Texas will take us a while.

This was our second night in Texas. I spent 34 nights getting across the state. That was over a third of the trip! I'm looking forward to revisiting Texas blog posts because the landscape offers so much variety (there are even exotic game). To sum up: it is dry, then it is hilly, and finally it is moist. Jon and I will be parting ways soon and I will visit a lot more churches. This is nothing in comparison to Louisiana. I spent 20 nights there and it should have only taken 7 or 8.

Originally Posted ​February 23, 2007

El Paso: a day of dust- 0 miles

I woke up to Jon asking me how I felt about taking a rest day. I felt like sleeping. I let Jon go ask if we might not be imposing if we stayed. It was cleared with the household community and we pulled out the maps. Texas will take us a while, but first I needed to change my tires. I brought my bike out to the porch where Daniel was getting his haircut. I was able to entertain Emma and Daniel for a moment by allowing them to release the air pressure, but soon they were on to other things. I moved about as quickly as I like to when doing bike maintenance and about four hours later I was done. In all fairness I was given tubes with broken valves. This meant I actually changed two tires and three tubes. Somewhere in there Freddy showed up from two blocks down asking for help with a recurring flat. Mostly Jon fixed him up, but I lubed his chain and told him that a clean bike is a happy bike. We walked back to Crazy Cat's to return the tubes and get a chain. Mine had stretched .75%. The whole while we had our eyes shut except for the moments we blinked. It felt like the dust was being drilled into my skin when it gusted. I wouldn't try to ride in it. My bandanna that was given to me in my mohawk days blew off...never to be seen again. We proceeded to a coffee shop where I tickled a small boy that kept flicking me. Then he kept wanting to be tickled. His father, whom I had thought was his grandfather, scolded the boy for playing with me. The kid was there for about an hour without entertainment, conversation, or attention while his father read the paper and drank coffee. What would you expect him to do? I went back to the house even though I wanted to go to a different cafe that was having an open folk sing-a-long five miles away. An excellent dinner of homemade cornbread and beans shortly followed. I was once again excited by the presence of people under the age of 30 which here take the shape of Jesuit Volunteers. They took off for the symphony with children's tickets in hand and Jon is on the phone under his bed. I'm sure it's not the only outlet in the house.