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Stopped at: Navasota Bridge, TX Miles today: 35 Total: 55
The condensation last night was horrible and all my gear ended up wet. I made the mistake of sleeping tentless, and now the sleeping bag was soaked on the exterior. I woke up in the middle of night to set up my tent and hopefully give some of the equipment a chance to dry by morning.
At 5:45 am, I left the field, and headed north. I wasn't an early bird, but sleeping where I was visible during daylights forces me up early. The sleeping bag was a little damp, but most everthing else was okay. The bicycle's rear brakes were oddly rubbing against the tires, which wasn't happening yesterday before stopping. It turned out the panniers had shifted forward a little and pressing against the tail end of the brake cable, forcing the brake towards the rim. That was such a relief because I thought the rim was untrued.
It didn't take long to get my first up-close honking which startled me, and it came from a trucker. I biked far to the right of the wide shoulders and had the rear red lights flashing, but he came up right next to me and let out a long honk. Generally, if someone was wishing me luck, they honk quickly and honk well before approaching or anytime after passing. I hoped that wasn't a harbinger of things to come since I planned on biking many of the highways.
Within in 2 hours, I pedalled 20 miles, the same distance covered yesterday in the midday heat. This was the speed I was expecting from this trip. When I first dreamed up the tour weeks ago, I expected to bike somewhere in the 100 mile/day range and past through a great deal of towns. At the morning's pace, it would take 10 cycling hours.
The first construction zone was a clumsy situation. They had divided the 2 lane highway, and unfortunately cut off the right lane and shoulder. Would anyone mind if I biked through the zone in the right lane? No, they didn't, but at some points I was forced into the left lane and pedalled fast to stay ahead of the upcoming passenger vehicles.
That wore me out and I stopped at a tiny church which looked as if it was powered on propane. No one was around as I sat on the steps waiting for sun to present itself. It was only 9:00 am, but it was getting extremely warm. Out of water, I needed to move on, and when I got up, the left knee wasn't right. There was an uncomfortable soreness which took me back to the first week on the Pacific Crest Trail during the summer of 2003. Being on a bike, I didn't think I had to worry about my knees, but I was wrong.
Out of water, I stopped at a business with a "For Sale" sign in the front. There was a small dirt parking lot leading to a locked fence. There was no spigot in sight, so I squeezed through between the metal bars of the fence and walked to the back. Some equipment was sitting outside a garage door in a patio area in the back. I found the spigot, but water came out white and stayed white. I recall getting water like this before and after a a couple of minutes in the bottle, the whiteness would fade. Still, it's not a pleasant thing to think about when water doesn't have a clear appearance.
I looked back to the fence where the bike was leaned, and there was a bearded man standing there staring at me. He just drove up in a big truck, but I didn't even hear him. I was caught trespassing. I walked back to him with water bottles in hand (only one partially filled), "I ran out of water."
"Is water the only thing you're getting?"
"Yes."
"Thought you might be ripping us off."
"I'm on a bike and trying to keep my weight down."
"You never know." We both laughed, and he walked back to his truck not minding if I went back for more water.
Not far up the road, I stopped at a familiar picnic area I've driven by many times during the days I travelled back and forth between Houston and College Station. I spent a couple of hours there cooking a Lipton side meal mixed with packaged tuna. During that time I spread out the tent and sleeping bag to get them dry.
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Out of water again and the heat bearing down hard, I stopped at a church which fortunately had running water (white again) and a nice grassy area in the back
where few would notice me resting. It's amazing how fast I appeared to be moving this morning, but in the past few hours, I only managed 6 miles for
a total of 25 miles that morning and early afternoon.
This morning, I knew I was going to take a nap somewhere, so I didn't bother wearing contacts and just biked in eyeglasses. Good thing too because I stayed at the church for 5 hours until 6:00 pm.
At that point, there wasn't too many miles left in the day. Earlier, I had expected daily big miles, but now realized that was no longer likely. In fact, at this pace, I was never going to make it out of Texas and would probably just circle the state. The feeling of being so slow and stuck in Texas made me a little sad because I had different expectations for the journey. Now I was glad about my pre-trip decision to not keep a journal because it would probably be boring writing.
Another 9 miles, and I reached the Navasota Bridge. I had at least 1.5 hours of daylight left, but saw a dirt path leading down to the Navasota River running under the bridge. From past hiking experience, I realized that when worry about making more and more miles, it consumed me to a point where the hiking was no longer as pleasant. Early in a trip was when I should discipline myself about just doing as many miles as I felt good about instead of pushing on and on, especially on a trip without any predetermined stopping points or goals. Tonight, the bridge was my final destination.