April 1, 2006
Houston to Liberty, Texas
To illustrate the concept surrounding the old adage, "It's not what you say but how you say it," Zig Ziglar said something like this. You can tell a woman she look as fresh and lovely as the first day of Spring. But if you tell her she looks like the last day of a long hard Winter, it doesn't come across quite the same way.
As the Winter of 2005-2006 came to a close, Spring in Pittsburgh seemed to be progressing a little too slowly for me. I'm not sure what I looked like but I felt like I had come through a very long Winter and needed to go somewhere warm to do some bicycling. I suspected the Gulf Coast was warm in early April and some research suggested the temperatures would be in the range of 70-80 degrees Fahrenheit. When it snowed in Pittsburgh on March 24th, any lingering doubts about whether or not to take the trip were completely gone. On the cold and gray morning of April 1st, my bike and I boarded a plane headed for George Bush International Airport in Houston, Texas. The trip was on!
We landed and I waited for a while in baggage claim for my bike, which never came. I started to ask questions and eventually was told there was a freight area. Sure enough, my bike was there. I spent some time re-assembling the bike and was finally ready to ride. The roads around the airport were a bit confusing but I found my way out of the maze and eventually onto Route 1960.
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I didn't have any water in my bottles and it felt a lot warmer than the low 70s that I had seen forecasted from afar. A Fire Station appeared on a street corner, so I stopped and asked for some water and a bathroom. They were accommodating and I was soon ready to really get moving.
It was now about 3:00pm, so my remaining riding time for the day would be relatively short. Anticipating this would be the case, I only planned on riding about 35 miles to a town called Liberty.
Route 1960 took me across a long bridge over Lake Houston and into a town named Huffman. There was a shopping plaza with the first convenience store I had seen so far. I grabbed some cold drinks and snacks. A really pretty and nice woman stopped to speak with me. She was a cyclist and thought the trip I had just embarked upon sounded like a nice adventure. I hoped she would be right and that everyone I met along the way would be as pleasant.
I continued to follow Route 1960 to Dayton, where I turned onto US-90. Somewhere along that stretch, a bank clock and thermometer indicated it was 88 degrees Fahrenheit. It was a lot warmer than the low 70s that I was expecting but I didn't mind. For me, the long Winter and the slow Spring had come to a sudden end.
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Eventually, Route 90 got me to Liberty. There was a frontage road alongside of Route 90, but just outside of town, it was gated-off. Presumably, this was to keep people off an old bridge that loomed in the distance. It was obvious the old road and its bridge made a nicer gateway for Liberty than did the newer US-90 but I suppose that it was a casualty of progress. I found a hotel room, a bite to eat, kicked back to watch the NCAA College Basketball Tournament, and got a good night of rest. I had experienced a whirlwind of travel, a drastic climate change, and the excitement of getting a bicycle tour started. I was really here. This trip was really happening!
Today's ride: 35 miles (56 km)
Total: 35 miles (56 km)
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