Men With Names Like Delaney

February 17, 2016

One of the constants of Texas has been the giant highway shoulders. They're so big and smooth that we could ride side by side if we wanted and still have a good amount of space between us and the Ford F-250s charging past at eighty-five. But this is cycle-touring. Nothing great lasts forever and great things tend to go away at the worst times. And so it is today, when we reach a two-lane highway thick with morning traffic bound for the interstate and the shoulders shrink down to a foot.

But this is also East Texas, where it's roads upon roads upon roads. All we have to do is survive two miles of peril and diesel exhaust and we're back to farm roads where it's all chirping birds and yellow-green fields and cattle that charge away from the fence line in a collective mass of hustling beef as we pedal by.

The first town down the road is New Waverly. It's home to only a thousand people, but when I see all of the small ranches lining the road to town I know there's going to be a cafe or a diner waiting for us when we get there. The old men who live out here need to have someplace to get coffee and then bullshit away the early morning, after all. Past the small shops and gas stations and mini-marts we find it: the Waverly House. We sit at a table surrounded by almost a dozen old ranchers, men with names like Delaney who wear dirty blue jeans with dark brown cowboy boots and have a hitch in their git-along. Their sun-worn skin tends toward the color and look of leather and if their hair isn't yet silver it will be soon. Stopping at places like this has become our wonderful morning ritual over the past few days. The curious questions and kind words directed our way become fuel for the day every bit as much as the eggs, the waffles, the biscuit sandwiches, and the thick slice of homemade chocolate pie.

Beyond town and across the interstate the pines and oaks that look like the forest we thought we'd be sleeping in last night surround us. The road is thick with shadows, the sky a flawless blue. The heat of the day starts to build but we stay cool. A subtle tailwind gives us a helping hand. Our bellies are full, our hearts and minds light. In this moment I'm not sure there's anything more we could ask for.

Farther on we shoot across a lake on a low slung bridge, then look up at the hawks hanging on the breeze above us with the undersides of their wings shining bright white in the mid-morning sun. We see a road cyclist for the first time in weeks, but in the way of most road cyclists he gives a subtle head nod without breaking cadence and speeds past to the east. The hills roll like their hearts aren't really into it. Traffic is a trivial subplot. It's one of the finest stretches of riding on the trip so far.

A sign marks the end of the forest, but it isn't needed. The Baptist church and sheet metal barns and cattle pastures tell the story. They guide us toward Richards, population 296. It's the first town we've seen so far in Texas that seems to be dying, where the main street is guarded by old storefronts that used to be mercantile and saloons but now sag under the weight of a history long since gone.

We stop at a gas station that's also a tiny store and a tinier cafe. It's a place where the different shades of paint on the concrete floor reveal how the shelves used to stretch longer when the town was bigger and busier. We sit in a booth at the back corner of the store with a Dr. Pepper and a Milky Way bar on the Formica-covered table between us, where a black plastic ashtray waits in case we need it. An old-time country cover of Chuck Berry's "You Never Can Tell" plays from muffled speakers and we look up at an ad on the wall next to us for ZiegenBock Amber beer. Brewed and available only in Texas, it tells us.

"I love Texas!" Kristen calls out to me unprompted as we ride the rolling hills west of Richards.

She gets no argument from me. Even though we've only been in the state a few days we've become taken by the great towns, the great people, the great rural roads, and the great weather. Finding places to put up the tent each night has been no problem. The riding has almost always stayed peaceful and pleasant. We know all that could change in the two or three weeks it'll take to finish riding all the way to New Mexico, but the early returns are strong.

And in fact within the hour some of these things start to go away. But the change is also no surprise. We've decided to leave the back roads behind for a few days and jump on Highway 30 toward the twin cities College Station and Bryan. They have a population of 178,000 between them and College Station is home to Texas A&M University, the largest in the state and the fourth-largest in America. It's about as far from the country stores and barbed wire fences and quiet nights in the pine woods as you can get. But we have important work and life business to take care of and the bodies that have brought us here all the way from the Atlantic need the rest.

I almost never listen to music while riding. I want to be as present as possible when I'm out on the road. I want give equal and undivided attention to all of the sights and smells and sounds of the places that appear in front of me, places I've never seen before and never in my life will see again. If a lifted truck is barreling at me from behind, I want to hear it coming. But this afternoon when I find myself on a shoulder wider than a motorhome with hills stretching out in front of me like massive waves I chuck all that stuff and leave it with the beer cans and fast food wrappers at the edge of the road. I put on the sounds of seventies funk, throw in some ear buds, and then just crank and crank and crank at the edge of my own personal highway lane on a beautiful sunny day.

It's such great fun.

Twenty miles disappear inside of two hours. Before we know it we find ourselves among distribution centers, laser tag, gyms, just-built apartment complexes, banks, a hospital, and a mega church. The outline of Kyle Field, the football stadium for the Texas A&M Aggies, towers over everything. We get a bike lane for awhile, but mostly it's sidewalk riding through what builds toward this aneurysm of commerce near the freeway, where Home Depot, Olive Garden, Ramada, Petsmart, David's Bridal, and literally fifty other chain stores help remind us why we only ride bikes in these places when we have to.

Uncountable numbers of tan apartments and town homes built to house college kids guide us to our motel, then dinner at some vast Mexican restaurant where at least half the people wear t-shirts with the Greek letters of fraternities and sororities splashed across the front.

"We're not the oldest people in here," I say to Kristen. "But it's pretty close."

The crowd gets a little wiser at the higher-brow beer bar across the place, but it's still hard to reconcile the fact that we're in this place when just this morning we woke up on a bed of leaves and twigs and spent breakfast talking to eighty-year-old cowboys.

The cars on the four-lane road in front of the motel roar past without end, just like they have all evening, just like they will all night long. Oilfield workers staying at the far end of the building talk loudly in the parking lot. Doors slam. It's all so different.

Today's ride: 69 miles (111 km)
Total: 1,388 miles (2,234 km)

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