Day 21: South Padre Island, TX, USA

We woke up later than expected to say the least… not enough time to get to Brownsville and cross into Mexico so we stayed in the USA and finished up some errands. We cleaned up the condo, ate at Dirty Al’s again. Mmmm… we also picked up our travel insurance that included extreme sports rider add on. It was a bit expensive but covers us in case the shit hits the fan. I had this travel insurenece in Mexico when I was here last January Paragliding in Valle De Bravo and two people had to use it, the first was a woman who literally fell out of the sky, I wont tell you want happened to her but the insurance took care of her real good.

We then went to denny’s because we say that they had free wifi, Colin and I have been discussing the meaning of free for a few days now. Denny’s wifi was truly free we ordered drinks and French fries and didn’t pay a dine for any of it and we used the wifi for five hours.

Tomorrow we will wake up early and go Mexico sound so simple I just got to go.

Day 19-20: South Padre Island, TX

There’s yet another list of things to do before we cross into Mexico. Let’s see: paperwork copies and laminating, international travel insurance, phone calls, change oil on bikes again, get prescriptions, more key copies, spare metric hardware for bikes… I’m sure there are some things we’re forgetting.

After shortening the first day's “to do list” a bit, we took a ride to the northern part of the island where there are no buildings and the dunes rule. We turned into a beach access point to check out the beach only to find that the road led right onto the beach. Beach riding is sweet. With waves rolling in to our right and rolling dunes to our left we cruised up the beach, usually partly sideways, laughing and whooping it up. Yeehaw! It’s too bad Jamie crashed; not on the 10 sideways miles while going 45 mph, but going 5 mph exiting the beach in the deep sand. The low beam bulb blew badly but because better brain storming we fixed it with a short sweet sweep slowly sideways through the auto parts store finding a new sexy bulb and taking the bike apart and making it all better again.

Obtaining our prescriptions was quite the day long experience requiring conversations with at least five pharmacys, four very different price quotes ($10-90), and a 50 mile round trip to Brownsville to pick it up. Apparently (well according to one of the Brownsville Wal-Mart pharmacists anyway) chloroquin (our anti-malaria prophylaxis) is old school medicine that they haven’t seem in house since 1991. Right, ok. I didn’t want to buy from Wal-Mart anyhow. $10 and an hour wait (which is exactly the amount of time it took to change the oil on the bikes) at a mom-and-pop pharmacy ended up being the solution.

One last thing about the island: as with many island destinations, there is a particular season that keeps this town thriving. For South Padre Island that time is spring break season when the island is inundated with throngs of high-time partying college students. It’s a double edged sword because while it pays the bills for the many people in the service industry here, it’s not something the people here enjoy. Business holds relatively steady through the spring and early summer but by late summer the crowds are gone and the island becomes a “sunset community“ until the next spring break season rolls around.

My bike title arrived so we are officially cleared for take off.

Our digs. As you can see we've made ourselves right at home...

Just outside the condo

Pool is empty due to the "cold" 80 degree weather we're having

That's our place right in the middle, 2nd floor

I love breakfast, even in the afternoon

I swear occifer, it's the original license, registration and title...

Day 18: Choke Canyon State Park, TX to South Padre Island, TX

I woke up around 5:30 this morning. The sky was still dark although the expanse of it was covered with twinkling stars and a sliver of the moon. I could hear birds cooing and splashing around in the water not far away. I got the stove going and put on a pot of water for coffee. When the sun’s first light began to creep into the eastern sky I got J up so he could take in the sights and sounds of the Texas sunrise that was unfolding. With coffee in our mugs and a bit of music playing on the laptop we broke down camp as the brightening sky revealed the surroundings of our place of rest. We really know how to pick a campsite in the darkness of night!

Our day’s journey began with a bit of backtracking to get to Route 16 south and another day on the open plains. All along the road in the plains there are ranches with miles and miles of fencing drawing the borders between properties. Each ranch has its own entrance from the road with some sort of gate or archway. Some of the entrances are simply a gate to keep the cattle in while others are lavish curving numbers with palm trees and carefully manicured landscaping. A grand entrance to a large barren tract of land (huge tracts of land!).

On fence posts along the road we saw many of this one kind of bird about the size of a seagull, with mostly white feathers and a sharp curved beak (some kind of falcon or something).

Breakfast at Ana’s Resturant (“Best food in town”) in Hebbronville cost us a whopping $12 for 5 satisfying breakfast tacos and 2 glasses of orange juice. Sweet.

Exiting Hebbronville we saw the first a new breed of law enforcement: Border Patrol. Heading south on Route 1017 we saw plenty of them and no wonder: there is heavy truck traffic on the road.


As we neared the coast, the land around us transformed from the barren prairielands to cultivated farmland as far as the eye could see.



Our arrival at the Laguna Atacosa National Wildlife Refuge, just north of Port Isabel, brought an end to the use of most of our warm layers as the temperature rose into the 70’s with the hot sun beating down on us. Warm at last!


