November,17th - St. Augustine, Florida

St. Augustine is the oldest city in the US and the end point of the southern tier. Even as I didn’t cycle here I wanted to be here. I went to the beach into Anastasia state Park. At the end of it I saw a building, which I found out was a hotel. I checked in and took a room with a balcony to the beach for 2 nights and if the weather would have been warmer I would stay even another night, but the heating doesn’t work and it is supposed to go down to freezing the next night. My lower back is bothering me and cold nights don’t help that. So I will check out the city this morning and go further down south to meet Andreas tomorrow evening in Miami. On the other side I am pretty tired of endless beaches and flat landscape. You can do not much more than walk along endless unchanging sand strips and that is too meditation like for me. St. Augustine and St. Augustine beach are too touristy for me, here at the beach everything is pretty much empty, but that’s is only because it’s so cold and the first days of the week. Anyhow there are still plenty of people on the beach and when I passed the historical downtown on Sunday it was crowded and not very enticing to stop and have a look. I hope it will be a bit better this morning.

November 16th - leaving Jekyll island

I had to check out because they were booked out for the weekend. I am getting tired of travelling and would really have liked to stay longer. I returned the bike and went for a last hike at the beaches. Afterwards I had a big lunch in the millionaires club hotel dining room which was big but satisfying. When I left it started to rain. I hit the road in the rain and did not like the driving so I checked into a hotel after just one hour of driving. I am now only seven miles from Florida and the sun is shining again. I hope that I will make it to St. Augustine tonight and find a nice place to stay, but I have no idea what to expect. The only thing I know is that I need to be Wednesday evening at Miami airport to pick up Andreas and we will go to Naples for a short stay together before I will start a swift drive back,while Andreas goes to Europe and will hopefully come back on the 5th with my new bike. I am very exited.

November 12th to 15th - Jekyll Island

After having left Savannah, I got lured in an outlet center. I had no real running shoes with me and without bicycle I will need them. I will still have more than 3 weeks to go until I return home. So I got a pair of trail runners which I hopefully can use to hike a bit as well. And I got even more audio books. Now I have really enough books to listen to for the whole long trip home.
I am reading "Journal of a residence on a Georgian Plantation in 1838-39" by Frances A. Kemble. The plantations she describes here are on St. Simon Island which is one of the golden isle just a short distance north of Jacksonville, Fl. First I missed the turn-off for it, so I turned and drove over the causeway. I followed a sigh which said tabby slave cabins and came to a big Methodist center filled with old women. At that time I had no idea what tabby means, but I learned meanwhile, that it is a building material baked out of oyster shells, sand and lime which was used a lot already by the Spanish in St. Augustine. The cabins didn't show anything about there past and seemed to be only used as backdrop for the local garden club nativ plant garden exibition. So I left for the beach. I took a wrong turn again and was on the causeway off the island again with no opportunity to turn back. So I just decided to go to the next island against I decided before because the information that I read out of a flyer was that it was very expensive and high end as having been for long time the vacationing spot of a club which consisted of the industriell elite of the noth like the Rockefellers and Pulitzers, which was by now a hotel. Never the less I was on my way there. Before entering there was a visitor center, where I got coupons for hotel room. They were all incredible cheap and I decided on a place at the very end of the island ( Villas by the Sea) where the rented out apartements for 70 $ per night. Unfortunately they had only the awful beachcruiser bikes but they send my to the main place to get bikes and I rented a Schwinn which was not much better, but had at least gears.
I surrounded the island the same afternoon (27km) and was smitten by it's beauty. It has wonderful cycle paths and wild pristine forest as well as lakes the historical center which is a very prettily maintained Statepark and a lot of marchland.
The next day I took a bit more time to drive around the island and had an exellent seafood lunch at he rah bar which has owners from LA. They have exelland oysters - not from here rather from Chesapeak Bay and a wonderful seafood boil with shrimps, dungeness crabs etc. I met this couple from Paris, Tennessee which invited me to join them at their table which makes lunch just more fun. I met them the next day again, they took a Photo of me before they left.
Yesterday I took a tour of the historical district, which was not too interesting even if it took one and a half hour and needed to eat a seafood boil again. By now I saw pretty much everthing on the island and after the weekend crowd arrived I am not to sad that I have to leave today.

