Louisiana

Crossing into Louisiana from Texas was bittersweet. The riding conditions quickly improved on Highway 12 East, but we were greeted with a wall of humidity that we still haven’t escaped. Louisiana seems to exist in an alternate universe, and in their universe water doesn’t realize that it is supposed to be a liquid when it is 70 degrees outside. We could feel our pace getting slower and slower as we fought through thick air and our lungs gasped for oxygen.

We discovered that a Parish is basically the same thing as a County, and the quality of the roads changes drastically as you enter new Parishes. It was really difficult to find a stealth camping spot that first night because everything in Louisiana is a swamp. By time night fell we decided to go with a spot near some power lines that was probably owned by the power company. We were out of sight of the highway, which is really all we need. The odds of someone seeing us at night are basically zero, and if someone sees us in the morning it doesn’t matter because we are moving on anyway. I guess they could be a shitbag and call the cops to give us a trespass notice, but so far that hasn’t happened. Stealth camping was pretty difficult in that part of the country but we always found a relatively safe place.

The next couple of days were relatively uneventful. We biked along the same road and saw the same sites. We clearly stand out down here and a lot of people at gas stations and grocery stores are interested in us. They also offer us weed and money and food pretty regularly, but we generally turn down these offers. As we approached Baton Rouge we needed to cross a couple of rivers, and by rivers I mean “a river that also has miles of swamp on both sides”. In order to navigate one of the rivers we had to trespass on a nature reserve. The road through the reserve was decent and we just smiled and waved at everyone we saw. Nobody seemed to care that we were there, which is kind of the norm in life… if you act friendly and confident people tend to just let you do your thing.

After several days we arrived in Baton Rouge, which turned out to be a really kick ass town. It has all the things we are looking for in a place to live. It is also SUPER cheap. With a little effort you can find a 2-bedroom house with a yard for about $600 per month. One good thing about living in Los Angeles is everything seems reasonably priced compared to them. If we end up moving to Baton Rouge (which looks fairly likely) we wouldn’t really need to work anymore than we are now, though a part-time job at a coffee shop or something is good for meeting people and getting out of the house. We both get kind of fat when our lives don’t revolve around exercise and we will need a way to stay active.

In Baton Rouge we stayed with a wonderful couple we found on Couchsurfing. Jen and Zac hosted us for several nights and we had an amazing time with them. We all had a lot in common… they are vegan, minimalist, love travelling, and they work for a solar company (okay, we don’t work for a solar company but we have solar panels). They also love pets and have a dog and a pig. We may be meeting up with them in DC later this year, which would be fucking awesome. One of my favorite things about being on the road is meeting all these amazing people and staying connected with them. Our network continues to spider all over the country and the magic of the internet lets us all stay in touch.

Sadly, our time in Baton Rouge had to come to an end and we hit the road. The first day was longer than average at 45 miles, but we made it halfway to New Orleans. We stayed with Dale, a prolific host that we found on Warmshowers.com (a site that has nothing to do with pee). Dale owns an auto shop and opens it up to cyclists coming through the area. He was incredibly friendly and knew exactly what a cyclist needs after a long day on the trail. He provided a safe place to sleep, electricity to power our stuff, a little kit with a new toothbrush and other amenities, and a little privacy. After chatting for a bit he left and let us rest. There was another cyclist there who was from Australia and travelling the US for a bit. He, like us, didn’t have a very strict plan, he was just riding along. Now we have an Australian connection for when we decide to tour there. J

The next morning, we slowly got back onto the road towards New Orleans. The plan was to get to a state park, camp there for two nights, and then head into New Orleans to stay with one of the coolest people on the planet, Cheyenne. Unfortunately, things don’t go as planned. The weather when we left was gross and we had a late start, which made it impossible to get to the state park. But, because we were so close to New Orleans (and Louisiana’s swampy terrain) it was nearly impossible to find a stealth spot. Eventually, after some searching, we found a spot underneath an interstate overpass. It wasn’t the quietest place but it did the job.

Before heading to Bayou Segnette State Park we stopped by Starbucks to work and Best Buy to get some supplies. We didn’t actually get anything at Best Buy because, apparently, they don’t actually have things in stock. So, we just used Amazon to order exactly what we wanted instead of settling for what they had. After the work we hit the road to finish up our short 20 mile day. Unfortunately, short doesn’t mean stress free or easy. To get to Bayou Segnette we had to cross a massive bridge going over the Mississippi River. It was a stressful ride but we made it and after checking in we set up for the night.

The next morning, we finally were headed to New Orleans to rest for about a week. Though, the 15 mile ride would be one of the longest ones of our bike ride. Our first stop was to a welder to get Anna’s trailer welded, it cracked for the third time a few days earlier but this was our first chance to find an aluminum welder to get it fixed. We found a guy who makes giant aluminum boats and he fixed it up really quickly. Our original plan was to take a ferry across the Mississippi in order to avoid the bridge and to cut our travel time down, the ferry would dump us straight into the French Quarter where we were staying. Unfortunately, the ferry was broken. According to the ferry website the boats are “older than Neptune and prone to break”. It doesn’t appear that the city of New Orleans is putting any real effort into solving this problem in the long term. Shit just breaks all the time and people deal with it.

So, we were stuck with crossing the bridge again. We were most of the way up the bridge when my chain snapped. I was able to push my stuff up the rest of the bridge and then coast down to an abandoned lot where I could try to repair the chain. That didn’t go as planned. I didn’t have all the correct parts to replace the chain because I am dumb and forgot that I had used up the spare links when I was in Dallas. We found a bike shop two miles away and started walking.