Crossing the bridge to South Padre Island gave us our first taste of the ocean breeze and the first clear view of the heavily developed island ahead of us. It has been about ten years since I’ve been to the island and things have changed quite a bit. Big hotels are no longer five or six stories; there are several 30 plus story buildings in various stages of construction. We had no trouble finding our condo and after a late fresh seafood lunch at Dirty Al’s we took a stroll on the beach only to find that the towering hotels almost completely blocked the afternoon sun from the beach. Now there’s some good planning.

Just a few days into our trip we both could already tell that we had both taken more stuff than we needed for our trip. The condo here on the island will be our drop point for that extra stuff. The goal is to get as close as possible to fitting everything we need for our journey in the Pelican cases alone. What doesn’t make the cut? Long sleeve shirt # 3, 4 and 5, t-shirt # 3, hiking shorts, mesh shorts, camera wall plug (I know have rechargeable batteries and a charger that is smaller), some paperwork, earbud headphones (I can’t use them anyhow), all canned food, cardboard center of the tp roll.

Ok, off to bed. Peace.

-Colin

Day: 17 Austin, TX to Choke Canyon State Park, TX

With a few strong cups of coffee and a round of breakfast tacos in our bellies, it was time to make our getaway from Austin. Big thanks to Bill and Nancy for their hospitality over the past 6 days!!

With some suggestions from Bill we charted a route that took us through the rugged terrain of the Hill Country west of Austin. With no less than 40 turns on the queue sheet we were twisting and turning on some great two-laners. A highlight for the day was finding ourselves on a small county road that rolled over cattle grates every half mile and eventually threw us onto a narrow dirt road that seemed like it might end at any moment. That is the way to travel.

We took lunch hour (thanksgiving leftovers, mmm) along a small river with crystal clear water and the some incredible root systems from the trees lining the shores. One interesting thing about streams and rivers around here is that the bridges generally dip down so that when the rain comes and the river floods the water just flows over rather than building up behind it and then washing the whole road away. They also put measuring sticks on the side of the bridges so that you can see how deep the water on the road is when it is flooded. Our lunch spot was at one of these bridges and you could tell that, when the flood water came through here, it was well over 5 feet on the road due to the amount of debris in the trees and bushes along the banks.


Upon leaving the Hill Country we entered the plains/prarie that cover most of the Lone Star. Crossing these expanses is tough unless you have something to listen to besides the wind and engine. Hooray for in helmet speakers and 4 gigs of music at your fingertips.

A map check stop in the late afternoon made us a new friend. Brian Long, tester of motorcycle tires, pulled up next to us on the roadside on his chromed out Big Dog custom hardtail. Brian’s job is to ride 500 plus miles a day on preset routes to test the handling and wear characteristics of tires that have yet to see the market. The rear tire on his Big Dog was nearly a foot wide and apparently costs the consumer about $400 to replace every 8000 miles. Ouch. Looks cost big dollars. Brian made us feel good about our choice of bikes when he told us about the bump he had hit the other day on the Big Dog hardtail that launched him several feet off the seat leaving his hands as the only contact point with the bike. I don’t think we have to worry about that with 9 inches of travel on the rear of our bikes. He rode off into the evening stating that “we were having way too much fun.”

The evening brought a lengthy spectacular sunset that turned the western sky many shades of orange while to the east hues of purple and red stretched across the horizon.

We rode into the night with our destination still a ways off experiencing the cold that comes with darkness on the plains. By the time we pulled into Choke Canyon State Park it was all business to get the camp set up and make warm food.

It’s good be done with the day.

-Colin

Day 12-16: Austin, TX

Austin has become our home for a few days as we gather the last items that we need/want to have before crossing into Mexico.

Austin is an eating town. There is soo much food here and alot of it is pretty damn good too. Chuy's, Jardin's, Maudies, Pokey Joes.

Our shopping trips have taken us to the likes of the Apple Store (iPhone/iPod replacement), Fry's Electronics (camera stuff), REI (gaters, DEET, first aid kit, etc). It's kinda been a shopping spree although we are returning a fair amount stuff that isn't working as planned. Hey I guess we are just doing the holiday presents a bit early seeing as we have no idea where we'll be when those days arrive.


Friday our tires, spare tubes and big honkin' tire levers arrived and I think we will be all set with the rear tires until we get back to the states; the MEFO Explorers are pretty burly. Changing the tires went pretty smoothly, the second much faster than the first of course. It's just like changing a bicycle tire, just much wider tire and stiffer sidewall. Nothing 10 inches of tire lever can't take care of...

Day 11: Angelina National Forest to Austin, TX

Yesterday's ride covered close to 350 miles and showed us out of the state of Louisiana with our destination for the night in the first green space we spotted on the Lone Star state map near Route 190: Angelina National Forest.

Waking up to sunshine is a welcome thing after the storm and dreariness of the past two days. James started the day with giving the bikes a once over finding that our high speed entry and exit from New Orleans had burned off about a half quart of oil from each bike. Good thing we purchased that extra quart back when we changed the oil in Virginia. Breakfast, writing and packing took us a while and soon we found ourselves 6 hours into the daylight without a mile under us; time to get moving, 250 miles to Austin.