November 8th to 11th My bike was stolen in a brazen Robbery in Charleston

I drove from Wilmington to Charleston, where I circled a bit to find a hotel. On Hwy 17 just before it left the city to the south I found a best Western which hosted a bicycle tour organizer convention. I felt this was the place for me and checked in for two nights. I went out to explore the city center on foot as it is getting really early dark nowadays and I don't have light on my bike. (I have actually lights that I could fix to my bike but don't feel very save to ride in the dark. On a website for cyclists in Charleston I found a description of several bike routes to explore city and beaches and I intended to do so the next morning.
Charleston is really pretty but full with tourists. As it is so small and gets cruise ships coming in you really feel the impact of 500 visitors at one time. Cruise ship tourist are not interesting people you can find. I always think when I see them disembarking in SF that I would never want to be with 500 or even many more elderly people, who never stay overnight anywhere and eat their meals always on the same ship, enclosed in such a tight place for my whole vacation. I don't really get why this is attractive in any way. I found a nice restaurant next to the college of Charleston where I had an excellent low country specialty with fried oysters, crab meat, grits and oysters and pounds of melted butter. I could only eat half of it and I usually can eat a lot. I went home to my hotel, had a good night beer in the roof top bar of the Marriot next door and went to bed. In the morning I copied down my routes that I wanted to take and went down in the lobby to get a Charleston map. I had left my car directly in view of the front desk next to the front door. As my room was on the 6th floor and several cars outside had bikes on top I left my bike locked in the roof rack. I had my map looked out to my car and saw that the bike was missing...
I had to wait for the cops who came and took down my name and made me call in the serial numbers. They told me a lot of bikes get stolen in Charleston and they usually find them after some weeks. But I doubt that there are many nice road bikes around anyhow and much less get stolen. Of all the bicycles that I saw in Charleston not one was as nice as mine. I pounded the possibilities: One of the conventioneers, who were leaving that morning or perhaps someone from the bike shop across the bridge where I had it to try to do something about the problems that I had with my front derailleur. Whatever the bike is gone and I couldn't change it. I rented a road bike (I think this was the worst one that I have ever ridden.) and rode my planned tour. When I came back to the hotel I encountered the night security guard and he told me that he saw the thief and tried to stop him but he backed his truck nearly over him. He could describe him and the truck - dark blond, tall slender dark gray pick-up truck, of which I forgot the make - but he didn't get the license plate.
So now I am without bike for the next three weeks. Andreas was at once online to check on new bikes for me. We found a special in Germany which seems to be real good value and we ordered that. Until now we don't have any confirmation, that we get it but I am rally exited about this as it seems to be an upgrade to my old bike.
I really like Folly Beach outside Savannah. It is part of Charleston but has a really relaxed vibe to it, at least in this time of the year. I left Charleston to go to Hilton Heads. I was not so sure about this as I don't like big beach resorts. But it is the only one in the south (and outside Florida) that I have ever heard about. I found a room in a Motel 6 which was 33$ including tax. For that price I had to chase down a cockroach and in the morning a lizard jumped out of my suitcase just to stay on the power cord of my laptop for the rest of my time there. The beach was nice to run on but there much to many people there and hundreds of beach cruiser cyclists on the beach. The nice thing is that here in the south everything is green and hidden in forests all malls are not visible from the street as they are behind a big green strip of forest, which means on the other side they take up even more space and everything is really far away from each other, but at least it is optically pleasing, which is a rare thing to be said about malls.
Yesterday I was in Savannah where I had already after Charleston the second Veterans Day Parade this week. It seems that all high schools in the Savannah area have ROTC programs. I am so happy that SF bans them. I think it is a scary thing that schools take the underprivileged kids and instead of teaching them to think critically for themselves teach them blind obedience and how to kill and die for the financial win of big corporation whose shareholder don't ever fight themselves. Savannah is very pretty. If it wouldn't have all the trees full of spanish mos it could be any small european city as well. I enjoyed walking around and it seems to me a more real place than Charleston which has a slight artificial gout to it. Tourist, wealthy retirees and students as main visible inhabitants of the historical downtown.

November 6th and 7th - Cedar Island NC

I left Cape Hatteras to go further south. I am just sorry that I didn't get a photo of the white cat in the motel which was about double as heavy as Minou. From here you have to take two ferries the first to Ocracoke Island Takes about 30 minutes and from there further to Cedar Island is a 2.25 h journey. It was beautiful on the boat. the second section was as far that I could not see any land when we were about midpoint. Ocracoke island has one settlement at the end and seems to be really relaxed. But I preferred Cedar Island which has one motel directly at the ferry landing and one convenience store about half a mile away. I had a very nice 50 km ride in the morning (really flat) and enjoyed it less than I could have because a very determined mosquito bit me through both jerseys I was wearing and the bites inflamed at once into huge boils. I explored the National Park headquarters. They had two little walks and the most pathetic Museum that you can imagine. It had plenty of Baseball picture of the local high school and other fairly recent stuff but nothing about the native Americans and the slaves who used to live in the area as well.
I stayed over night in Wilmington. W. is a pretty small town on the fear river which end with Cape fear. I saw both movies but still had no intention to visit as I imagine this to look very much like all the seashore that I have seen in the last days. This is not a very exiting landscape.

