Mother, I'm Already Runnin' Her at Eighty!

February 15, 2016

A thunderstorm brings heavy rain during the night but has passed through by the time we wake up. When we poke our heads out of the tent we find a forest that feels damp and fresh, healthy and alive. Back on the road, thick dark clouds mix with sun breaks. Half the time we ride in flat overcast and half the time in a glowing spotlight that casts every trunk and branch and pine needle in a haze of gold. We know it's Monday because the tractor-trailers are back. But it's no big deal because everything's bigger in Texas, including the highway shoulders. The roads are mostly flat but we sweat hard from the heat of the morning and the weight of the humid air.

We've gone more than sixty miles in Texas but Zavalla is the first proper town we've seen. Although it's home to just 700 people, it has the kind of services we haven't seen much of in places three or four times the size in the states that came before. There's a grocery store, gas stations, a laundromat, huge elementary and high schools, and the kind of red-checkered tablecloth cafe that we haven't seen nearly enough of. I don't even have to say anything; I just start to coast as we draw close to the cafe and, hear an emphatic "Yep!" from Kristen as she rolls up behind me, and then make a hard left turn.

Then we go a little crazy. Our order is so long that the waitress can't help but make a comment, so long that we don't get everything we ordered. When the food arrives it fills the table: pancakes, French toast, a bacon egg and cheese biscuit, eggs over easy, home fries, hash browns, and also sweet tea in a glass just a little shorter than my forearm, because who knows how long it'll be before we no longer find it in every restaurant. It's a huge spread. It's gone inside of fifteen minutes.

Then we hang out and digest. We fill water bottles. A truck driver tells us about being out in California, then explains how he was sleeping in the cab of his rig at a truck stop not far from where we are when he was knocked out of his bed by a magnitude 4.2 earthquake. Those things happen out here now because of fracking, he says. Then he tells us that if he sees us out on the road this afternoon that he'll be sure to honk. We end up talking to the waitress and then every other person in the restaurant and all the old-timers smoking on the benches out front by the time we're done. The words are kind and positive and make us feel good and welcomed. At the grocery store down the road we find more friendly folks and so much healthy food to choose from. Our trip through the a Deep South made us wonder if we just weren't going to find these kinds of places and people out here. It warms our hearts and souls to find out this isn't true.

The nearby thunderstorms miss us but leave the weather unsettled. Where the trees are short or missing we get rocked and our pace gets cut by at least a third. But for the most part the empty back road that takes us west and a little south is protected by the pines and oak and hickory that crowd close to its edges. The day is warm, the riding easy, and we know that more national forest land lies ahead, so we take our time and enjoy it unrushed. We still get chased by dogs, but not as many. We still see a lot of mobile homes, but most are in good shape. We still see garbage along the edge of the road, but so much less of it.

Soon the trees open up and it's all bulls and barbed wire and sprawling pastures of yellow-green grass. There's no dairying out here, just cattle ranches, each one a small business unto itself. Every other vehicle that rolls by is a diesel-powered Dodge Ram with four rear tires and a custom metal work bed that altogether is worth like seventy grand. It's all very Texas. But the thing that really shows me how far west we've come is when I see lying near the edge of the road the first french fry sleeve with a red Jack in the Box logo splashed across the side.

I threaten to get a honey bun, a moon pie, and a sweet tea in the next town, mash them all together in the bottle, shake it up, then drink it like some weird gas station-inspired smoothie. It's not as absurd as it sounds. We've reached the point where our appetites are beyond all control. We eat and eat and eat and I'm still going to have to invest in a belt as soon as I find one that isn't camo-patterned because my shorts have already become too loose.

Not a mile down the road we find a tiny country store at a junction of two minor farm-to-market roads. Here Kristen learns my threat is empty. Instead we come away with a couple of Dr. Pepper sodas in glass bottles, a slice of homemade buttermilk pie, and chicken strips that come with a shot glass-sized styrofoam vessel filled to the top with white gravy. We also get a conversation and good wishes from everyone who passes by. Kristen even gets a handshake from a man who can't believe how far we've come. They all ask how we ended up here, on Road 1818 of all places. The general sense is that we must be terribly lost. But in stopping to ask the question and giving us the smile that goes along with it they've already uncovered the answer.

