousas, Louisiana, a town name that I can never say the same way twice, and never like the locals. After having a conversation with the local pharmacist about eye drops (clouds of yellow pollen have been fogging the landscape for the last few days), I was reminded why I don’t wear a hairpiece. Once you spot it, and this one could be spotted from Uranus, you simply can’t resist looking at it constantly. It’s like opposite-world to what women have to go through with men checking them out, except the pharmacist had to say to me “My eyes are down here, buddy!” - it’s so embarrassing to get caught.

For the first time this trip, and because it’s Friday (weekend special time at the car rental places), and because we’re close to New Orleans, Seb and I have rented the Silver Beetle of Salvation and are taking the next couple of days off to tour Cajun country. Tonight and Sunday we’re staying with Sarah Scott, cycling fanatic and Warmshowers poster girl, and tomorrow night we’re hanging with Chad in Gramercy, another free spirit in the best and most fiscal sense of the term.

Later gators.

East of Eden

 This business of cycling all day, then cozying up to a wifi at night and unburdening your soul is a fine thing in theory, less manageable in practice. I'm struggling for comparisons... oh yeah, like pulling heavy chairs and getting people to talk on film.

So I'm going to give you snippets until we catch up to today. I'm sitting under a metal canopy at a campground in Silsbee, Texas. It's 7:13 am. Yesterday, apparently, was St. Patrick's Day. On this type of trip, it's a challenge to remember if it's the first or second half of the week. Specific dates? Fuggetaboutit. The rain is not pouring, it's just kind of dripping like when you get out of the shower and stand there, wondering why you would deliberately stop such a pleasant sensation.

Snippet #1

 “Pet peeve” sounds petty, so I’m going with “pet bane”, even though it sounds weird and evokes images of leashed and muzzled super villains. I speak of the too-common, near-death, road-biking experience of cars and trucks, whether through inadvertence or malignance, passing within a coffin latch of your elbow, prompting an electric shock to your bowels and a Pee Wee Herman, epileptic, speed wobble. Happens a lot. Isn’t fun.

So imagine our dismay the other day when, on a lonely back road with nothing moving but rabid dogs and Lone Star flags, a rusty old tow truck buzzed by close enough for us to be grateful for the double set of Depends we now routinely wear and then, half a mile down the road, turned around and passed us coming the other way, the driver saluting, and then – of course – turned around again to come finish us off.

He passed us, this time giving us plenty of room, pulled over and got out of his truck, putting up a hand for us to stop. (Note to self: pepper spray is useless if you need seventeen separate movements to access it.)(Back-up note to self: exude not-wholly-feigned naivety and politeness with one hand, while other hand performs first sixteen steps.)(Final, reality-check note to self: you’re a single-tasker Barc. Forget about it.)

We stopped our bikes and the driver, a tall, rangy, grease-splattered, human-shaped specimen with badly-damaged teeth, presumably from chewing off lug nuts, stepped forward and said…

Tow Truck Driver: “Ah wanna apologize for passin’ close to y’all back there. Ah was foolin’ with mah GPS and ah wasn’t payin’ attention.”

Tense, shocked Canadians: “Ummm…”

Tow Truck Driver: “Y’all in the South right here and we don’t treat people that way. We used to be called The Friendly State and ah just had to turn around to tell you ah was sorry.”

Recovering, Heartened Canadians: “No problem! We really appreciate it!”

Tow Truck Driver: “Y’all take care now! Ah seen some sorry drahvers out here!"

Canadians, Nearly Moved to Tears, Then Hysterics: “Sorry! You bet! Sorry!!! Hahahahahah....."

(That was a long snippet...)

Snippet #2

Then there was the Story of the Stuck Car..

A couple of days ago, around lunchtime, Seb and I could be seen emerging from the Sam Houston National Forest along a smooth blacktop road, recharged by towering pine trees, redolent greenery, and Snickers bars. Our overpass across an interstate was barred and we had to detour north (no detail is unimportant). We observed that the southbound lanes were clogged with traffic. We further observed the sad sight of a 2013, 2WD Kia Soul, electric snot green in colour, pull onto the shoulder, then start down across the grassy valley toward the service road upon which we pedaled (northward).

In the last week it’s rained over 7 inches. The poor little Kia never had a chance. To the driver’s credit, when he started to bog down he didn’t keep driving forward but stopped as soon as the wheels started spinning.

*Enter two Canadians on bicycles*

“Do you need a hand?” asks the older of the two, possibly the big brother of the younger cyclist.