November 3rd to 5th - Outer Banks, NC

After leaving the smoky mountains the weather turned into something really dark. I didn’t see the sun the whole day so nothing enticed me to stop and I drove past Winston-Salem than Durham-Raleigh without stopping. It’s getting night now pretty early. By 5:30 it was pretty much pitch dark. So I stopped at the first exit which indicated hotels. I stayed in the business area of a city called Rocky Mount. In the night it started to pour and it didn’t stop in the morning. I stopped shortly before I reached the coast at a state park which was an old plantation. I thought it was a good idea to spent election day on which the first black american would be elected in a slave holding place in the south. Even though Obama’s roots had nothing to do with slavery. I found in the last weeks especially that most people are not really willing to talk politics in the south. It is considered impolite to discuss politics or religion in this country. There were no black people in the state park and you don’t see a lot of blacks in the restaurants or touristy places in the countryside of the south. When I was there it started to rain again and it stormed all the way past Roanoke Island and along the outer banks. I stopped finally and was dripping wet only by entering the office of the motel. I tried to walk along the beach but it stormed as much that I had to give up. The wind was whipping me with sand and there was ocean foam flying everywhere. I woke up in the morning to a flooded bathroom. The bathroom window was full of sand which drove water into the inside. I decided to stay and read a book. The weather is supposed to get a bit better tomorrow, but there will be no way to cycle. I still thing I will go further down south. I just regret that I had no opportunity to explore the islands here a bit more.

1st to 3rd of November - Fontana Village, Smokey Mountains, NC

I drove from Athens through the foothills of Appalachia to the smokey mountains. This old couple which grew up here and stayed in the same Econo lodge in Athens than I told me not to go to Asheville and go to Townsend at the SMNP instead. Apparently they live there and they say that they see many cyclists especially at Cades Cove which is a high plateau with not a lot of traffic. But I missed the right turnoff and drove along a beautiful windy road which had quite a bit of motorbike traffic. When I hit a gas station to ask where I was, I got told that I was in North Carolina and apparently on the wrong side of the National Park. It was really beautiful here and so I kept going. After 10 more miles I hit a sign saying Fontana village resort. So I went up to the Lodge, which was on top of a hill with grand hall. huge fire place and a veranda with views over the flaming fall coloured mountains. I asked for a room and it was 59$. It came with a king size bed and an balcony to the mountain view. Most of the parking lot was filled with little two-seaters. There was a Crossfire owners convention going on and I learned that this car is German engineering with American styling. I have thought the whole time that this car exist already for longer but after researching it. It looks that the first model came out in 2004. My 2002 Subaru is a collector item compared to that.
Whatever I had in the late afternoon a beautiful ride along the river and in the evening a surprisingly good meal. This morning I left to finally go to the National Park and do the bike ride at Cades Cove. On my way I went through the most touristy indian reservation, that I have ever seen. Cherokee the main town had hundreds of gift shops with native American items made in Asia and not even India to throw people off. Entering in the Park I saw that the blue ridge parkway, a road which follows the Appalachians for 468 miles was closed due to icy conditions. So I went to the nearby visitor center and asked whether I could cycle up there and they said: Well I guess that's possible but be careful of ice in the tunnels. So I climbed a 7% accent until I reached the top after 700 vertical meters at big witch gap and than I turned back and just rolled all the way back down with absolute certainty that no car would come. It was a dream and I was so happy, just one of the best bike rides ever.
In order to go back home to Fontana I wanted to make the loop along Cades cove and a little unpaved one way road down to the devils tail. The whole park was choked by cars. I had read about that in Bill Brysons Appalachian Trail book but forgotten all about it. Cades cove was stop and go for hours. I got overtaken by fat pedestrians! I was pretty happy that I had audio books with me. It is just so much better to listen to a book while driving than just obsessing about not moving and wasting time which could be used for much nicer things. But the worst and weirdest thing was yet to come. By the Way: never take your road bike there the road is riddled with potholes and there is barely space to pass the trucks. Coming finally to the turn off for the little unpaved road back I had a very slow moving Jeep in front of me and when I tried to overtake him he (Considering the obnoxiousness I assume it was a man but I did not see the driver due to dark tinted windows.) wouldn't let me. I am pretty sure in Tennessee they have the slower cars use turnouts rule as well. But I had to stay behind him a crawl in the first gear. So I stopped took some photos and waited for him to advance a bit. than I went back in the car and drove leisurely further until I hit him again and repeated the game. After several miles of stop and go a car came from behind me and I left again after a quarter mile there was a young tree blocking the road and I and the four guys from the car behind me got out to remove it. I told them that there is a very slow and aggressive guy in front of me and that he had obviously pulled the tree on the road, we went head shaking back into our cars only to hit 300 meter further two more huge branches blocking the road. And after going nicely for another 10 minutes we met Mister IamslowbutIcanputtreesontheroad and had to stay behind him until the end of the road and because he was so slow I had to drive quite a time in the dark to reach the hotel. By than I was really cranky and hungry and the day which began so perfectly was pretty much ruined. I wanted originally stay another night out here, but now I think I will go fast through North Carolina, perhaps stay election night in Raleigh or some other city and hit the coast soon. We will see.

