It's official, Texas is crazy! And not because of the people, although I have never been called "sir" so often as I have here. First of all, it's huge! They're not kidding. When I came into Texas on US 295 I thought, "Wahoo, I'm in Texas." I knew it was still a long way to San Antonio, but I didn't realize that after riding for a full day in the state I would just barely be getting there. And then, that's only like halfway across the state!
Evidently the size of the state lends itself to having multiple climates and landscapes that are fascinating to me. I know that most states are sort of like this, but none of them are quite as dramatic in my opinion.
Coming through Pecos I was thrust into the oil desert part of West Texas. Although it looked green from one angle, closer inspection revealed that it was all desert brown with little green sprouts to trick you. And it's flat, really flat. The kind of flat where you can see the curvature of the Earth looking at the road in front of you.
Then, getting closer to San Antonio there are suddenly hills, out of nowhere. The hills are also covered with Live Oak and Juniper trees. How did this happen? I could also see, where the road was cut through the hills, that the is no soil to speak of. It's all rock and I have no idea how the trees take root in it.
It does, however, make for stellar scenery:
This shot was taken outside of Blanco (pronounced Blanko) where Steve has a little BMW shop called Blanco Beemer Werkz. Thanks to Steve the bike has new tires and fresh oil for the next leg of the trip. If you ever go see Steve, be warned that he has a vicious guard dog named Roxanne.
Alright, back to the Texas weirdness. Coming out of the Hill Country headed East I suddenly wound up in the forest, and didn't even see it coming. They call it the Piney Woods because it's, well, piney. It's beautiful, for sure, especially the back roads that are tree lined and have farm and ranch land all around. This was also where I saw crop farming for the first time in Texas which I found a little surprising. I had imagined much more farming being done here.
The drawback of the Piney Woods beauty is that the average relative humidity is somewhere around 142%, so it's damn hot, always. One guy that I talked to has lived here his whole life and says that he's been cold twice, and didn't like it either time. I believe him, this is hideous.
I tried to make it to Point Blank, TX for a meeting, but got started late, as usual, and had to get work done on the bike, so I wound up in Huntsville (pronounced either Huntsvull or Huntsveele) at the Huntsville Group. When I arrived there was a sign in the window saying that all 8pm meetings had been suspended until further notice, except Monday. I'm not sure why, but I thought that today was Tuesday so I started to get ready to leave. Just then someone pulled up - we were going to have a meeting after all!
It was a great small meeting, and I welcomed that after all the convention madness. And I even got to hear someone sing some of the opening readings! That was a first for me. (Thanks, Huntsville Group)
After the meeting I went to eat with DW and Tom, both native Texans and genuinely great people. We talked about Texas most of the time because I am fascinated by it and they seemed to like telling me about it. I had a wonderful time, but had to leave early because the park I wanted to camp in closed the gate at 10.
Huntsville State Park was easily the most exciting part of my day. I realize now that I should have checked into the wildlife I would encounter in places I was going to camp. I've camped in places where I knew what to expect; bears, raccoons, chipmunks, squirrels, snakes, that sort of thing. But I was not prepared for this. The trees are buzzing with cicadas and something else, the trees are booby-trapped with with giant spiders, there are all manner of giant dive-bombing bugs (including a moth the size of a bird), and…wait for it…alligators. Yeah, alligators! And to top it off, everything is crawling with centipedes. I know they're harmless, but they are damn creepy. Thank Dude I have a tent! I just hope the centipedes don't carry me and the tent down to the lake where I will be eaten by an alligator. Here's to hopin'.