“No go.” says the Asian driver of the nasal-discharge Kia, quite possibly fluent in several languages but, alas, not English.

“We’ll help push.” (Canadians mime a pushing motion, similar to movements learned in a Tai Chi class that the older brother, or possibly older cousin, took some years earlier.)

A large man of African descent joined us, making it feel like a Coke commercial.

The older cyclist (only a little older) convinced the United Nations that it would be better to try and push back the way mucus car had come rather than forward through the quagmire. The motion carried. He further suggested a rocking motion employed by countless snowstorm-stuck cars through the millennia. The driver of the rolling booger suggested the slightly-older, but better looking, cyclist get behind the wheel. So he did.

The result was that everyone but the they-could-be-twins-but-he-looks-wiser cyclist got absolutely splattered in mud, the car didn’t go anywhere, and the State Trooper, hands on hips and legs spread wide, who had pulled up during the climax of this circus act, was deeply unimpressed by the attempt of the Loogiemobile’s driver to escape the traffic jam by trying to drive over the “grass”.

Seb and I pedaled slowly away from the phlegm-car driver feeling a little guilty and a lot useless (maybe we should have pushed forward). We left him as he remonstrated, his pants pulled up to his armpits, his glasses dripping with muck, his brain trying to find the words in his third or thirtieth language, with Arms-Crossed Authority.  Even Helen Keller could have told you that the driver of the Kia Infection was on the losing end, profoundly unhappy and doomed, and that The Man, who saw the world in black and WHITE, simply didn’t give a shit. 

(So much for snippets...)

True Snippet #3

The second night in Austin, where we stayed with Laura, the hot chick we picked up in Lance Armstrong's coffee shop (oh yeah, and her slightly-less-hot husband Aaron and their not yet but eventually hot 4-month-old daughter Ayla [creepy enough dude?]) was fantastic. It was one of those rare and wonderful social evenings where you assume it's 9:30 or 10:00 pm and it turns out to be 2:00 am. Magic.

True Snippet #4

Two nights ago we stayed camped at Shepherd Sanctuary, a testament to imagination and otherness. I didn't think we'd trump the hostel in Marathon for weird-in-a-good-way places, but this did it for me (since there weren't attractive 25-year old girls around, I'm guessing Seb sticks with Marathon).

The nucleus was a two story building, porches all around, decorated with a million collectibles and neon or plug-in weirdnesses. Individual cabins, all wildly-themed and eclectically decorated, sat to the north, linked together by walkways, We pitched our tent under chandeliers. I need say no more.

The owners, Peach and Connie, are having a third marriage celebration there this Saturday. Texas still doesn't allow legal same-sex marriage so they buggered off to California for the ceremony a couple of years ago when it became legal there, and have since had another in Vegas, just for fun, and now this one here. Kids these days... Connie's brother lives on the property and currently holds the title of Poet Laureate of Texas - a one year appointment; high culture below sea level (we got as low as -26 metres on our Garmin that day).

No more snippets. Rain's stopped. Gotta roll.

Peace out.

Austin Powers

Oh behaaaave!!!! 

When one is touring on the kind of budget that has you pitching a tent in culverts, begging showers from strangers, and celebrating peanut butter going on sale at Dollar General, behaving comes easy - pretty irritating really. When production values increase on my next Grand Project (with the same Grand Result?), I'm gonna come back here and get exhAusted.

Austin's downtown core caters to non-abstainers, a horizonless ocean of bars, taverns, roadhouses, beer joints, and dives - all with live music. Coffee shops are sprinkled strategically, islands of temporary respite in a sea of saloons. Pub crawls in this town must be epic, and frequently lethal, the Mt. Everest of alcoholic endurance. "Keep Austin Weird" is the town slogan, with the runner-up slogan, "Keep Austin Wasted", presumably losing by a narrow margin. The monster music festival "South by Southwest" starts this weekend, prompting locals to leave town in droves and rent their places for anything from $1000-$5000/night to people no longer accustomed to PB & J unmixed with caviar. 

I'm sitting at a profoundly hipster-ridden coffee shop - feeling right at home, thank you - called Juan Pelota, attached to Mellow Johnny's Bike Shop. The entire complex is owned by Lance Armstrong. In Spanish, Juan Pelota means One Ball and, say what you will about his ethics, the guy's got ball. 

