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.