October 30th and 31st - Driving through Tennessee

"John Byrge is pro gun and pro life" Election commercial on TV in Athens, TN

Ich hab lange keinen deutschen Text geschrieben. Nachdem ich in Hot Springs am ersten Tag eine sehr schoene Radtour fuhr und am Abend mich bei einem Blueskonzert betrunken hab, hat mein Koerper sich entschieden mir eine extraheftige Monatsblutung zu verpassen, was mich dazu zwang fuer zwei Tage aufs Fahrradfahren zu verzichten. Ich bin dann am 30. nach Tennessee losgefahren. In Memphis hab ich mir die Innenstadt angeschaut und Mittag gegessen, Das beruehmte Southern Food ist sehr aehnlich zu dem Essen, das ich in Norddeutschland als Kind gekriegt hab. Alles lange gekocht und mit Bratensosse. Nur das Brot ist hier tatsaechlich nur weiss und superweich. Memphis sah irgendwie nicht aufregend genug, dass ich laenger bleiben wollte, also bin ich Hwy 64, der durchgehen mit gruenen Punkten (sehenswerte Landschaft) gekennzeichnet ist, gefahren. Es ist unglaublich schoen hier. Die Haeuser sind wesentlich gepflegter und alles ist gruener, als im Westen. Dafuer sehen die Leute alle leicht zurueckgeblieben aus und in aller Wahrscheinlichkeit sind sie es auch.
Uebernacht bin ich in Lawrensburg geblieben, wo es offensichtlich eine groessere Amishgemeinde gibt. Jedenfalls sah man mehr Kutschen als Fahrraeder (5 zu 1 ich).
Riding along hwy 64 was really beautiful. Rolling hills and a lot of southern mansions. I expected many black people living here, but I see mainly whites many of them look like you would expect Tennessee hillbillies - slightly retarded. I wanted to stay in Chattanooga, but driving around did not yield in any place which seemed to be interesting. There were barely any people anywhere walking around so I went further towards the Smokeys and I am now in Athens. The weather forcast is exellent. It is very warm for this time of the years so I wait until it is warmer and will cycle in the smokies. I hope it will not be too crowded considering it's Saturday.

October 27th to 29th - Hot Springs, AR

I left Austin after having spent a bit more time sightseeing and a last lunch in the afternoon to drive past Waco to shortly before Dallas, where I spent the nicht in a motel with an indoor pool in order to get at least a bit of exercise. I found that swimming for more than 30 minutes hurts my arms and think, I should do that more often.
The next day I drove right through to Hot Springs National Park in Arkansas. The hot springs have been used already by the native Americans in the area for long time and they were put under federal protection long before there was any other National Park. Today the whole downtown is NP. It reminds me a lot of some rundown places in Germany like Bad Ems, especially as the landscape is very similar to German Mittelgebirgen. The people visiting seem to be all elderly as well, but that might be the time of the year. This is the town where Clinton lived as a child and they just had the last day of their documentary film festival. Of which I met the organizer in the evening in the local bar, where I drank to much, listened to music, danced and generally had a lot of fun until they closed. HS is surrounded by three big lakes and a lot of low forested hills and is not far from the Ozarks, which seem to look similar. People talk very southern and althought there are many black people in town, I didn't see any in the restaurants and bars downtown. People in the bar where I got drunk made remarks about the racism, but still there was no black guest there either. Cycling was wonderful and there is a bikeshop and a HS bicycle webpage organized through the owner of the bikeshop it seems and there signs along one road which mark a bike route, I saw only two people on bicycles from far away, nevertheless I had a beautiful ride.

25th of October - Austin

In some scary way facebook knew that I was in Texas and I got an invitation from the Austin cycling association to join their new to Austin ride at 10 in the morning. I thought it was a very nice idea to have a city tour on the bike. The way from the hotel to the city center led me past the football stadium where they prepared for some kind of big game or they have always as much going on if they have a game in town, I don't really want to know. Austin might be progressive for Texas but it is still Texas. Everybody was dressed in orange and so was I - accidently fitting in, later I found out orange was the color of the enemy.
At the convention center was a pretty big group of cyclists which was the city tour group and a road ride group. I wanted to have a longer ride than the short city tour, but still decided to have it afterwards. It was a really nice way to see the city and thanks to other well informed Texans I learned a lot, which I would probably not have learned alone. After the ride four of us had a nice Mexican lunch and than went to Lance Armstrongs shop, where somebody took the broken aerobars of my bike. I talked to several people working there, one guy just moved there from SF where he lived in the Haight. I left the aerobars there to pick them up by car on the next day. Sunday had a big fundraiser where people went with Lance A. on a live strong ride for which you had to have raised or begged for at least 500$ for the lowest level. We had one woman on the ride who was in Austin to ride there.
the rest of the afternoon I followed the route Norman who guided the city tour recommendet and found out that Austin has a lot of really steep hills and nice riding, if only for that texan pavement.
Austin is nice for a vacation, but it is still much to spread out for my taste and than it lacks ocean and mountains. I would not like to live there, but I haven't expected anything else.

