Austin, TX was AMAZING. So I must dedicate a whole post to it at some point. But not today, I’m tuckered out from the very long ride today, and really wanna post about it before I forget it.
First off, I have to reiterate how much nothing there is in Texas. I mean, its not that there is too much nothing. Its that there is too much of everything. Specifically: land, earth, area, sky, plains. I mean, its huge. If you ever say Varsity Blues, the football movie with Dawson from Dawson’s Creek and our (Huntington Beach’s) very own Paul Walker, then you remember how they got to high school, from their far away houses in the seeming ranch areas, via truck/car. And that’s exactly how it is out here. In Austin, there was a whole lot of everything: bars, clubs, eateries, hotels, houses, different neighborhood areas like you have in NYC and Denver. But once you get out of the small Austin, TX area…nothing. Just towns.
One of the first places we got to was Palestine, TX. We stopped to eat the terrible Tex Mex food they have all around here. And when we asked the waitress about what town we should head towards, she had to ask Richard, the general manager, to point us in the right direction, because he’s “traveled.” By that, she meant he’s gone as far as Texarkana (which we were thinking of going to) and Shreveport, LA (which we were also thinking of going towards). It seems like Heather’s friend Ben (who we met in Austin, and showed us around for a couple days), was right. His adage was: “You can drive 6 hours any which way out of Austin, and you’re still in Texas.” Yep, there’s a whole lot of Texas. And if you don’t keep driving, you’re gonna vacation in Texas. Or, if you’re like Richard you’ll make it out to Shreveport, LA to do some gambling.
Oh, I mentioned the food. Let’s take a look at that terrible Tex Mex situation right quick. Chris ordered a quesadilla, and they brought it with a side of that terrible processed cheese you can buy at the market. Wow.
We’ve been making sure to stay hydrated since it was damn hot in southern Texas, so at one point we did need a quick bathroom break, and we stopped at this general store.
Apparently they had no bathrooms. But the ladies inside kindly pointed us towards the “jailhouse.” And according to here story, “The boys use the Jailhouse. The ladies head home to ‘go.’” Reminded me of growing up in rural Mexico. Neat.
Anyway, so the moto ride today, was relatively uneventful, as it was mostly flat. There was long sweeping roads every once in a while, here and there. But mostly we were glad to have our iPods on. But at one point I decided we should head towards Marshall, because I saw one road that looked pretty cool. And it didn’t disappoint. It went around Martin Lake, and looked worthwhile.
It was pretty fun indeed, but the best part about these roads, is that they are “farm roads.” And it reminds me that what I noticed about Texas, is that of all the roads we’ve traveled throughout the southern US States thus far is that it has the most cowcatchers on trucks (those huge grills on the front that protect bumpers, usually you just see them on cop cars back in SoCal), and the most carrion on the side of the road, by far.
As we got on to Church Hill road, Chris noticed a dead Hawk right in the middle of our lane, and he was afraid the poor guy was still alive. So we turned around, and pulled over, to move the bird, and see how it was doing. It was unfortunately dead. But just the same, we decided to move it out of the road so it wouldn’t get run over, as the rest of the dead animals we’d seen on the way out here through Texas.
And boy, I’m telling you, those cowcatchers must come in handy, because we think we saw, not just dead dogs, squirrels, rodents we couldn’t identify, but at one point, apparently, also an ostrich. Peculiar.
But nothing struck our interest quite as much as this:
We think those are two coyotes. We assume strung up, to keep any other coyotes who come near the private land, at bay. As a warning. The ride may have started off a bit boring, but it got real interesting towards the end today.
The last thing I’ll mention is our stay in Shreveport-Bossier, Louisiana. We had dinner at Waffle House (find dining establishment!), and then headed to our hotel to bed down. Except sleeping was a bit of a problem, due to our next door neighbors who were, I think, 2 girls, and one guy, banging against the walls of the hotel room for a few hours, arguing about: who was cheating on who, what constituted cheating, when they found out, who they were texting now, and getting chicken fingers. Past 1am and they seem to have quieted down now. Good times.
—ish.
