Day 42 – Earning Bonus Miles

Monday, December 1st

Kirbyville, TX to Shepherd, TX

Today was a hard day, but a good day all the way up until just after we got to Shepherd the first time.

Compared to the night before last, I slept the sleep of the dead – a magnificent night’s rest.  We woke early, but none of our clothes had dried, so it took two hours to pack and dry things out enough to wear them in the cold morning wind without getting sick.  We got on the road a bit before the morning rush, so we missed some traffic at least, but we caught the headwinds again.  15-20 mph or so headwinds with gusts up to 25 mph and crosswind gusts of up to 30 mph.  We didn’t want to stop the bikes to get the camera out (it took all we had to keep moving at 10 mph), but a picture of me and Dad leaning 10 degrees into the crosswinds would have been awesome to share.  The gusts were tossing us all over the road and the really strongs ones kicked Dad across the road about three feet.  Thankfully, the roads were much nicer today, especially the county roads we rode:  1293 in Hardin County and 767 in Liberty County were perfect:  smooth and roomy (unfortunately we didn’t get to enjoy them much due to the headwinds).  223 in San Jacinto County wasn’t as nice, but still worlds better than what we covered in Louisiana.

The highlight of the day, for me was getting to enjoy potato, egg and cheese Taquitos from a Whataburger for the first time in over a month!  We also had some pretty tasty mashed potatoes at a restaurant in Rye (Christy’s Kitchen or something).  Not much else to the day besides, pedaling, pushing headwinds, dodging dogs (some pretty intent ones, too) and eating when we could.  We covered 60 miles before I knew it, and though the next 30 were hard, I still had some energy when we rolled into Shepherd.

Our motel, according to Google Maps, was located about 8-10 miles South of Shepherd on Hwy 59.  We stopped at a grocery store at the intersection of 223 and 59 to stock up on food for the evening, then with everything packed away and a box of chicken strips tied to the top of my top box, we headed South to find America’s Best Value Inn.  After about 2 miles, the road went to crap.  It’s been completely repaved in the last year or so, and they ruined it.  What they covered could not have been worse than what we rode over.  The road was basically giant pieces of gravel, glued down with tar.  Everything was rocky and black, and we couldn’t tell debris from the road.  Our speed dropped by 5-7 mph.  A few miles into this, we decided to stop and call the motel just to make sure we were on the right track.  A lady answered and I asked how far South of Shepherd they were located.  She hesitated like she didn’t understand the question.  I told her we were heading South on Hwy 59 and asked her if the motel was on 59.  “Yes.”  Then I asked how far South of the intersection of CR 223 and Hwy 59 in Shepherd they were.  She paused again, English obviously not her first language, then said “10-15 minutes”.  “How many miles is it?” I asked.  She didn’t know.

Since what she said corresponded to what we had been told from Google (10-15 min = roughly 10-15 miles for drivers on a highway) we pushed on.  Once we passed where they motel should have been, we called Mom to have her double check the Google location, then had Dad call the motel again.  Dad spoke to the manager and when he explained where we were, the manager said something like, “Oh, no, we’re in Shepherd.  It about 10 miles North of you.”  Dad told me this and I couldn’t believe it, so I got on the phone and explained the intersection with the grocery store and asked how far they were from that.  “Oh, about a mile North.”

A mile! I hung up and cursed a lot then we jumped on the bikes and began the ride back under a quickly darkening sky in rapidly dropping temperatures.  The road on the Northbound side had two correctly paved lanes, but a ruined shoulder, so we rode the right lane.  It pissed off a bunch of drivers, but racing the night and the cold, we didn’t have much of a choice.  As long as we stayed ahead of the sunset, we were highly visible and all the cars had to do was go around us.  It’s not rocket science.  With the road relatively straight, it couldn’t have been too demanding on them.  Usually it just came down to the question of whether they wanted to be polite, or if they just wanted us out of their way.  A cop drove by as we were riding the lane and didn’t do anything, so even as everyone passing honked, we just cranked along as fast as we could and held our ground.  Fighting a mild headwind, we averaged over 22 mph on this stretch and pushed over 25 mph for part of it.

When we finally arrived, I asked Dad to take care of checking into the motel.  If I had seen the girl, I don’t know what I would have said or done.  The fact that she didn’t know the location of the business where she works the front desk added 25 miles to our day.  Twenty five MILES.  And intense ones at that.  I am still trying to cool off about that one.

Today’s Quick Stats:

Bike              Distance (mi)    Average Speed (mph)     Trip Odometer

MiniWini            115.10                    16.9                          2880.7

Sti(ck/g)           114.86                    16.6                          2870.4

Stampedes: 2 and a little bit over

Roadside Pees: 2