24th of October - Austin

I tried to ride early in the morning the country road of the day before, but the temperature was 34 degrees and I was with short gloves and without beanie, so I had to give up after 2k because I just could not move my fingers any longer. I took a shower and went the road by car to Pedernales State park, where I wanted to hike a bit and see the falls. I hiked the recommended hike for some miles and was bored out of my shirt, the landscape was pretty but did not change at all. Going on a belt in the gym gives you more entertainment. So I tried the falls where nothing fell. But all was nice and warm and I had some exercise, what more did I want. I went to Austin in search of the Ramada, that I booked through hotwire. It was the "Central" one but still miles out of downtown. Google map told me that it was at the intersection of 35 and 290, but it did not tell me that there were two of them. So I came to the southern intersection and there were plenty of hotels. I had problems with the internet in the last motel and could not verify the address in the morning but I thought that I shouldn't have too many problems locating it. I cruised for an hour, asked people who told me with complete certainty where to go and called meta to check my email again and look at google maps. By the end I called the hotel and drove the 12 miles to the other side of town, did finally my laundry hat a bite to eat in the neighborhood and called it an early night.

23rd of October - Fredricksburg and LBJ's Ranch

I stayed in a weird motel, which called itself resort but seemed to cater to retiree group travel. The kitchen was at five minutes past nine already closed and the bar could serve me only drinks. There was a country cowboy band playing and two couples shared the dance floor. As this is in Texas everything was BIG: bar, dance floor and air conditioning, only the crowd was pretty meager, I had one beer and after that I was not far from being frozen stiff, so I left as long as I was still able to. In the morning I left for Fredricksburg an touristy place in the hill country where they make quite a bit of wine. I walked through town, tried some wine (brrr! Texas needs still some time until it will become a wine and food lovers destination.) and I had a buffalo burger in a place with buffalo head.

From Fredricksburg I drove to Johnson City which is named after a cousin of LBJ. I cycled a bit around the farm and tried to make the tour on my bike. But they do allow the self guided tour only by car. I complained widely and people told me that they might change that soon and when I would come the next time I could perhaps enter already by bike. the tour of the farm would have been an ideal little bike tour, but whatever...

Overnight I stayed in Johnson City where I asked for a nice route to cycle on. The girl behind the counter told me she wouldn't know, but the on little road just up the street were always cyclist to be seen even as it was really hilly. She was right, it was a nice road for cycling - rolling hills, moderate traffic and pretty landscape. I went for a full work out ride. It was nice to exhaust myself without thinking about all the miles I would still need to go. I really like riding short and intensive better than long and moderate. Next to the hotel was one of this barn like huge and empty dinner places that they seem to have everywhere in the Texan countryside. I saw already before that a lot of Restaurants advertise themselves with superlatives like best hamburger in town, Texas or world, which is the same anyhow. This place said best chicken fried steak and behind it - nearly three dozen sold! I love this kind of humor, today I saw a big highway billboard which said: "Dirty birds to clean up? Birdbaths next exit!" By the way, I only learned on this trip what a chicken-fried steak is. It is a hamburger breaded and fried over which a white gravy (weisse Mehlschwitze) is poured. I cannot recommend it, there was until now not realy new and good food. Quite a bit of the stuff I tried was new to me but I don't really care for any of it. I was in this one country diner (only open one town), where I needed all but two items on the menu explained to me. I heard or read gizzards often but I don't really know what it is. But if you look at the photo of the gizzards and liver, I am happy, that I didn't have that - not that I had something better!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gizzards

22nd of October - Texas Hill Country

Garmin says : 79.40 km 2749 cal 1122 m ascent
After leaving this morning I drove to Leakey (which is seemingly pronounced lieky instead of leaky). I had an early Lunch and took a tour which included a part of the southern route. In the beginning was street construction and a street worker called out of his truck: Are you going to Florida, too? The first 16 miles which are part of the southern tier had some of the steepest climbs of the tour. It was pretty exhausting. the worst part was the last 11 miles against furious north winds, I thought, that I would never get back to the car, Driving and riding eats quite a bit of time but I can go to places where I will have very attractive riding. The texan hill country was settled pretty much only by Germans and you still recognize this in the names. Until WWI most people here spoke actually German, but with America joining the fight against Germany that changed.