Seb is wandering the city, hoping to have a conversation with someone other than his father. Last night we stayed with Warmshowers hosts T.J. and Lonnie, such normal, together, successful people that it was almost off-putting. Many of our hosts so far have been clearly broken people, so needy, so emotionally crippled,  so fringe in an unhealthy way, that Seb and I feel less like mooches, and more as if we're performing an important task by playing the role of bobblehead doll, agreeing with the rant-of-the-moment, lavishly heaping praise, and complementing their evident, generous spirit. T.J. and Lonnie were more like our own friends (broken but in a way that we choose to deem healthy) - well, many of our friends - and the mooch meter was firmly fixed on "Freeloader".

Tonight we're staying with Laura, Aaron, and 4-month-old Ayla. We met Laura at this same coffee shop yesterday - go serendipity! - her first words to us being "Don't crowd me." As any new mother with fine instincts would do, once exposed to Canadian Culture and Charm - Belleville Edition, she invited us to stay at their place on the proviso that we help clean it up. They're renting it out for the weekend to some of the aforementioned SXSW high rollers; everyone wins, with the possible exception of whoever does the toilets.

Footloose in Fredericksburg

I may have mentioned the weather was a tad mucky the last couple of days. Yesterday afternoon Seb complained of a whining sound coming from his bike (no... too easy). I assumed an air of parental confidence, dismounted, and took a look at the problem. When it comes to bikes, when I say "I took a look at the problem", it's a lot like if I were passing the O.R. and, hearing a surgeon ask another surgeon to tell him what he thinks of this unusual mass, pushing through the double doors and saying "Let me take a look"; Clueless cast as Competent.

View fullsize

There was a mucky, kinda grindy sound- I don't want to get too technical on you - coming from the rear wheel. Ish. There was definitely no sound when the wheel wasn't turning, so we eliminated that right off the bat. Then we did what non-technical men have done since the beginning of time, since the perplexing and dazzling invention of the wheel, since development plans for genetic programming of the male homo sapiens were shelved on the sixth day - we ignored the sound and carried on.

Arriving at Hill Country Bikes in Fredericksburg late yesterday afternoon, the sound, as all sounds do when confronted by authority, wouldn't sound. "Honest!" we said, "It was making this weird, meshy noise. We're Canadian. We don't lie, eh? Sorry."

Well, the sound didn't sound, but right now we're sitting at McDonald's while they replace the chain, the cassette, and the middle ring on the front sprocket. We're Canadian. We're trusting too. They said terrible things were going to happen, and as a person for whom terrible can be summed up with disturbing ease, I said "Please make it better." So they will, maybe, even if it was all in their heads.

The Battle of Midway

There's no battle. The damn blog format asked me for a title and... well...  I just panicked. 

"Record" rainfall yesterday in the state of Texas. So many meteorological firsts, so little time...

The period button keeps sticking on my laptop...  I'll have to work with it...

When we last spoke, Seb and I had been spared an uncomfortably wet night in our tent by an uncomfortably attractive lady offering us shelter and solace. For those of you who believe that into every life, however charmed, a little rain must fall, the last two days have been a steady drizzle, relieved occasionally by heavy rain, allowing us to appreciate the splendour of drizzle in all it's subtle dampness.

Thought we were lost for a little while yesterday. Now that there are more roads to choose from, our bike map is flexing it's creases and taking paths that make backroads sit up and appreciate that things could be a lot worse. For about fifteen miles we wandered along a crumbling lane, over hill and dale, the hills topped by stark, vulture-laden, leafless trees, the dales ravaged by flash flood erosion, and every mile or so we'd pass through gates and enter, despite all the praying, some god-forsaken farmyard, and figure the "road" had had enough. But, just pass the henhouse or the outhouse or the doghouse, the little-lane-that-could kept farting along, passing through another gate, looking like the Yellow Brick Road ten years after the Munchkin Party repealed taxation.

At one point early-ish in this stretch, we passed a little street sign, straight out of The Andy Griffith Show, for our next turn. It was set at right angles to our lane, suggestive of an intersection, but there was no evident crossroads, and no parallel-to-our-road sign reading "Numbnuts Alley", so I was forced to conclude that the sign was just proudly announcing our path, turned at right angles to make us appreciate it in all it's glory - an announcement of sorts. But as the subsequent miles went by, and farmyard succeeded farmyard, I started to feel a little queasy, and question myself about the intersection that wasn't.

