March 5 & 6, 2005; Texa-Louisi

The second and third days on the trek to Orlando. Clear skies and a good forecast told me that Houston and another free bed would be in reach today.

Interstate 10. Top of the world.

People have cursed the stretch of Interstate 10 across West Central Texas for being excruciatingly long and boring. I found it to be quite the opposite. I had no idea what my elevation was, but it felt, as though I was alone on top of the world- the clouds were so close and light. It was as though if I could just get a handle on one, I could drag it along with me. The so-called boring stretch of Interstate went the quickest of the whole trip.

20 miles outside of Ozona, Texas the rain started. Before long, I was watching the water collect on the shoulders and trying not to let the back wheel lose traction any more than it already was. For the second time, the "little biggest town in Texas" was my home for the night after only 360 miles.


The next day, The Weather Channel didn't tell me much except for rain. Rain, rain, rain, stupid rain. The front was in Texas and heading east. I would need to make it to New Orleans by the end of the day to have a chance of a dry run the rest of the way to Florida. Of course the road to New Orleans was forecast to be very wet.

Having no rain suit of my own, I had entertained the idea of making a rain suit out of garbage bags and duct tape, mainly because the thought was, well entertaining. Let's face it. With half a day already washed away by the rains, I could not afford to loose another. I was at the grocery store at 8:00 am sharp to purchase Hefty garbage bags, duct tape, and some kitchen gloves. I set to work in the parking lot to construct my rain suit. Twenty minutes later I had taped in my wallet, phone, camera, and contents of my bowels. Now that's thinking ahead.

Maybe I should apply for a position as the Hefty spokesman

The suit performed beautifully through light rains in the morning. At lunch I stopped at McDonalds. When I stepped in the door, some teenage punk was laughing at me. Now, I realized the humor of the situation, but still wanted to force the tooth fairy to pay him a visit tonight. The little punk got his though.

As I was standing in line a group of six sheepishly giggling teenage girls approached and asked if they could take a picture with me. This was the same group of girls that the punk had been ogling. As I took three giddy girls under each arm, I smiled for the cameras and then smiled for the punk, who got ignored by the girls. Punk. One of the girls asked how I went to the bathroom. As I pointed out the rip in the front of my rain suit, I said, "Number one ain't a problem, it's not eating too much that's the hard part."

The suit kept me dry through a couple more showers, and allowed me to get to Slidell, Louisiana, 789 miles from where I had started this morning.

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