October 21st - El Rio to Brackettville

After Justin was late again and hadn’t researched the greyhound bus, that would have meant to complete the country crossing, I should have known that he wouldn’t do that. He said: “I don’t take buses!” - “Have you ever tried?” - “No.” What else is new. Andreas and I cruised the north eastern corner (Montreal, Toronto, Chicago, Niagara, New York State all over) for four weeks and it was one of the most interesting travel experiences of my whole live and I was five month pregnant at that time.
He stole four more hours from me, still fidgeting next to me and relying on me, Just how does he survive on his own? I cannot say how often I asked him to stop that on this trip. He thinks it is my personal tick to be irritated by this. His parents really didn’t teach him anything, they are seemingly religious weirdos and might live with the hope that God will fix that all.

After dropping him at the airport and throwing another 300$ onto him - he should be extremely proud to have ripped me off like that. Normally people like him are just too repugnant to other people to be a con artist. Reality hit me: I am free! I started to be tired of the long straight rides on abysmal road surface. So now I will create my own tour. I still have a month until Andreas will arrive in Orlando and I will plan a new tour of the south on which I can get every day some riding in. I tried for quite a time to find maps or more in El Rio. They have only one bookstore, a Waldenbooks in their Mall, which didn’t even have a Texas road atlas. The only bike shop in town doesn’t have bike maps either, but worse the owner doesn’t ride bike. Who has ever heard something like that?

After several gas stations I hit a Walmart, where I finally found a big book road atlas, which doesn’t include one more information than the US road atlas and lacks distances, mountains and green dotted scenic drives. I bought a charger for my MP3 player, just to find out that it doesn’t work any longer. I deserve that for buying at Walmart.
I am now in a historic army fort where part of it is a motel. It is very pretty here and if the roads around here would have better surfaces I would stay longer, but after 10 miles I gave up on all 3 roads out of town. I will go tomorrow early in the hill country and try my luck there. I had dinner today in a joint where I had them explain 80% of the items on the menu, I felt like in a really foreign country and I got my water bottle filled in a drive through bottle shop. In reality a barn with front and back door open. The people in Texas are really friendly, that was not what I expected and the more I go towards the east the more I hear really southern talking. Yesterday a couple started a sentence with: “And we was…”

October 20th - Big Bent National Park

Justin was not ready at the time I said. This time he said it was on purpose, but it was like always, that I had to adjust my day to my so called help. I was just fed up. He just doesn’t get the idea. I have the feeling that he thinks, he gets a wonderful vacation paid, because I enjoy so much to have him around. I think he is not aware that he was chosen as driver because he is just so absolutely unattractive, that Andreas really doesn’t need to worry about him. Ugly and boring, I thought I would be able to handle it, but he is obnoxious too. He just talks the whole time without saying anything of substance, interesting or witty. He eats like a pig. After some days I just couldn’t stomach that any longer and I told him. I would be really ashamed if somebody would tell me that. He took it in and ate the same thereafter, it is really disgusting, even if nobody taught him ever how to eat properly, he could have asked what it is what nauseated me about his eating.
However after he was not there on time in the morning I told him to put his stuff in the car and meet me at three at the headquarter of Big Bent, where the road back to Marathon starts. He put stuff in and slammed the backdoor (He always slams the car doors, that is probably, why the lock of the driver door fell out.) and I took off, considering that I had only 5 hours left to see some more features of this huge park, which requires quite a lot of driving. Justin wanted so much to come to this park. “I was never in a National Park and it will be cool.” But he is not interested in nature and doesn’t like hiking. He never tries new things. That is the fact about him which is the worst, besides his repugnant physical aspects (eating, PERMANENT nervous ticks, like fiddling around or pulling out his knuckles, he never sits still. He has ADD plus hyperactivity and is still totally slow, if I would have known, I would not have taken him. He seems to have no intention to get a grip on this as well as he seems to have no intention to do anything which would give him learning possibilities. He lacks every intellectual curiosity, which is to me the worst form of stupidity. He doesn’t watch movies, he doesn’t read (except for fantasy novels, but as he never really went to school he misses the basics and he doesn’t even try to replenish that by himself). He has no interests, at least none which would lead him to a serious commitment. I am sure that is his ADD. But he was supposed to be able to drive the car for less than 2 hours a day and do his own thing with the rest of the day. But he was hanging onto me and did not get the hints at first and when I started to get extremely annoyed and unfriendly, he still followed me like a duckling his mom. I am so happy that I got rid of him.
What really annoys me is that it cost me thousands of dollars to have been annoyed by this total idiot for three weeks and I paid him even more to get rid of him. Last week I knew already that I just couldn’t stand to have him around me and I bought a flight ticket from Orlando to SFO. I just didn’t want to let go of the cross country bike ride for which I planned nearly two years and which was supposed to be my biggest trip yet and I put so much hopes and expectations into it. All this was destroyed by this little creep and I still felt like had to give him money. I feel he has a moral debt to me which is huge and I hope his bad Karma gets him, although I think anyhow that he never will amount to anything else than a pathetic unsuccessful bore (if he ever even looks for something he wants to be successful in).
That I gave this nobody the power to my shatter dreams tells me to listen to my gut feeling, When I saw him the first time, he was really eager doing this. But he looked so repugnant that I could barely look at him. It took month to get used to that, but I thought I should not be so shallow. - Next time I know that I get never at least subconsciously over this, unless they have a strong and interesting personality, which comes in rare cases with vapid expression.
I don’t know what Colleen sees in him. He really things she loves him so much more than he loves her. That I really doubt: a cute vivid intelligent and social girl like her, will not stay for long with a socially inept loser than Justin. The attraction of somebody needy who saps on your motherly feelings usually doesn’t last long.