Eventually we got the parts, fixed the bike, and started riding again. By this time it was already late afternoon and we decided to stop by a brewery on our route into New Orleans. The beer was good and it was a nice break from the crazy long and stressful day we had. We hit the road again after a few drinks and made it to our friend’s place in the French Quarter at around 6pm. We had to pee really badly from the beer, so fixing that was our first order of business. Then we hauled everything up to her third floor apartment, locked and covered our bikes and trailers in the alley, and then finally relaxed.

Our time in New Orleans was a mixture of business and pleasure. We worked a bunch, rested some, and got our bikes tuned up. We also explored the city with our wonderful friend Cheyenne as our guide. Cheyenne is one of the most beautiful spirits we’ve ever encountered. We met her years ago because of Burning Man. She was in Los Angeles at the time and needed a ride up to Burning Man, she connected with me through a mutual friend, and we gave her a ride to and from the Playa. She is one of those people whose love and passion and energy can motivate you to get involved and change the world. She also always opens her home to those in need (she actually hosted us in Olympia, Washington back in 2014 as well when she was in college there), and she is a wonderful tour guide and host. It was such a pleasure seeing her and exploring New Orleans with her.

New Orleans is a fun city and somewhere that we would like to visit more often. It has so much life and character, and generally finds a way to prevent the problems you see in other large cities. There is a substantial homeless population but the city is fairly clean. There are trash cans everywhere and you often see porta-potties and public toilets available (take note Los Angeles). We never felt unsafe while wandering around and the open container laws (and recent marijuana decriminalization) means the police are generally there to prevent violence and theft instead of being used to bring in money or harass people because of their vices. The city is expensive as shit though, which is one reason we would visit a lot instead of living there.

After a prolonged break (we were delayed because our bikes took longer to tune up than expected) we started hit the road again, this time with Mississippi on the near horizon. Leaving New Orleans was an experience itself. First, we stopped by Villalobos, the home of one of our favorite shows “Pit bulls and Parolees”. For those that don’t know, the show focuses on the day-to-day operations of Villalobos, a rescue organization that focuses on pit bulls and hires primarily parolees. The show is all about second chances and letting individuals (animals and humans) have a chance at a new, better life. We took some pictures while there and met some of the staff. The staff was fascinated by Higgins and his little adventure we’ve been on.

After Villalobos we had a lot of trouble getting out of the city. We were going through the 9^th Ward and it was clear that the culture and infrastructure was still suffering from Hurricane Katrina’s devestation. There was a real distrust of outsiders there, to the point where a cop told us we needed to move along quickly when we were in front of a store packing up the groceries we just bought. Apparently, because I decided to eat something while packing, we were loitering and couldn’t stay there to eat. This is the first time that has ever happened to us.

At another one of our stops we pulled into an abandoned lot to have a quick picnic. We weren’t there 20 minutes before a truck pulled up and told us that it was private property. It was clear he wanted to make sure we didn’t plan on staying long. Shortly after he left another car pulled up and the driver just stared at us while we packed up. She didn’t say anything, but she watched us until we were ready to leave.

We kept trucking and soon got to a bayou reserve with some picnic tables. We stopped to take another break and a cop pulled up to talk to us. He warned us about how dangerous it was in the area and told us we needed to be careful because he “just caught two people doing drugs earlier”. The mindset that “doing drugs” = “harm to other people” is really disturbing, but pretty common among law enforcement. Personally, I’d rather hang out with a drug user than a cop. It is way more likely that a police officer will shoot Higgins or I than a random pot smoker will. When the cop asked where we were staying that night we lied and said we had a friend a few miles up the road. It was better to lie to him than tell him we planned on stealth camping along the river.

Fortunately, we actually didn’t need to stealth camp along the river. Shortly after we passed a Catholic church one of the employees drove up and told us we could camp on the church property if we want. That was really nice of him and this marks the first time a Catholic church has been helpful. Generally, Catholic churches are the least supportive. They either ignore emails and phone calls or have policies against providing shelter for strangers. Our favorite denominations tend to be Presbyterian and Lutheran churches, they are usually friendly and don’t try to convert us. I’m not sure if there is a theological reason for why different denominations tend to treat us differently, or if the difference even exists, our sample size is hardly big enough to draw any real conclusions.

That night beside the church was our last one in Louisiana. The next day we rode the final 15ish miles to the Mississippi border. We had a tailwind and beautiful weather to keep us moving into our 17^th state.

Check out our photos on Instagram (@shifts_and_higgles) or follow us on Facebook (www.facebook.com/shiftsandhiggles)

Texas – An After Action Review

It’s been two weeks since we crossed the Texas-Louisiana border and our time there is still on my mind. Every place is unique in some ways, but Texas has been more unique than most (at least so far). There is a culture down in Texas, a feeling that seems to seep into every interaction. But, unfortunately, that culture is not universally good.

Texans have a lot of pride in their state. The Lone Star is everywhere and more than once we heard people threaten violence upon those who would speak ill of Texas. Texans swell with pride when discussing the state they live in, and even take pride in living their whole lives without leaving the state. They are so sure that Texas is the best that they don’t even bother exploring the world outside.

But, this love seems to translate solely into words and threats of violence. The roads and natural preserves in Texas are littered with trash, more trash than we had ever seen in one state. Dumpsters worth of garbage litter the highways and more than once we saw appliances dumped in the national forest. The Texas pride seems to be about talk, and not about action. It is the type of pride people feel about their families… they can talk ill of their family, even abuse them, but no outsiders can.