No way the official map would take us through the set of "Deliverance Too: Squeal Like an Armadillo". Was it possible that I had stopped at the sign and, even though we were to turn left, not looked left? Why would it be at a perfect right angle to the road? It didn't look like it had been bent that way by Bubba and Tex. We'd passed several other little Mayberry signs and there'd always been at least one road running off. Suddenly I could remember every minute detail of the country to the right of the marker - an utterly photographic image - but absolutely nothing to the left. Had I had a mini-stroke and was incapable, and then forgotten I was incapable, to look left? 

Maybe, dear Reader, you never question yourself. Maybe you've never talked yourself into a place where Down is Up and No means Yes, but I can tell you that I had almost reached the point of quietly getting off my bike and lying down on the side of the road in the fetal position, rocking gently and making small squeaking sounds, when a REAL road came out of nowhere, with REAL signs, and Seb and I high-fived like madmen cuz we were where we were supposed to be after all. If Deliverance Too has that kind of happy ending, it's gonna be good.

Passed Jim, above, on his way to meet his beloved in Surprise, Arizona (been there, Surprised that). Jim had the hardcore vibe that you associate with people who gnaw off there arms when circumstances demand, but he was as Barc compared to another guy, Andy, we met earlier in the day. Andy is 9000 miles into a 15000 mile journey combining the three epic walking trails - Appalachian, Continental Divide, and Pacific Crest - with bike touring between the trailheads. When I tell you that he started heading south to Georgia on the Appalachian Trail, from it's northern terminus in Katahdin, Maine, in October, because summer hiking is for sissies, you'll appreciate that Andy, unlike me and possibly some of you, has a wonderfully flexible comfort zone.

Seb snapped a shot of this extra leaving the movie set after a particularly gruelling scene. He didn't want to tell a story either. 

We'll be passing through Johnson City today. For all you Wagon Wheel fans, Tennessee scans way better than Texas. Austin looms tomorrow, a piece of Texas unlike Texas, and we're looking forward to setting our phasers on "cool". 

Peace out.

Halfway House

Del Rio, Texas.  Studio 6 Motel

So I says to Seb, I says “Seb, it’s too damn cold out. Let’s stay another night.” Seb, ever the dutiful son, replies “Yes, Father. You almost always make the right choice.”

It’s noon. It’s about 4000 degrees below zero, not counting the wind chill. The skies are as dark and unpromising as a shriveled prostate. The hotel lobby beckons like Mary to her Immaculate Lover. Jesus, the front desk clerk, holds out a calloused hand and I cross his palm with 20 pieces of silver. He smirks in an unpleasant way that makes me decide not to accept him into my life. Then…

Remember Dorothy’s first tender, delicate steps into Munchkinland, like she had no shoes and was trying to avoid stepping on glass, amazed and agog at the transition to colour and calm? Well, as soon as I committed to another night in Del Rio, our house landed in Oz: the skies cleared, the wind abated, and I walked back to the room feeling bitter and cheated, no longer able to blame our profound inactivity on external cosmic forces. So I blamed it on Seb, pretending he needed more rest. You do what you have to do.

That was two days ago. Like crash-test dummies hitting a brick wall, let’s move forward.

When we FINALLY got back on the road, the sun was shining, the thermostat was, technically, above freezing, and the headwind greeted us like a fat, bearded, Italian mother smothering us in her embrace. We were so glad to be on the road again, we hugged her right back, heads bowed, breathing hard through our mouths, embracing huge tracts of land.

60 miles later we started looking for a place to camp. Two things they’ve got a lot of in Texas: guns and fences. The little back road we were on, with a pickup passing us every 20 minutes, had miles and miles of creepily-perfect, barbwire fence on either side, about ten feet off the road. I’m not sure what they were trying to keep in or out, but it was pretty weird. I kept looking for a gap or a break to sneak through to camp, but noooo. It was beginning to look like we’d have to pitch our tent six inches from the road.

The terrain was transitioning from desert to scrubland, but it remained barren country, with 50 mile stretches between towns, and the few residences along the way all, and I mean all, had locked gates (btw, over half the homes were for sale – maybe, right before the downturn, they mortgaged their houses to buy fencing).  

In the end a little dirt road finally appeared on the right, the first in over twenty miles, and we wandered down it – impeccably fenced on both sides – until we found a spot SEVEN inches from the road and pitched our tent. Suddenly pickups every 20 minutes on the “main” road turned into pickups every 30 seconds on the little dirt road. And I’ll tell you, lying that close to the road when the Friday night boys come back from the bar and fly past you in their trucks requires a conscious act of faith, or resolution, or surrendering to a higher power – instant Christian, just add fear. It’s really loud, and really twitchy when 21” tires pass seven inches from your toes at 70 mph. I kept worrying that they’d stop and call us out - good thing I don’t have a pretty mouth.