Later an old guy wearing dark sunglasses and a mesh hat with the logo of a trucking company from down the road in Diboll walks up to us and wonders if he was seeing things correctly when noticed the sleeping bag on the back of the bike outside. And so starts a conversation that wanders where it will. We learn that he grew up three quarters of a mile from here, went into the military but hated it and got a medical discharge, then spent his working life driving trucks to the tune of four-and-a-half million miles. He lived in Houston for awhile and made great money, but gave it up for less pay and the slower, simpler, happier life he knew he could have out here in rural Angelina County. It's a decision he never once regretted.

He loves Ontario but can't stand Quebec. He loved driving trucks but doesn't recommend it as a career. He warns us to look out for rattlesnakes, which can get as big around as a beer can, as he shows us by putting his thumbs and forefingers together in an O shape. He tells us that his daughter owns and runs this store. He says Houston isn't a good city and we're better off skipping it. ("I was travelin' to Houston with the wife. And she tells me I'd better go faster to keep up with the trucks. But I told her, I said, 'Mother, I’m already runnin’ her at eighty!' She couldn’t believe how fast those trucks were goin.'") He warns us to watch out for the semis in West Texas where the speed limit is eighty-five and so everyone drives ninety. He laments that America has outsourced the production of just about everything we used to make in this country to China. Gonzaga University and P-51 Mustangs and the fact that country doctors aren't worth a damn all get mentioned in passing.

It's not until about twenty minutes into things that it dawns on me he's not waiting for food and has no intention of ordering any. He's sitting around and talking to us just because. In so doing I learn more about his life than I know of most of the people to which I'm related by blood.

As it always seems to go in situations like these, we don't find out that the man's name is Roy until he starts to walk toward the door, which he does only because it dawns on him that he has a doctor's appointment he needs to get to. But first he shakes our outstretched hands. He gives Kristen's a lighter touch, having noticed the bandage wrapped around two of the fingers on her right hand. Then he wishes us good luck and safe travels and disappears from our lives forever with a single solid ding of the front door buzzer.

Two hours after showing up at the store we climb back on the bikes and get rolling again. But just before we reach the end of the driveway we hear a young girl call out to us.

"Where y'all goin'?" she asks.

We each stop and put a foot down and turn around.

"California," I say.

She considers this for a moment.

"On a bike?"

"Yep."

And with the slightest shrug of her shoulders and a subtle tilt of her head to the right she decides she has all the information she needs, then opens the door to the store and disappears inside.

With full stomachs and a sweet tailwind we skirt the edge of Diboll, don't say a word to any of the 5,000 people who live there, then crank out seven more noisy miles on a packed U.S. highway until we can escape to another farm road. That farm road is quiet and empty and perfect. The pavement stretches dark ahead of us in the shadows but the upper halves of the trees still glow somewhere between orange and gold in the day's fading sunlight. When I glance at a pickup truck heading the other way I see a bright white cowboy hat placed dead center on the top of the dash, wedged against the windshield. At the bottom of a long hill we pass a country store just like the one we spent hours at earlier, except this one closed twenty years ago and is now only in the business of making its way back to the soil.

The elusive walking satellite dish emerges from the woods, surprised to see two loaded bicycles riding past.

As soon as we see the sign marking the start of the Davy Crockett National Forest this goofy giddiness starts to come over us. And knowing there's no need to push farther we fall into a familiar but favorite pattern: find a gravel side road, look to see if it has the numbered brown sign of a Forest Service road, and if it does, go down it for half a mile or so, then walk off into the woods until we find a flat, hidden spot to put up the tent. We follow the formula to the letter.

Our reward is a forest all to ourselves. No trucks drive down the gravel road, no aircraft fly overhead, and no gunshots crack out. The crickets are so distant they're almost inaudible. Each birdcall is distinct. Every stomach rumble sounds harsh and severe. We talk of the stillness with reverence.

Today's ride: 51 miles (82 km)
Total: 1,256 miles (2,021 km)

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