There is also a strong Christianity on display in Texas. Businesses have Bible verses on their doors, churches appear on every corner, and Bible studies happen proudly in public places. Religion is worn around Texas like name-brand clothing. Unfortunately, the religion seems to be shallow. Texas is the first place we heard outright racist things said in public with no shame. Confederate flags fly everywhere. The idols of Texas nationalism (The Alamo, Sam Houston, the Lone Star, etc) seem to be the true focus of religious worship. There is a distrust (almost hatred) for immigrants, African-Americans, and the non-religious. We were warned often to carry a gun because “some places white people will be attacked on sight”. Instead of using Christ’s teachings to further love, generosity, and acceptance, it seems to be used only to signal to other Christians that they are on the same team. These hypocrisies exist in all places, but the public displays in Texas were overwhelming.

That being said, we were treated incredibly well by many people. People offered us money several times (I guess people on bikes are wandering homeless) and they were very open to conversations. I can’t help but wonder if the reaction would have been different if we weren’t a white, relatively young, hetero-passing, not terribly unattractive married couple. Texas also had some of the most diverse and beautiful environments we have seen so far. We would love to come back and explore more, but I don’t think we would be comfortable living there. The culture just doesn’t match up for us, even they lack of income tax isn’t enough to draw us in. In reality, Texas would be a perfect place to live, if only I could get rid of some of the Texans.

PS: I should note that we really didn’t get a chance to explore Austin, the one city that seemed to match up with us socially. Our one day there was good, but really wasn’t enough to get a feel for the city.

So long, Texas!

Leaving Sam Houston National Forest was a bit of a sad moment. We had a great time resting and exploring nature a bit but, alas, we had to hit the road. It had been a long time since we actually got any work done so our first stop was Huntsville, a relatively small college town to the north of the forest. There was a small wooded area about ¼ mile from a Starbucks in Huntsville, so we just camped there for two nights and went into Starbucks each day to get work done. As is often the case, we had a lot of people talk to us while at Starbucks. One man that stood out told us about how he hitchhiked and walked around the US for about a year after his marriage broke up. He told us he had a mental breakdown and couldn’t handle society. People tell us about their lives a lot, even some really personal stuff. I don’t think people talk enough about their problems in an authentic way and, for some reason, we make a good sounding board.

After leaving Huntsville we spent a couple of days heading east to the town of Beaumont.  The terrain was flat and weather cooperative, it was all pretty uneventful. We did start to see a lot more marshes and wetlands that I generally think of when I think of Louisiana.

Due to some urgent work stuff that came up we decided to get a hotel in Beaumont. Generally we loathe spending that much money on a hotel, but the work we knocked out more than paid for it. Beaumont, like basically all Texas towns, was incredibly hostile to cyclists and pedestrians. The roads lacked shoulders or sidewalks and had incredibly high speed limits. We couldn’t check into our hotel until 3pm (dumb) so we stopped at a Starbucks to work. We ended up meeting a lot of really cool people there, including a formerly homeless couple who offered to buy us coffee.  Around 2pm we went to a grocery store to stock up, and then to the hotel where we showered, banged (finding time and energy for sex is tough sometimes), and worked. The work ended up being more than we thought so we ended up staying two nights.

After Beaumont we headed south just 20 miles to the outskirts of Port Arthur. It was Sunday and we had a couple packages waiting for us in Port Arthur. We found a nice RV park who let us set up for free overnight. At the RV park there were three kids around the age of 13 or so. They talked at us… a lot. Anna and I are both fucking awkward with all children, but luckily these kids just rattled on and only occasionally asked us questions. They were clearly fascinated by what we were doing and had never really heard of someone travelling the country. The kids eventually left and we went to sleep.

The ride into Port Arthur had a hellacious headwind and took us a lot longer than we expected. After getting our packages we headed north and tried to put down some miles towards Louisiana. Unfortunately, mother nature had different plans. We knew that there was some bad weather brewing but soon we had flash flood and tornado warnings in the area so we made the decision to get another hotel room, this time in the city of Orange. Paying for another hotel room (this time for three nights) really sucked, but we don’t fuck around with tornados and floods. Rain and wind is one thing, but we plan on surviving this adventure so it is worth it to get a hotel room for safety.

We were not idle during the three nights. We banged a couple more times and knocked out some work, and even ordered a pizza and drank some beer. One of the best things about the bike ride is a recalibration of what is important and what brings pleasure. Something simple like a day with a shower and a beer is all it takes to really make a day above average.

The weather finally cleared up and we hit the road again on Friday and finished the last 15 miles or so to Louisiana in about two hours. With Texas behind us we are now in our 16^th state and really excited to visit Baton Rouge and New Orleans in the next couple of weeks.

Waco to Sam Houston National Forest

When we set off from Waco we were excited to be on our way to Austin, one of the few cities on our list that we really wanted to visit. It seemed to be the type of city we would like… kind of weird and hippy. Unfortunately, as is often the case, our expectations shattered when faced with reality. Around noon of the day we left a 25+ MPH headwind hit us from the south, slowing us down to a near standstill and preventing us from travelling more than 23 miles all day. We checked the forecast and saw that a storm was brewing and we would have a headwind for days all the way to Austin. No Bueno… we had to adjust course and head straight to College Station. There was simply no point in adding two days of travel to get to Austin and then leave the next morning. So, we improvised.

Instead of heading to Austin we went towards College Station. Our plan was to set up at a lake nearby and rent a car to go into Austin for a day. Normally we wouldn’t do that, but we had a couple things being mailed to us in Austin that we needed to pick up. With our direction changed from south to east the headwind turned into a crosswind (and sometimes a quasi-tailwind). We had no real places planned to sleep so we just decided to do some stealth camping.