Today has been pretty special. We rose at dawn, still intact, observed with bemusement the tire tracks running over the cords of our tent fly, and got the show on the road. When they say “hill country”, they’re not kidding. Some of the climbs were suspiciously close to “mountain country” – or maybe, since everything’s bigger in Texas, their hills are our mountains.

We were just beginning another 1000-foot “hill” climb when a bit of magic took place: it was later afternoon, with the forecast calling for the first serious all-night rain of our trip, and we were going to camp in the state park, when a lady in a pickup pulled alongside and asked us if we needed a place to stay for the night (those select few of you with your minds in the gutter, please elevate them from the muck). Five minutes later we were in a beautiful cabin, safe from the elements, awed, amazed, and a touch disconcerted at our good luck. As I write this from the kitchen table, mug of coffee at my side, Seb is cozied up on the couch watching The Lord of the Rings on DVD – not the evening we had anticipated.

Our benefactress is a true Good Samaritan, with no apparent ulterior motive. If I survive the night, I’m going to be a better person tomorrow. The rotting smell under the floorboards isn’t worrisome. I mean, you wouldn’t store bodies under the Killing Cabin itself, would you?

When you're sleeping in a cabin with the above wall hanging, and you've been lured to this cabin by a sweet lady with offers of candy and dry sheets, should you be concerned?

It’s the morning of the day after exposure to an extraordinary Act of Kindness. Seb and I were not:

-      murdered in our beds

-      tortured first, then murdered in our beds

-      joined in our beds by person or persons unknown

-      joined in our beds by animal or animals unknown

-      drugged in our sleep, then woken up, then forced, but not very hard cuz we were drugged, to take part in Heathen, Pagan, Christian, or Atheistic rituals

It’s 8 am. Seb is still sleeping, so I guess some of the above could still happen to him. For me, just substitute “kitchen table” for “bed” – I’m trying to stay open to possibilities…

If we follow the dirt road outside our cabin for a couple of miles, we arrive in Utopia. Texas. For real. A small town with, according to Rosalie L. Bomer (whoever she is – I’m getting this from a binder in the cabin) “lush rolling hills, clear sparkling springs, and deep clean refreshing rivers.” Beside my bed is a book called Golf’s Sacred Journey – Seven Days at the Links of Utopia. It’s a fictionalized account of the serendipitous meeting of a struggling PGA pro and a 60-something year old rancher at the genuine, minimalist nine-hole course in Utopia. In a week, the older man shows the younger man the true meaning of life and the younger man goes on to win his next golf tournament but, because he now knows the true meaning of life, it doesn’t matter so much anymore.

I was kinda joking about falling through the rabbit hole at the hostel in Marathon. I’m not so sure I’m joking about this place. For those of us solidly anchored in our comfort zones, there’s an uncomfortably authentic feel of differentness. Not bad. Different. Pass me the pitcher…

Into the Rabbit Hole...

La Loma Del Chivo, Marathon, Texas

Seb sleeps in the Beehive...

I repose in the 1940 house trailer, about the same weight and dimensions as Barc's Chair (sigh)...

We've entered the alternative reality of an Haight-Ashbury influenced hostel, where cyclists stay the first night free and pay $10 for each additional night, unless they don't feel like it. Weird, mescaline-inspired papercrete structures whose purpose and intent, like the inner chambers of the Great Pyramids, are sources of speculation and conjecture without resolution. There are no right answers.

Gil and Ingrid own and oversee the operation, as much as anybody does, from the vantage point of their conventional-appearing home a few hundred yards away. Gil, creator of many of the structures, travels the world collecting and restoring old cars, planes, and motorcycles. We haven't met him yet, as he was flying his experimental plane around Los Angeles yesterday and the wind was too violent around here for him to fly back; balsa wood and rubber bands can only do so much. Ingrid, who we did meet, is a former Slovakian pop star who escaped the Iron Curtain during one of her tours. We had to sign a waiver upon arrival, indemnifying Gil and Ingrid, in case one of the creations collapsed on our heads. Yup, it's an interesting place.

Curiouser and curiouser...