Now I vented enough - much too much energy spent on that. Lets eat the loss and get over it!
When he didn’t show up at he ranger station, I was considering to just take off, would have been neat, but I don’t do that - let a helpless kid alone. I picked him after waiting there for 30 minutes about 10 miles (midway between motel and rendezvous spot) up and told him that he should take a bus from Del Rio to Orlando. I gave him time to 9 h in the morning to research all this and that would be it. My mood would have been really lightened, if he wouldn’t have sat next to me fidgeting and making knuckle noises. Yuk, just writing this I feel vomit coming up.

Qctober, 19th Big Bent NP

Garmin keeps quiet because I didn't take it out. I had a little hike which got 1300ft. elevation, that was about the same than what I did yesterday on the bike, only that this was spectacularly beautiful. I like the Texans who hike. Everybody chatted a bit. People did seem to be quite intelligent, at least the half dozen I met on this hike. After I got finally rid of Justin my day turned out to be perfect.
He does not get it. I did not ask him along because I wanted company. If so I would have chosen somebody who is a little bit interesting or might share one or two interest with me, having some cultural experiences, like books, movies or perhaps even knowledge of arts or anything could not really hurt either. But tonight I found one of his interest: He is a big believer in some of the 9/11 conspiracy theories. Not that he is informed about anything but he knows that what THEY tell us, we should not forget that he doesn't know exactly what they tell us (and who THEY are - probably the Illuminati) , but he knows it's all lies. He read the transcripts, again he does not know which transcripts, but he read them and once you read them you know. I told him that he shares here the mindset of suicide bombers, Oklahoma bombers and other paranoids out there. It is obvious that this mania inflicts especially young men look at nearly all suicide bombing terrorists. He was pretty offended and I would be scared, if he would have a shred of drive or focus.

October 18th, Ft. Davies to Marathon

Garmin says 12 .5 km less than the bikecomputer, because I forgot to turn it back on after lunch: 79.89 km 2420 cal 485 m ascent
Being slightly hung over I decided to cycle only 55 miles to Marathon.I had the whole way headwinds and the asphalt in Texas is just awful. People tell me it eats the tires away. I don't know about that but it for sure hurts the butt of cyclist and it slows you down. They just put a layer of tar on the street and on that they pour gravel. When it gets older you have the tire tracks where the street gets a bit smoother. Unfortunately there was too much traffic yesterday to stay on the street a lot and about 25 miles had been freshly redone, which makes it especially terrible.
Alpine had a lot of government buildings where the spent money on expensive modern architects. That surprised me and it also had a train station with a passenger train which blocked a main city street for at least 20 minutes. I asked the young people in the restaurant where I had lunch from where and to where you could take the train, but they didn't even know or realize that you could take a train.
In Marathon Justin was lucky that he got rooms at all as they had a marathon. I took a cabin at the place where the after party was and he got a room for 80$ in the plush Gage Hotel. But I am pretty happy to have some time to myself. Today I want to go to Big Bend and now Justin wants to come too, which makes it already much less attractive.
Die Geister, die ich rief...