During our travels we travel through a lot of towns and areas that don’t see a lot of outsiders. This seemed particularly true in Texas, and the travels can really make you rethink your views on public policy. It was easy for me to sit in Washington DC as a libertarian and just recommend tax cuts and limited government as the panacea to all problems, but the truth is more complicated than that, and seeing some of the places I’ve seen I just don’t have any clue how to help.

Take, for example, a small town we passed through. This small town of about 2,000 people was probably 20 miles from the nearest city of any real size. The town had one Wal-Mart in it, but that Wal-Mart didn’t sell any fresh food or produce. Unemployment in this town was high and the median household income was about $20,000. The roads were falling apart, trash was everywhere, and stray dogs roamed the streets. People lived in homes that were literally falling apart, the roofs were collapsed and windows smashed, I am sure that a government agency would deem it uninhabitable if it was inspected. In many of these homes were three generations of people who share one car. Even if they had the money to move there was no U-Haul or car dealerships within 20 miles. I just don’t see how any amount of tax breaks is going to attract businesses to an area with no infrastructure and an uneducated population. These towns, often crumbling shadows of the prosperity that they had when they were thriving rail towns, seem to have no hope. The only thing that comes to mind that could help people get out and start to recover is something like a basic income guarantee. I am sure a lot of these problems came from government subsidization of highways, but railing against the past is not a way to help people in the future. So, as is often the case, I just don’t know what the fuck to do.

After a couple of days of travel in these food and prosperity deserts we arrived at Lake Bryan on the outskirts of College Station. The day we arrived was rainy, and is always the case rain makes everything terrible. The water makes our equipment weigh more, it makes navigating more difficult because I need to keep my phone covered, and it turns roads into slush that gets into our gears and chains damaging them. We arrived at Lake Bryan hours later than planned and in fairly low spirits. Anna and I make a good team though, when one of us is miserable the other person is able to be more productive. We really do balance each other a lot, her perfectionism and my “that’s probably good enough” view of work keeps us both effectively moderate. We set up camp and basically just went to bed to the sound of random teenagers showing up at the lake to bang or party or whatever.

The next morning Anna biked into the city to pick up our rental car for our day trip to Austin. One of my biggest regrets about this bike ride is that I never got a driver’s license before it started. It would be nice if I could share the driving duties. Oh well, it is tough now that we don’t have a real home state. It would be nice if there was a national driver’s license. Anyway, she got back to camp around 10 and we loaded our valuables into the back of the car and hit the road to Austin.

Austin was a pretty awesome city, but like most cities it was really too big for people like us. It felt crowded, hilly, and difficult to navigate. It certainly was weird, but like every human society it was filled with people trying to outdo each other. Though, instead of trying to make more money or have a bigger house or be the strongest Austin is filled with people trying to “out weird” each other. It makes sense I guess. Basically everything is about sex, and to get sex you need to signal to people that you are unique and have value. This isn’t really a negative judgement of Austin, just a reality. There are, of course, benefits for people like us. We were able to eat some awesome vegan food we Anna’s cousin, shop at Trader Joe’s, and drink some great beer at a dog-friendly bar, the whole city was remarkable dog friendly. The options were about the same as Los Angeles but it was a lot cheaper. The day went by quickly and we were unable to see all the people we wanted to see but we plan on coming back again someday.

The next day, back at the campsite, all hell broke loose shortly after Anna returned from dropping off the car. Winds at the campground got close to 45 MPH and our day of planned rest and work turned into a Sisyphean task of holding our tent up from the inside. Eventually, we moved our tent to the bathroom area to use the brick building to protect us from the wind. Embarrassment be damned, if people wanted to piss they would have to walk by us and our stuff. The wind, being the double-edged sword that it is, turned from enemy to ally the next day.

Those same winds ended up being a tailwind as we left the College Station area and headed towards Sam Houston National Forest. Despite a pretty hilly day we went over 53 miles towards Sam Houston, only seven miles short of the whole route. The terrain became increasingly green and hilly, which we didn’t know existed in Texas. We camped among the trees of Sam Houston National Forest, which we are pretty sure is legal, dispersed camping is generally allowed in National Parks and Forests as long as you aren’t too close to a campground. It is definitely a “better to ask forgiveness than permission” situation. Besides, most park rangers are cool people. They choose a career that takes them as far away from other humans as possible and they love the outdoors… they are basically all Ron Swanson’s, as long as we don’t hurt anything they let us do our thing.

The final day into Sam Houston, a whopping 7 miles, ended up being a huge pain in the ass. The whole ride was on trails that went through the forest. It was beautiful but the trails were rocky, hilly, and kind of exhausting. It was really a mindfuck more than anything, when you think you only have a short day and it ends up being difficult you get drained. We made it to the campground around noon and finally got to rest.

About an hour after arrival one of my army buddies and his wife came up to hang out with us. They live in Houston with their daughter and dog, so it was a quick and easy drive for them. Our dogs became best friends as the rest of us hung out, chatted about the world, reminisced about our military and other days, ate some tacos, and drank some beer around the campfire. It was pretty damn awesome. Now, we are resting for two more days before heading east again. The next major stop is New Orleans, but there is a lot of land and adventures for us between here and there.

Dallas to Waco

Our first day back on the road was about what we expected… nothing went according to plan. Leaving a major city is always tough but DFW kicked our asses. First, we didn’t get started until 1pm. I realize this is not the fault of anyone except ourselves. Apparently, despite having three months to get things in order for the bike ride we decided to do a lot of the stuff the day we were leaving. So, our start was late but we only had 30 miles scheduled that day. No big deal.