We're staying on the other side of the looking glass for two days (will I pay the $10???) as another freezing, stormy cold front moves in. At this rate, with another ten days of headwinds forecast, June's probably going to have to pick us up in Louisiana. Seb, age 25, is content with the prospect of tarrying. Last night we sat up til the ungodly hour of ten pm chatting with three other longtime residents: Laura, age 25; Emilie, age 25; and Lizzie, age 24. My son will cope as best he can.

Best story from last night's jabbering: Laura worked as a wrangler at a dude ranch in Wyoming (close to where they filmed the Modern Family episode), and was required to carry bear repellent spray with her. Apparently, unbelievably, and on more than one occasion, some of the more urban, less outdoorsy, and way less perceptive dude parents bought bear repellent, lined up their poor, genetically-disadvantaged children, and sprayed them thoroughly, thinking that, like mosquito repellent, the spray would keep the bears away.

Mom: "Johnny!! Quitcha yowling!! It's fah ya own good!! Do ya wanna get eaten by bears??"

Johnny: "Aiieeee!! Aiieee!! Aiieee!! I can't seeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!

Dad: "Shaddap ya little whinah and quit foolin' around. Mom missed a spot."

Johnny: [between convulsions] I'm bliiiiiiiiiiiind!!!!!!!!!!

Little Debbie: "Mooooommmm!! Johnny spit on me!!!"

 

A SUDDEN CHANGE OF PLACE...

All is not as it was. But we'll let the narrative continue...

Shortly after typing the above dialogue, nature called, and on the return to the tin-can, non-cult trailer, the following sequence of events took place:

1) I espied the large Toyota Sequoia SUV, owned by Emilie's mom Sandy, that I thought had already left for Atlanta early this morning.

2) I replayed the arguments in my head, pro and con, arguments stemming from a line-of-thought that I thought was moot since Sandy had presumably left.

3) Spock-like, I made my decision, ultimately swayed by the primo "pro" argument: the repellent 10-day forecast coupled with a creeping apprehension of being blown off schedule following a long string of repellent forecasts.

4) I approached Sandy who, though unmentioned earlier (Sandy, age 63 - it was her birthday in fact, featuring a belated but gratifying cake, keeping a lifelong blown-candle streak alive) was part of last night's socializing, and asked her straight out if we could hitch a ride 180 miles down the road to Del Rio.

5) Sandy agreed, with pleasing alacrity.

6) 3 hours later (Sandy drives fast), we found ourselves at a Starbucks in Del Rio, having in one fell swoop eliminated an expanse of nothingness unparalleled in our trip so far, a post-apocalyptic wasteland, a moor without atmosphere, a desert devoid of stimuli, a sensory-deprivation chamber nearly 200 miles long, a...  ummm...  like... really boring. Had we remained steadfast and fought a 20 mph headwind for 3-4 days through the nothingness, we probably would have emerged better men, bursting with character, so gained by pain that it hurt. Instead, we've lopped off 180 miles, technically forfeited true "coast to coast" status, and face the same damn cold and headwind in the coming days BUT, and it's a big BUT, we're now entering Texas Hill Country, stuffed with deer and deer eaters, and the potential to make up lost character looms large. 

The Pecos River, looking north, mysteriously drying up about about a mile south of this bridge and, coincidentally, about a mile north of the Mexican border... Blue Gold, Texas Tea.

Ghost Stories

Kent, Texas.

There is no Kent, Texas...  anymore. There are five abandoned houses, a one-room schoolhouse with no roof that, despite what Pharrell says, is not happy, and a desolate, deserted gas station with above-ground fuel tanks behind which - after first removing non-phantom, human excrement - we camped.

Why camp next to toxic gas tanks amid a sea of shit?  Well, I'll tell you:

- the temperature was just below freezing.

- night was coming on.

- it was 60 kilometres to the next human habitation.

- but most of all, and trumping all, those five freaking houses were HAUNTED.

Remember going up the stairs from the basement as a kid, with monsters trying to grab your ankles and drag you back down, head thumping, fingernails clawing?  The merest nothing compared to these houses. It wasn't even dark yet. but the vibe of these houses was BAD and WRONG. Not breaking bad, but horribly well-established bad. Terrible things must have happened there, so much so that the evidence of relatively recent homo sapiens stool next to the George Bush Memorial Fuel Museum had Seb and I pitching a tent instantly, reassured that the ghosts at least let you take a dump before freezing your soul (Author's note: now that we've survived the night, I realize we may have actually camped on Horrorville Ground Zero, where poor saps convulsively shit through their pants in their last, agonizing moments of compos mentis).

