Day 3 – Yay for Elaine’s Cafe!

Thursday, October 23rd

Navasota, TX to Kountze, TX

We stayed at the Super 8 in Navasota (about 25 mi from College Station) and got an early start this morning.  We woke up around 6 am and headed to the lobby soon after for the free continental breakfast.  On the walk there, we passed a van labeled with the name of a cycling group.  It was decked out in white shoe polish slogans of praise and encouragement.  Dad mentioned that it sure would be nice to have a van follow us on our trip, but I thought about it an said “It’s probably better that we don’t.  I’d spend most of the trip banging on the van doors, yelling ‘Let me in the van! I want to ride in the van!’ This way, I don’t have a choice.”

We ate cereal and danishes and drank orange juice while the local news showed a YouTube video of an off-duty fire truck crashing into a speeding, wailing, on-duty fire truck.  I’m always a little amazed and depressed when the news relies on YouTube for it’s content.

We returned to the room, donned some warm weather gear since a cold front blew in over night, packed up and headed into the chilly morning air by about 7:30.  We got back on 90, which was in much nicer condition in this area and battled our way to Anderson and then took 149 to Richards fighting rolling hills and changing winds the whole time.  Dad and I were both worn down after a couple of hours so we tried singing to brighten the mood.  I could remember some lines from a few Patsy Cline songs but she’s hard to mimic when you’re pushing your bike around 20 mph.

Since it’s not marked on our map, when we entered the Sam Houston National Forest somewhere after Richards, it was a pleasant surprise.  I began to miss the stares of cows, but the tall pines are a pretty sight for someone from central Texas.  I could see why they reserved the area for a national forest – it’s the only place in this state where I’ve see hills and tall tall trees in the same location.  We spent maybe an hour and a half or two passing through the forest on 149 then 1375 but were losing energy quickly because the area was all hills and the road, though not rough, was bumpy enough to steal any momentum we could muster.  The sight of the 1375 bridge over I-45 looked like an illusion at first but soon we were ejected from the enveloping, towering pines onto a typical interstate intersection.

We crossed into New Waverly and stopped at a grocery store with it’s own taco shop.  After restocking on food and downing some welcome (and wonderful) tacos, we continued on 150 to Pumpkin, Evergreen and into Coldspring where we stopped, tired and hungry.  (Are you seeing a pattern yet?)

Getting low on battery power, thirsty for some sugar and only halfway to our destination, we stopped at the main municipal building to eat pears, then started looking for a place to lunch and recharge the bike batteries.  The hills of the morning in addition to the headwind had really put a drain on me and the motor’s batteries.  With a 130 mi day planned, we didn’t want to take a chance with the remaining charge, so I talked to Carol of Elaine’s Cafe and she welcomed us to use of their outlets.  While the batteries were recharging we enjoyed a very tasty lunch of potatoes, fried chicken, chicken fried steak and root beer and even had free wireless access.

We then followed 150 to Shepherd (which saved about 5 mi off the route we’ve been following), took 787 to Dolen, passed through Romayor averaging about 21 mph and stopped in Rye to pee.  Standing around drinking cream soda after using the only (Port-a-)potty in the vicinity, we met and had a nice chat with the town’s fire chief.   (These bikes really are great conversation starters.)

After a pantomimed offer from a guy with an empty horse trailer to give us a lift, we pedaled on toward Thicket, through Honey Island and on to Kountze.

Just as we were passing sign for “Now Entering Kountze,” my batteries died, and I had to pedal into town at about 10mph.  After traveling 125 miles, we arrived in downtown Kountze around 6pm, exhausted but in good spirits.  Seeing the Relax Inn a block away, it was an easy decision.  It was a bit seedy-looking (Waco readers reference the Sandman Motel) and the guy wanted $50 (“piphty”) plus tax for the room (which should have been a $25-30 room, max).  We asked if he would take $40 and he repeated, “Piphty plus tax” so we said no thank you, but thank you and Dad took off to look for other options.  He heard there was a Super 8 in town (and that it was the only other motel in Kountze), so we pedaled to Super 8, but all the rooms were booked according to the girl at the front desk.  (We kinda got the vibe she just didn’t want us there).  She was kind enough to reluctantly allow us to charge the batteries though, and a nice lady who was visiting the hotel helped us make a reservation at a place outside of town – the Pinewood Inn in Silsbee, 10 mi from Kountze.  By the time the batteries had enough extra charge to get us to Silsbee, the sun had set and the sky was dark.  The roads to Silsbee were busy with traffic, especially with construction trucks, which are notorious for crowding bikes off the street, so we were hesitant to go.

Several guests of the Super 8 stopped to talk to us about our bikes (the most common comment being “Interesting bikes…”) and one guy mentioned the Pinewood Inn was not much better than the Relax Inn unless you got one of the renovated rooms at about $120 per night.  Argh.

Swallowing our pride we called the Relax Inn to see if they still had a room and the piphty-plus-tax guy referred us to another lady who simply said, “No rooms.”

Both of us too tired to go the extra ten miles, Dad checked one last time with Super 8 lady to see if they had something we could camp out in overnight and she said everything was booked, but agreed to double check and suddenly had an opening.  It was the handicapped suite and was more expensive than we had hoped for but a room is a room expecially when you are cold, tired and hungry.  She gave us hell about only having our passports with us (I think it took her a second to remember that you don’t need a driver’s license to operate a bicycle) but she called her supervisor who informed her that a passport is a picture ID, so we got the room.  Wow.  What a day.  Remind me not to stay in Kountze on the way home.

Today’s Quick Stats:

Bike              Distance (mi)    Average Speed (mph)

MiniWini           127.40                   18.0

Sti(ck/g)          126.50                   18.0