Well, in traditional “everything is bigger here in Texas” fashion basically everything worked against us. The bike trail we were supposed to start out on turned into a lake about 2 miles in. So, this giant level of incompetence in city planning and maintenance forced us to ride our bikes on the giant roads with the giant trucks filled with giant assholes who don’t know how to use their brakes. Oh, and the giant amounts of construction blocking the sidewalks certainly didn’t help matters. We ended up still being about 15 miles from our starting destination when rush hour hit. It was terrible.

At around 5:30pm we pulled into a church parking lot to turn our lights on. We hate riding in the dark but we didn’t have much choice at this point. Luckily, the giant kindness of a Texas stranger helped us out. A man named Jerry approached us and asked about our trip. At first I was a little annoyed because we were clearly busy and in a hurry. Small talk was burning daylight and riding without daylight is pretty dangerous. Jerry turned out to be awesome and offered to follow us in his van with his hazard lights on to protect us from traffic. At first we declined his offer but, luckily for us, he was persistent. The last ten miles or so he rode behind us on some pretty gnarly highways and kept us safe all the way to our campground for the night. We set up quickly in the dark, had a meal, and went to bed. As exhausted and stressed out as we were it felt good to be back on the road.

We left the campground (Cedar Hills State Park) at a more reasonable time… 11am. Again, we found ourselves to be the victims of terrible infrastructure that provides no real options for cyclists or pedestrians. Despite a long day of biking we fell short of our 35 mile goal due to the hills, road conditions, and headwinds. Luckily, we found an abandoned lot to set up our tent in. Texas has a lot of fucking land. We could have lived in that lot for days and nobody would have noticed us. Hopefully this will continue and we will have lots of free stealth camping places as we go.

The next day was one of the best we ever had. We hopped onto the interstate (with the gigantic shoulders) and were lucky enough to have a tailwind most of the day. The roads were relatively flat and we easily made up our missed miles from the day before. In fact, we rode over 50 miles into Lake Whitney State Park and still had daylight left. It was really nice being able to set up in the daylight, eat some food, listen to Sawbones, and relax. We are often so rushed on our ride that we forget the reason we are on this adventure.

Oh, wait, there isn’t really a reason for this adventure. I forgot. We are just making up everything as we go.

While at Lake Whitney we met another amazing person. Robert is a fellow bike tourist and his home baser is up in the Dallas area. He is really inspiring to us because he didn’t abandon normal life to do bike tours. Instead, he keeps his normal job but finds ways to implement bike touring into it. For example, if he has to travel to Alabama for a  work conference he will bring his bike with him and ride back home instead of flying. Or when he has a long weekend he will try to ride to the beach and then take a train back. He makes me feel like we have the easy life. Which, in a way, we do… it is kind of easy to live when you don’t have bills or any traditional responsibilities. Though, we have some unique challenges, like figuring out where you will sleep each night, keeping a bike in working condition, not dying on the interstate, etc.

Our final day into Waco was a pretty rough one. We had about 40 miles to do but it was pretty hilly and the headwind was back. Also, our bodies were pretty beat from four days of constant riding, but we overcame the challenges of the day and made it to our Couchsurfing hosts just before dark. Our hosts, Allyson and Logan, are two of the friendliest and caring people I’ve ever met. They have such a generous spirit and a passion for life that it is really inspiring. It is always good to meet new people and have them become fast friends. Oh, and they had three lovely dogs for Higgins to play with, so he was pretty happy.

When we first started towards Waco I didn’t know what to expect. All I knew about that town was a couple decades ago some asshole religious people got into a scuffle with some douchebag government people and some children died. I didn’t realize that it was such a dynamic and fun town. On paper it meets all of our requirements for a city to live in (~100,000 people, college in town, relatively bike friendly, outdoor stuff to do, cheap housing, etc) but it also has some other selling points (the winter here does not suck, no income tax, two major cities nearby). So, we are putting Waco up for consideration of a place to move when we finish the bike ride. At the very least it is worth looking into the schools and such in the area to see what their programs are like.

Anyway, we are spending two more nights at a local park and then we will hit the road to Austin. We are pretty excited about Austin, but also kind of afraid that it is all hype. The places we are supposed to love as dirty, burner, vegan hippies like Portland, San Francisco, and Seattle have all been overwhelmingly big, expensive, and kind of a disappointment. Also, major cities are notoriously bad for finding a place for us to stay. It is a pretty tall order to put two people and a dog in someone’s home for the weekend in cities. Well, hopefully Austin can break those trends.

Sweet Sorrow

Our bags are packed (mostly). Our route is planned (sort of). Our electronics are charged (at least half way). Tomorrow we hit the road again.

We are excited, but this is going to be the most painful goodbye so far. Over the last three months we have been living with one of Peter’s college friends and her family. In this time they have become our family as well. We’ve had some amazing new experiences together and been a part of their daughter’s life. We’ve watcher her grow from 7 months to 10 months, which seems short on paper but seeing her develop and learn has been hella fascinating.

We knew this day would eventually come, but that doesn’t make it easy. At least we are lucky enough to live in a time where Facebook, Skype, and texts exist. I know we will be back again someday, or maybe they will visit us for a weekend while we are on the ride. There will be plenty of opportunities to stay connected and let our friendship grow together.

People really are the most amazing part of this ride. We’ve had the honor of living in other people’s shoes and experiencing their world. When we lived in LA it was easy to get stuck in a bubble where we gravitate towards likeminded people. Even burners like us find ourselves in friendships with freaks of the same cloth. This ride has flipped that around and we have seen lives on farms, in cities, in traditional families, in communes, and everything in between. It is beautiful, but it makes leaving hard… very hard.

