Don't Mess With My Texas Mustache!

Like any other form of communication in my life, emails and blog updates have been drastically sporadic during this trip. But here's an attempt to update y'all from Houston, Texas.

So far we have biked just under 3000 miles and have withstood temperatures from the upper 80's to the mid 20's in January sunshine and February thunderstorms. I'm glad to say I've worn spandex in most of the southern states and actually conducted conversations in them with inhabitants of Alabama, Mississippi and Texas.

Since too much time has passed to give a detailed account of our travels I'll send out some highlights:

+ I learned that there is more to Florida than old people and tourists. I encourage anyone traveling to Florida to checkout the Northern and Northwest en part of the state, where real people still live, farm and fish. There we found out that Florida has the most freshwater springs than any other place in the world. These springs cause massive sink holes and underwater caves. Two extraordinary cases occur on the Santa Fe River at River Rise and River Sink. At River Sink the river goes underground for 3 miles until it rises again at River Rise. Along the Gulf Coast of Florida we found many tourist and development free towns where people actually live and work. The best we went through was Carabelle, east of Apalachicola. In another small town we picked up a book called Spring Creek Chronicles which is a collection of fishing stories from Spring Creek, Florida.

+ We stayed a week in New Orleans and spent lots of money supporting local musicians and bars We saw good live music every night, ate Louisiana oysters and had our fill of po'boys and gumbo. We worked one day with ACORN gutting a home in uptown New Orleans and got a chance to talk to some people in the neighborhood about the storm. Basically every conversation in the city eventually turns towards the hurricane. Some have conspiracy theories about government land grabs taking place and others seem very mellow about the whole thing. I considered taking a job at the race track mucking out horse stalls and fulfilling my Jayber Crow / Port William dreams, but decided against it and we eventually biked out of the city.

+ Our route out of New Orleans was the Mississippi River levee. We followed its winding path all the way to Baton Rouge. There are lots of refineries on that river and some enormous grain elevators. North of Baton Rouge the refineries become more scarce and after crossing the Mississippi at St. Francisville by ferry we entered some of the prettiest farmland since leaving Pennsylvania. In this part of Louisiana we ended up following several dirt roads to the Atchafalaya River. Along the way we met a dog named Rim (we know his name cause it was stenciled on his side) who, instead of chasing us, ran in front of us for several miles. I hoped he would come with us for the remainder of the trip, but he eventually tired and ran into the woods to rest.

+ In the weeks preceding Texas we were told that Texas would be terrible, be it the landscape or the people, so we were expecting the worst when we crossed the Sabine River into East Texas. We did so at night fall in a downpore and ended up camping next to Quicksand Creek on the side of the road. I'm glad we didn't sink. Anyway, we've since experienced real Texans, and they aren't as scary as they or other people would like us to believe. I think Texas and Texans have the same syndrome as New Jersey and New Jersey-ans do. Texas is different they all like to say, but it's really just like any other southern state we've been in. They do have big mustaches and they do wear cowboy hats and they all do say ma'am, but other than that we haven't been shot at or threatened (like in Georgia). So yea.

So now we're in Houston and will be heading to Austin and then Big Bend National Park. After which we may go through northern Mexico or we may stay in the states. I'm just about ready to see the Pacific Ocean and possibly start heading north to Seattle. First things first, shave this beard into a Texas Mustache!