I write from a McDonalds in Alpine, Texas, comfortably distant from Stool City, but faced with the late-afternoon decision of pitching a tent behind a gun range, or paying a nominal sum to set up camp between two RV's. I'm guessing the verdict will probably depend on whether or not Texans are using nylon-piercing ammo at the moment.

We've got about 200 miles of general nothingness left before we enter an area of Texas that doesn't have, for example, special boxes on the map reading: No Services for the Next 50 or 70 or 90 Miles, but does have, for example, cellphone service. T-Mobile has evidently decided much of Southwest Texas just ain't worth the trouble. The prudent carrying of gallons of extra water, while fun as an exercise in pannier pyramid building, is something we'll be okay with letting go.

Seb and I keep passing these historical markers that read something like this:

"Elmer and Henrietta White established the first pioneer homestead in Culver County on this spot in 1847. They lived happily until 1873, when a bunch of goddamned Indians ambushed and tortured them to death one mile north of this marker. We honor them for their contribution to settling the Western States and establishing order where only chaos reigned."

In every case, these markers are pockmarked with bullet holes. Who would ever do such a thing?

On that happy cultural note, I shall bid you adieu.

A la prochaine,

Barc

The ABC's of Bike Touring

A - Ass: hard, sore, chafed

B- Butt: lean, taut, chafed

C - Can: tender, raw, chafed

D - Derrierre: uncomfortable, aching, chafed

E - Excretor: inflamed, burning, chafed

F - Fanny: bruised, painful, chafed

G - Gluteus Maximus: reddened, ulcerated, chafed

H - Heinie: worn, peeling, chafed

I - Issuer: stressed, hemorrhoidal, chafed

J - Jettisoner: abraded, oozing, chafed

K - Keister: abscessed, distressed, chafed

L - Lap Back: red, ravaged, chafed

M - Moneymaker: itchy, ouchy, chafed

N - Nasty: delicate, sensitive, chafed

O - Oral Roberts: blanched, blistered, chafed

P - Posterior: creased, cracked, chafed

Q - Quacker: flayed, fried, chafed

R - Rump: split, suppurating, chafed

S - Seat: lesioned, lacerated, chafed

T - Tush: bleeding, battered, chafed

U - Unspeakable Crevice: marred, mauled, chafed

V - Volume Maximus: scarred, suffering, chafed

W - Wide Load: aching, offended, chafed

X - X-rated: stricken, scraped, chafed

Y - Yowza: swollen, sweaty, chafed

Z - Zit Sit: courageous, committed, chafed

Dear Barc...

We filmed our first Dear Barc over a week ago, in the mountains east of Superior, Az., right after emerging from the death tunnel in the background. Stay tuned for more sage advice.

Don't let the sunlit images fool you. All is not as it seems. Our most recent living-room-floor hostess, El Paso Erica, Dungeon Master and Keeper of All Things Adobe (she tours the globe teaching Adobe to eager disciples), is developing new cycling software that will allow us to capture, for the first time in the history of Mankind, images of the wind.  Tailwinds will be represented by gently-smiling Mother Teresa's holding a flannel blanket, flapping it with stick arms - gently for a mild breeze, manically for the kind of sandstorm maelstrom that swept Seb and I into Erica's lair the other day in El Paso.  Crosswinds will be Auntie Em's, sweeping out the featherlight farmhouse with a broom, occasionally blowing a strand of old lady hair out of her face, and looking irritated even when she's happy.  Headwinds - oh headwinds, the black hole where biker happiness goes to die, are millions of Kim Kardashian's shot from (her massive) behind, naked, arched-back, too-smug-for-words, spewing clouds of noxious, culturally-deadening flatulence, mixing vacuity, vapidity, entitlement, and self-absorption - talk about your black holes. Hurricane headwinds include, of course, Kanye. Get your wallets out for Wind Me Up, coming soon to your local bike shop (patent pending).

Two days ago we had Mother Teresa.  Yesterday was Kim and Kanye - ALL DAY. Twice we sought refuge from the wind below I-10 overpasses (as demonstrated by our model above). We've discovered, have Seb and I, that in the desert, you may be able to remember your name, but finding a natural feature large enough to escape the wind is a different matter entirely. And, by golly, that's not all: in many of the long stretches of desert through which we ride, including yesterday, even man-made, above-ground structures can be fifty miles apart; hence our soon-to-be-published self-help book: Bike Like a Troll: Lose Weight and Be Happy Underneath the Shiny Surface.