Tears will be shed as we part ways, but that is part of life. Every beginning has an end. Every time you enter a door you will eventually walk back out of it. Every hello has a good bye. We are happy, we really are, but time went so quickly and I wish we had infinite time.

Year Three Begins

When we originally started planning our 48-state bike ride we expected to knock it all out without any real breaks. We thought it would take about 15 months and by 2016 we would be starting a new chapter in our life. Well, we were wrong. This adventure we call life sent is a lot of curve balls that slowed us down, altered routes, and changed the spirit of the ride. It was all unexpected, but it has been incredibly awesome.

So, now we are starting year three of our ride. For the last three months we have been hibernating in Dallas, Texas storing up fat for the upcoming leg. It has been time of rest, work, and mental renewal. It has also been a time where we have gotten to know some dear friends that are now our family. It is going to be hard to say good-bye, but thanks to modern technology they will always just be a few clicks away.

If all goes according to plan (Spoiler: It won’t) we will be going through 20 states, travelling for about 8 months, and covering about 4,500 miles. We aren’t going to be able to visit all the cities we want, but we will get to hang out in each state for a bit, see some more Great Lakes, and just get outside to see the world. We are also playing with the idea of writing a series of children’s books about our adventure from Higgins point of view. There are a lot of details to flush out but we are excited about the prospect of bringing our adventures to a younger audience and inspiring them to get outside, explore the world, and have adventures. There are a lot of hidden gems in the US (and the world).

So, here is our expected route. If you know of any places we should visit please feel free to contact us. Or, if you’d like to meet up for a beer or some food, or have a place we can crash we’d love to hear from you. You can reach us on here, our Couchsurfing page, our Facebook page, or Instagram (@shifts_and_higgles).

Tulsa to Dallas (or, That Time We Rented a Truck to Get the Fuck Out of Oklahoma)

Leaving Tulsa was pretty bitter-sweet. It was a city that we wanted to explore more but were restricted by time. Luckily, we will be driving through that area during the holidays on our way back to St. Louis to spend time with our families.

The rest of our time in Oklahoma did not go as planned. I hate to focus on the negative in a place but as a cyclist there was little to enjoy about Oklahoma. Sure, the people were kind but the infrastructure was the worst we had encountered for cyclists. There was no shoulder on 60mph roads that were the only route from Tulsa to Dallas. The road was filled with semi’s, farming trucks, and traffic all day. In short, it was fucking dangerous. So dangerous, in fact, that we decided to rent a U-Haul and drive the final 300 miles to Dallas.

We love the bike adventure we are on, and even though we are less risk adverse than most, we don’t want this to be the adventure that kills us. So, we decided to take the safe (but expensive) way out and drive to Dallas. Of course, this didn’t go according to plan either. Neither one of us had a driver’s license on us when we stopped. I haven’t had a driver’s license for about seven years. After I moved to DC I sold my car and didn’t see the point in renewing my license. I have used my bicycle as my sole means of transportation in DC, Los Angeles, and Missoula, and it has never been a problem. Anna is legally licensed to drive but she needed to renew her license when we were in St. Louis. Unfortunately, St. Louis doesn’t issue you a new license immediately, instead they stamp “VOID” on your license, give you a piece of paper that lasts about a month, and mail you a new one. When we got to a city with a U-Haul the paper had expired by a few days and the new physical license was in St. Louis at Anna’s parents. We asked Anna’s parents to mail it to us but it took a few days.

The only good part about this is we got to spend a few days along a lake in central Oklahoma relaxing. The weather was “meh” but we took some Molly to celebrate Halloween alone and let our bodies rest. The days went by at a slow, comfortable pace and on Monday we got to the post office, picked up the license, and picked up the U-Haul and hit the road.

The drive into Dallas was a pretty nice one but the terrain affirmed that we made the right choice. Riding our bike along that highway would have been dangerous and miserable. The shoulder, hills, and traffic would have been mentally and physically exhausting. This was an experience that has us re-thinking our plans. We need to start doing serious research about our routes and be willing to skip cities and areas that are unsafe. Up until this point we have been able to just type in a destination city into Google Maps and hit the road, which clearly won’t work as we hit more rural areas in the south. The only major cities we will really aim for will be ones we really want to visit and have a confirmed place we can stay for a week or so to enjoy it. So far, that list is really only New Orleans, Charleston, Asheville, and DC. The rest may need to wait until we are travelling by car. It is really unfortunate how unfriendly this country is to bikes.

Anyway, we are safe in Dallas and will be here until January. With Dallas as our home we will be visiting Southern California next week, and going to St. Louis and Portland for the holidays in December. We are staying with some close friends who are allowing us to use their spare bedroom, and we will be dog-sitting for each other from time-to-time. We are excited to spend some downtime in a city and will try to stay in shape (yay P90X!). This will probably be the last blog post for a while but I’ll try to update as our plans change.

Clinton to Tulsa (or, The Rural Midwest is Not Built for Cyclists)

Leaving the Katy Trail was a pretty sad moment. It had been really nice to transition back into the ride by having a safe and scenic route to bike, but alas, all good things must come to an end. We left the Clinton Community Center with a general route planned to get us to Tulsa. The route was mostly hilly and we had a headwind that left us mentally exhausted by the end of the day, luckily the day ended well. While we were at a gas station refilling water a couple approached us and asked us about our ride. After some chatting they left, but soon returned and asked if we needed a place to stay. We gladly accepted, after the rough day we had it was nice to be indoors and have a warm bed. We biked the final four miles or so to their house as the sun set.