A backroad in Texas ain't the same as back home. Our backroad policy has several motivations behind it: lower speeds and thus better gas mileage, less traffic, more twists and turns, and being less abusive on us. In Texas the speed limit on "backroads" is still 65 and often is a straight line for miles. Good for covering mileage and though it's definitely not anything near an Interstate, it's also nothing like the bliss of the Blue Ridge Parkway. I think we've been a bit spoiled.

Today's route took us through one of the biggest college campus's either of us has ever seen: Texas A&M University in College Station. After 400 plus miles of small towns over the past day and a half we were greeted by a city limit sign indicating a population of 68,000 or so. Our empty two lane state highway turned into 6 lanes and we were surrounded by traffic playing the choreographed dance of stop and go from stoplight to stoplight. We agreed to make a pass through campus to check out the "sights" and found ourselves in front of a huge library named after one of those guys in that there oval office.

In working with the info we could gather from the eastern Texas map page and the Austin inset we entered Austin on Route 71 figuring it would be easiest to start on big roads and home in on our home to be: my Aunt Nancy and Uncle Bill's house. After a few phone calls and some dumb luck we found our way in the dark and pulled into the driveway.

Home cooked food? Heck yeah.
A warm shelter? Sweet.
A non vibrating cushy seat? Excellent.


Now it's time to chill.

-Colin

Day 10: New Orleans to Angelina National Forest, TX

It is going to take me a couple of days to digest New Orleans and the condition the city and state are in. First, of all the government has not helped the people, it seems like, and the people don’t feel like the government has helped as much as they can. I did hear an interesting story that I wanted to pass along.

New Orleans has historically voted democratically and the republicans in the state are using the disaster to make the state more republican by limiting the pace of the rebuild and keeping democrats out of the state. So this rabbit hole goes down deep, and there are many layers of complexity that most Americans don’t see. Also, New Orleans was trying to host the presidential debates but the people in power decided not to hold it in the city but instead in Mississippi though they will house the people in New Orleans.

I guess the one thing I want people to know about New Orleans is that despite you not hearing about it at all is that this city is the third world or even fourth world. It really does look like there was a zombie invasion, the only difference is that this is real; we have seen it with our own eyes. People are being marginalized, mostly black, poor, and homeless. There were people staying in our backpackers who were living there because their section of town is condemned. Imagine what that does to your mental well being, and they look at the rest of the country doing nothing to spur our government to sent in the reinforcements.

Here is where I insert a comment about the war and spending a billion dollars a day rebuilding Iraq. We spend this money and can’t even rebuild a city in our own country. It is depressing to see this and to understand this to see this. What is probably going to happen with New Orleans is that the government is going to auction it off, block by block to developers; they are going to rebuild or subdivide and sell to people wanting to move back to their home town, where they grew up.

We saw the front lines of the potential that global warming and climate change have on our global society. If we can’t come back from a disaster like this, what are we suppose to do when the shit hits the fan. This is a social commentary and we need to evolve beyond our democratic capitalism and if there is anyone out there who disagrees with me please come visit the people in New Orleans and talk with them. We need to get the privileged white, educated, able bodied, wealthy, men out of power because we cant comprehend what is going on to the rest of the world, cause it is hard to look down through the clouds perched atop out mountain of oppression that we have been standing on for thousands of years. I am sure we are going to see a lot more of this once we cross the Mexican boarder.

We need to have a global society, and government for lack of a better term, that is By The People, Of The People, For The People. Not By The Rich, Of The Rich, For The Rich or By The Corporations, Of The Corporations, For The Corporations.

This world needs a sustainable revolution that is selfless, that is not for anyone who is alive today, we need to sacrifice our current state so we can create a world for the future children of this world. Come drive around the back roads of Mississippi or Alabama and you will see that people are upset, but they are stuck is very deep mud and doing all they can to get out. We need this revolution to come from the people, we need to rise up against the oppressor.

We need to provide to the people of the world the basic human necessities like Food, Clothing, Shelter, Education, Family, Healthcare and Work that pays me according to the true value of the work they are doing, not to the value of their labor. We need to understand that our economics have a fundamental flaw in that the external costs are kept out of the equation.

Today a revolutionary is born, and a new form of politics, geocracy, a form of society where in the true power is held by the mind, and branches out from there, to the body, to the group, the community, the town, the city, the region, the state, the country, the continent, the world, and to the universe.

I am a citizen of the world, I deserve nutrition, a roof over my head, clothing on my back, a healthy body, a healthy mind, and a place where I can use my body and mind to make the world a better place for my children’s, children’s, children’s, children’s, children’s…

The Maori, of New Zealand say, “I come from a long line of people, when we meet they meet, and we say, “bring together the lines of me.”” I would like to add to that, I am part of a long line of people from the past and the future, when we meet they meet, and we can say, “bring together the lines of me.”