October 17th Van Horn to Fort Davies

Garmin says: 145 km 5019 cal 1845 m ascent
I tried to leave at 7h in the morning but it was really dark and I had to wait till 8. This stolen hour for central time is pretty useless but it is nice that the sun sets later. I left when the sun came out behind the mountains and it was freezing cold. I wore only a fleece jacket and an undershirt underneath and was really cold for the first hour along Interstate 10. I stopped at the first and only as I found out afterward place for food after only 20 miles and had an omelet. From here on I had to go on the shoulder of I10 as there was no frontage road for another 18 miles. After this trip I hope that I will never have to ride on a freeway again. The stretches of unpleasant riding which are difficult to avoid if you need to go the whole way make me not like this experience too much. Justins Job, where you move from place to place and ride only everywhere an attrakrive round seems to be much more fun to me.
From Kent I turned onto hwy 118 which was completely empty and beautiful. It climbed slowly up to over 6000 ft (1900m) in a landscape of huge skies. When I arrived at Ft Davies Justin was not there yet I had expected him to overtake me for the last two hours and had already all kinds of crashing scenarios in my head. I checked in the first motel, where I got the last room - a suite with a partition between two rooms and a kitchen. Justin needed to sleep on the sofa bed. I waited for him at the pool where two couples were sitting. they heard my German accent and offered me a Weizenbier which I gladly accepted. I explained to them that I was waiting for justin to arrive in order to get changed and that I wouldn't mind to use the pool. I never got around to that.
Justin came, I changed and we went to dinner with them, for which they paid and a lot of the locals came and bought us drinks. We got pretty drunk and discussed weapons, one of the guys showed me his on his belt, the army, they were both in it. The ease and quality of drugs you get in foreign countries. The teenage son of one couple doesn't want to drive a car, because he thinks pretty green and is a total oddball in town. Their house is out of rammed earth and they invited us over to look at it. But it was to late for this - next time when we are in town,

October 16th, Ft. Hancock to Van Horn, West Tx

Garmin says: 120.92 km 4056 cal 856 m ascent
West Texas is an abomination. The only halfway human beings, I saw today were two Aussies from Melbourne at a gas station, who were on their way from LA to NY. This riding along Interstate 10 is just awful loud, ugly and boring. I would even prefer 360 laps on the Hellyer track. You would not have all the time headwinds and you would get the possibility for 360 bathroom stops, which doesn't compare with waiting for a bridge to disappear under that you will not be seen by 150 Border Patrol trooper and 500 truck driver. Tomorrow I have to go another 35 miles on I10, if it doesn't get better afterwards, I let Justin ride a bit. He picks up the ugly bits and I do the rest. But it seems he is onto me, he did already remark on how he hated the ride into El Paso.
My motel room tonight smells of insect poison, if there will be no new postings in the next week, I might have died of it, especially as the window is painted shut - Budget Inn is no Interconti!
The next three or four days are filled with long rides through completely empty countryside. there are two stretches with more that 50 miles without any services. Justin cannot go before me here this would scare me he should always leave that he reaches me in the afternoon and that way I can decide if I call it a day or not. It is supposed to be fun not torture!

October 15th El Paso to Fort Hancock TX

Garmin says: 92.56 km 3039 cal 545 m ascent
I bought in the morning a little gel padded suit for my saddle and took of the meanwhile quite annoying foam construction. Passing through El Paso I made my way to the border along which the route went for the whole day. I passed just out of El Paso a strip mall where it smelled so good of grilled fish that I had to go through it in order to find the source. There it was Mariscos de Caribe. Being hundreds of miles away from any ocean I thought you shouldn’t eat seafood in El Paso, but here I got one of the best ceviches and fish soups that I ever had. For sure the cheapest!

The ride was quite boring and uneventful, except for two dog attacks which I both got only in the last moment, I find shouting firmly at the dogs helps. I should probable stop listening to my walkman as this makes me unaware from where the barking is coming. The second dog attack were two pit bulls, which were only growling hoarsely. I asked people how to buy a gun that I can leave a trail of dead dogs all over Texas.

Today this will not be an issue as I go mainly freeway, which I don’t like. And I will pass the next time zone, cool!

Our motel is the only one in Fort Hancock at the freeway exit and it has the only diner of town opposite of it. So Justin and I had dinner there. It seems to be the place were the law enforcement of the region goes to as well. There were several Border Patrol trucks outside and one had a bike rack with two really nice mountain bikes (Bush’s Country). The best about them was their lock, they were fixed to each other and the car with two pairs of handcuffs.

In the dinner was barely anyone under five tons light but two guys were like the man in monty python’s “meaning of live”, which explodes while eating. They were preparing a parade in town for their high school homecoming - I need to find out, what this means, as I have heard of it so often but still don’t know what this is. First I was thinking that they dismantled their Columbus Day parade remnants. In the diner two sheriffs with two guys in comic strip striped prison suits came in. At first I thought of a Halloween costume or so, but then I remembered having read about parts of the America who really started to have these again. This morning they are talking about the prisoner having been at the parade. It is so weird. Justin said, they were like: “Look out of towners, lets play out all stereotypes, do not show, that we are normal.
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When we left, both sheriff cars took off with a pebble spraying start as well. I was wondering what could possibly happen in a small town like that which would require two sheriffs at once.