Herb and Diane (our unexpected hosts for the night) were a wonderful couple and really the definition of Christ’s teachings. It was clear from the books in the house and our conversations that they were Christian but we never felt like we were being pressured or converted. They had a warm, loving presence about them that was filled with a genuine desire to help others. We see a wide variety of people on our ride who express different religious and ethical foundations, but oftentimes their words and actions contradict each other. And, of course, we see such poisonous versions of Christianity every time we watch anything to do with politics. I really don’t think any political candidates are true followers of Christ and I often wonder how politically active individuals can reconcile their religious ethics with the vile actions and words spoken by politicians. I know there is a verse or two that states Christians should obey their government because it was put in place by God, but I think this is lazy and antithetical to the teachings of Christ. If man’s law is violating the teachings of Christ then Christians should violate man’s law. The heart of Christianity is anarchy towards the state, and I’d love to see that play out more vocally among today’s religious leaders.

Anyway, I’m getting off topic. We had a truly lovely time with Herb and Diane at their home. They left us with some wonderful apples and pecans picked from their land and it was such a treat to meet them. I hope we can stay in touch and spend some more time together in the future.

After leaving their home we kept peddling along a similar path with hills and headwinds until we crossed into Kansas (State #13!!!!) in the evening. We slept on the side of the road and spent the early part of the next day biking to Fort Scott, Kansas where we set up camp at Gunn Park for two nights. The park was beautiful and allowed tent camping for only $5, a real good deal for us. It is really fortunate when we come across cities that actually encourage people to visit and spend money instead of passing laws that push us to the side of the road to sleep.

Our time in Fort Scott was spent working with little to report. The roads started getting noticeably unfriendly to bikes with limited shoulders and lots of debris. We ended up spending the next night in a hotel in Pittsburg (something we hate to do) due to lack of safe options.  After leaving Pittsburg things started getting worse. The weather started raining on us and we started popping tubes pretty regularly all the way down to Tulsa. The next few days of travel into Oklahoma were some of the worst we had dealt with in a long time. Not only was the terrain hell on our equipment (we had more flats during this 150 miles than we did the entire 3,700 miles before it) but the roads were seriously dangerous.

I almost got hit by a car while biking in the shoulder because a car decided to use the shoulder to pass someone. If I had not turned around to check my distance between Anna and I, saw the car, and swerved into the grass hill (hardly a safe move but instinct took over and it was safer than staying put) it is very likely Higgins would be dead and I would be seriously injured or dead. This instance made Anna and I really discuss how we are going to move forward on the bike ride. Ever since leaving Indiana we have really been rolling the dice with our safety and it has reached a point where we mentally can’t keep it up. After getting to Dallas we are going to really look into routing and plan more carefully. Our method of just plugging in cities we want to visit on Google Maps isn’t going to work down south where the infrastructure and culture is very anti-cyclist and anti-pedestrian. This means we are going to need to cut any cities off our list that we don’t have a great desire to visit (like Asheville, NC) or have a safe place to stay for 4-5 days or both. It just isn’t worth the risk, mental anguish, and time suck to visit most cities anymore while on the bike ride. We will need to just visit those cities at another time.

When we finally arrived in Tulsa we stayed at the beautiful home of one of my college classmates. Shannon and her husband Jerry were incredibly kind and generous to let us take over their spare bedroom for a night and we had such a wonderful time chatting with them. It was also incredibly informative for us because we talked a bit about the perception people have of our lives and travels. It seems that there are a lot of assumptions about what we do, who we do, and the nature of our relationship. The fault probably falls on me for that one, but if anyone has any questions we are an open book so feel free to message me or something.

We really wish we could have stayed longer in Tulsa and spent more time with Shannon and Jerry, and visited with other friends in Tulsa. Luckily, we will be back in December when we drive up to St. Louis for the holidays. During that time we will have the freedom to visit more and relax a bit. Now, we are on our way to Dallas where we will be spending two months working, relaxing, trying not to get fat, and visiting with friends and family.

On the Road Again… Leg 3 Begins

After 17 days in St. Louis we got back on the road again. The days we spent in St. Louis were fairly productive. We were able to get a new rack and pannier’s for Anna, get both of our bikes tuned up, finished a lot of work, and spent a little time relaxing. I even put on 10 lbs, which I hope is mostly water and glycogen but probably came from some fat as well. It was really nice to see some family and friends, and just relax physically and mentally a bit. We were pretty anxious to get back on the road though, and were happy to get moving.

It became quickly obvious on our first day out (10/4/2015) that our muscles had weakened a bit. We slowly moved our way across the western edge of St. Louis and eventually got on the Katy Trail, a magic route that will take us most of the way across the state. The trail is crushed limestone, which is not nearly as nice as concrete but it is way better than loose gravel. The dust from it gets everywhere and is kind of like Playa dust, but being away from traffic is priceless. We didn’t make a lot of miles that first day, but we are happy. For the first time in a while we are not in any kind of rush. We found a place on the side of the trail to set up our tent and we let the soothing sounds of strange and (probably) deadly animals lull is to sleep.

The next day our bodies ached worse than they had in months. It seemed every muscle and joint was beaten to oblivion during the mild 35 mile ride the day before. We got back on the trail and just kept pounding out the miles going west. The pace was slow and we took a lot of breaks to ease back into it. This gave us a lot of opportunities to talk to people. The Katy Trail was packed with all kinds of riders. After 30 miles we came upon Marthaville, Missouri, a city that I actually slept in years ago on my cross-country tour. We set up our tent in a park with a bunch of other tourists, Marthaville is one of those amazing cities that allows you to tent camp for free in the parks. The park even had electricity and bathrooms, a rare luxury for people like us.

