ST: Day 23

Daily Miles: 53.2

Total Miles: 1278.9

Max: 23.9

Avg: 14

Time on the Bike: 03:47:49

It was a quiet and cold night at the park, but I kept warm. I tried something different for dinner by making pesto with this instant pesto packet and it was mostly a disaster so I will not be doing that again.

A deer was fumbling around in the woods early AM. I thought it was a person at first so it alarmed me, and I quickly unzipped the rain fly to see what was going on. It was a large buck just walking through the woods and snorting. It was my first (alive) deer citing. I’ve seen numerous roadkill deer in various stages of decay. 

There is a lot of roadkill out there. Deer and dogs and cats and squirrels. Armadillos and skunks and raccoons. Frogs and snakes and turtles. All of them unfortunate casualties of high speed locomotion. Too bad. It wasn’t their fault someone built a road across their home.

There are a lot of trees now and less farmland. I will soon be passing near the Sam Houston National Forest and surrounding wilderness areas. This will be good and provide many opportunities to camp for free. Paying to put up a tent for the night is something that really bugs me. I haven’t paid to camp anywhere yet and I’d like to keep it that way. 

The Louisiana Cajun accent has now been replaced with the slow and down to earth Texas drawl. I like it better here in Texas. No offense to Louisiana but it is mostly a swampy and wet place. It was sad riding through some of these small towns in Louisiana. Very poor living conditions. Tin and plywood houses too numerous to count. I suppose you can find that in any state but there was a lot of it there. 

Texas feels somewhat homey and familiar. I did live here for over a year, which I often forget about sometimes. I’ve lived in a lot of places I guess. Massachusettes, New York, Seattle, Michigan, Houston, Ohio. When people ask me where I’m from I sometimes don’t know what to say. Half the time I’ll say Massachusetts where I grew up and the other half I’ll say Michigan where I have my legal residence, even though I don’t actually live there. Come to think of it, I don’t live anywhere right now.

While sitting at a grocery store waiting for my friend Lyall from Houston to come pick me up, a very old gentleman came and sat at my table. His name was Herman Harp and he was 92 years old. He was a jewelry and watch repairman back in the day and even though he couldn’t hear me much, he sat and talked to me about his life and living in Texas. 

“I come here twice a day. In the morning for coffee and right now for coffee. It’s only 50 cents. They want 2.50 at the diner on Maint St so I don’t go there no more.”

Later one of his friends came, Marry, and she sat and talked with us. She lost her husband last year to cancer but was happy to report that she went to the doctor this morning and the doctor told her she was cancer free. 

“I survived colon cancer three years ago,” Herman said. “They took out most my colon and now I can’t eat like I used to.”

I sat and talked with the two of them for about an hour. We talked about Texas Water Snakes and church and the difference between Red and Black Angus. We talked about immigrant workers and Marry’s cats and her late husband. Marry left after a while of rambling and then it was just me and Herman again. 

“Well, I best be getting home to make some dinner. It’s already past 4.”

“Okay, Herman,” I said. “It was a pleasure talking with you.”

He leaned closer. “What’s that now?”

“It was nice talking to you.”

“I didn’t get that,” he said, pointing to his presumably bad ear. 

“Have a wonderful evening!” I said loudly and deliberately with a big smile. “It was nice chatting with you.”

He smiled like he acknowledged what I had said and got up and walked away. I saw him get into an old ford pickup truck, start the engine and drive away. 

Sometimes all we need is somebody to listen to us talk.