Now, like a school project that you want to fluff out, I'm just going to include a few photos for your viewing pleasure...

Shadows of our former selves...

A little sumpin' sumpin' for two lonely bikers to look forward to...

Birds of a feather...

Enough with the photos. Seb and I are taking a day off at the Days Inn in Van Horn, Texas. Two factors helped us make this decision: 1) a wicked wind this way blows and 2) it's snowing outside - no joke. So we're hunkered down, tv on, doing laundry and blogs, warm and safe from Kim, Kanye, and Killer Kold.

Peace out.

Black Gold, Texas Tea

Seb just had his first Texas tea here at a Starbucks in El Paso.  I'm pretty sure Jed Clampett didn't drink Green Tea either before or after shootin' for some food.  We came into this overpriced coffee emporium to avail ourselves of free wifi - scorning, in an unhealthy fit of class consciousness, the same service offered at McDonalds across the street - in our quest for a bed/floor/carport for the night (so much for class consciousness).  As it happens, Sarah Serendipity, sitting at a table behind us, started up a conversation with this rugged, handsome, modest, yet surprisingly sensitive father of three, and it turns out that, in  a burst of common sense and prudent self-interest, she'd just taken herself "off the list" for Warmshowers.org.  I'm not saying it's easy for me to appear desperate and helpless, but I will say that, for some of us, it comes a little more naturally than for others.  In exchange for our passports, the rights to Seb's first three children's books. and, of course, lifetime mini golf, we have secured floor space in a basement apartment two blocks from the University of Texas at El Paso campus. 

The photo at the top of the page is of the mighty Rio Grande River, christened forever more the Rio Gonde. Apparently a dam in Colorado is hoarding all of the water traditionally coursing this way, but it's still a shock to find out that "crossing the Rio Grande" involves a camel, not a boat.

We passed thousands of acres of pecan trees today. Yup, we did. Turns out you harvest pecans the same way you discipline wayward children - grab them by the neck and shake the idiocy, or pecans, out of them. Worked for Seb, although the chiropractor bills are sometimes irksome.

Time to cycle to subterranean levels of hospitality.  We'll see if up through the ground comes a bubblin' crude...

Gear and Clothing in Las Cruces

Actually, we’re not in Las Cruces yet, but we’ve been dying to use that line.

We were supposed to be in Las Cruces tonight, but about 30 miles short of town the unstoppable force of our bikes hit an immovable object of headwind and, two miles of “It’s a twister, Auntie Em!” later, the headwind won.  A teeny, tiny Baptist Church sits just off Exit 102 of the I-10 Interstate in New Mexico, and we have claimed sanctuary behind the back wall, perilously close to a cactus with pleasing, palm-like fronds that make you scream “Jesus!!” every time you brush by, cuz those freakin’ fronds are lined with ten million little razor blades, making an unusually strong case for Intelligent Design.

The last few mornings Seb has woken up with a face that looks like a smiling Anime figure, all creases and lines, eyes hidden in a swollen, allergic face.  Our field diagnosis is “Gradual Onset of Down Leaking Externally from Sleeping Sack”. GODLESS-ness is a real concern for some of us in the South, and we’ve taken synthetic steps to halt the slide, thanks to the cheapest sleeping bag in the world purchased at Walmart today.  Seb will sleep tonight in the arms of the Baptists and the Polyesters, and emerge tomorrow morning, we hope, with two evident eye sockets.

12 Hours Later…

It’s 6:30 in the morning.  The Baptist God is shedding tears on the unbelievers.  I’m poking the laptop with my tongue cuz my hands have frozen solid to the metal beneath the keyboard. One false poke and my tongue will join my hands. Only then will I be saved.

Seb is deeply immersed – well, as deeply immersed as you can get when wearing Saran Wrap - in his 50-cent Walmart sleeping bag.  The fact that he’s draped every spare piece of clothing over himself suggests I should have opted for the higher R-value of the 79-cent model.  Another life lesson.

The cold, drizzle, and continued headwind have a curiously sapping effect on motivation and active intentions. I’m probably the only person who has ever felt that way. But, just to show you I can act like everybody else whenever I want to, I’m going to emerge from the Blue Hole of Barcutta and do useful things, things that could be of great benefit to me, you, and Him against who’s House we are camped.  Onward Ho…