The ride across Missouri was supposed to be an easy 7-10 days for us, at least logistically. All we needed to do was stay on the Katy Trail, visit Columbia for a few days for work, and then press on to Kansas City. Things didn’t really work out that way.

On our second day on the trail we started to worry a bit about Columbia. We couldn’t find any Couchsurfing or Warm Showers hosts, and there were not any campgrounds in the city. We decided to check for some cheap hotels (a last resort for us), but even that was coming up empty. It was at that point that we realized we were coming into Columbia the same weekend Mizzou was having homecoming… basically, a disaster for us. We brainstormed and decided to change our schedule, instead of stopping in Columbia for a few days we would stop early in Jefferson City, get a cheap hotel, and work while killing time. That way we could leave Jefferson City and be biking through the weekend and arrive in Columbia for one day of exploring and such on Monday. It was more expensive and inconvenient than we had planned but it was our least bad option.

We pressed on and eventually got to our hotel in Jefferson City (despite some shitty San Francisco level hills) on the 8^th. We stayed for two nights, worked a bit, and did errands like laundry and grocery shopping. We got back on the trail on the 10^th and planned on camping at the free park in Hartsburg, the same place I camped three years ago on my cross country ride. At this point we hit another snag, it turns out that the 10^th and 11^th is the annual Hartsburg Pumpkin Festival that brings around 50,000 people into the small 105 person town. The place was insane. The place we wanted to camp was not going to work. So, we made the best of it and explored the festival for a bit. It turns out that festivals in the middle of the rural Midwest don’t really offer very many vegan food options. They do, however, have a lot of Confederate flags… so that was off-putting. We hit the road quickly for the next town where a campground was supposed to exist.

It didn’t exist.

We found the site of the old campground but there was no sign of life. There also were no people in the town that we could ask, the one store that existed was closed. We decided to just relax for a couple of hours and set up our tent at the abandoned campground, obviously nobody would even notice or care.

It turns out the property owner noticed and cared, but she didn’t express her problems until well after dark and after we had our tent set up. She came up to us and talked, she clearly wasn’t happy but reluctantly allowed us to camp for the night. We appreciated her generosity and all, it would have been a huge pain to tear down camp in the dark and try to find some other place to camp. The next day was only a 15 mile ride to a campground where we would base out of to visit Columbia. We did have a rare treat in the morning, there was a pretty decent Thai place along the trail. It was a nice change of pace from our regular meals.

We decided to spend the next two nights at Katfish Katy, a cool little campground on the Missouri River right next to the MKT Trail, which connects to Columbia. This gave us time to relax a bit, get some work done (they didn’t have WiFi but the magic of our phones and a Verizon jetpack keep us pretty connected) and leave our stuff in a safe place when we bike the 10 miles into Columbia.

Columbia was a really good time, though one day really wasn’t enough. We celebrated my (Peter) birthday a day early and had some delicious food, ice cream, and booze. We were also productive and got groceries and such. That night we got back to our tent at around dusk and decided to roll. It was one of the best rolls we’ve had in a while as we laid curled up together under the clear sky looking up at all the stars. It was a new moon so the sky was absolutely stunning out in the rural areas near the river. It was really magical and the best way to start my new year on this rock.

We left Katfish Katy late the next morning, a little groggy and tired but feeling pretty good. The day was short, only 20 miles, and we found another campground along the trail. The next day our plan was to get off the Katy Trail and head towards Kansas City, unfortunately things didn’t go according to plan. When we got to the spot to turn off it was really obvious the roads were unsafe, it was a highway with no shoulder and incredibly fast traffic. After some more investigation into the route to Kansas City it was clear that we would be spending days on roads that just weren’t fit for cyclists. It is one thing to spend an hour (or even a day) on some sketchy roads but it just wasn’t worth the risk to push our luck for several days.

This was a pretty big disappointment to us. We both have friends in Kansas City that we haven’t seen in a long time and were looking forward to reuniting with. Though, one of the lessons that is constantly drilled into us on this ride is that things change and you really can’t get your heart set on any expectations. It is possible that circumstances beyond our control will change our route daily, leave us with no place to sleep at night, or even end the bike ride entirely. All we can do is enjoy the moment and do our best, and I hope our friends can understand. We will be back someday when our travel isn’t restricted because of the shitty ass infrastructure.

Our final day on the Katy Trail started off pretty well. With about 40 miles to the end of the trail in Clinton, Missouri we needed to move quickly. Normally, 40 miles isn’t that bad, but as we slowly move towards winter we are running out of daylight hours and heat to bike in.

About halfway through the day we spotted two stray dogs on the trail. They were super skinny so we got some dog food out and fed them a meal. They became increasingly sweet and affectionate and clearly were friendly dogs. They were also obviously puppies. We spent some time playing with them and after some discussion realized there wasn’t anything we could really do for them. So, we took off… and one of them followed us. For ten miles.

After ten miles with a dog trotting behind us we stopped at a trailhead to try and figure out if there was anything we could do. We searched for a Humane Society or Animal Control but couldn’t find anyone to take the dog. About 30 minutes into our discussion the second dog appeared and solved the problem for us. The puppy sisters reunited and started exploring the trailhead and surrounding community where a group of children called them over to pet them (and hopefully convince their mother to adopt them). Seeing our chance for escape we hit the trail again with daylight dwindling. The last bit of the ride was a race against sunlight but we pushed hard and made it to the Clinton Community Center just after dark. The Community Center allows free camping in the back area so we just went over and set up. I think we were supposed to check in with someone but they were having an event at the center and we didn’t want to interrupt, so we had some dinner, set up our tent, watched an episode of “Six Feet Under” on Amazon Prime, and drifted off to sleep.