Day 14 - Feb 28 - The beginning of the end

While we were grateful to have a place to stay last night, it was a little creepy sleeping in the garage of the Mamou Police Department. I awoke several times during the night and found myself staring at the bumper of the police car that was up on jacks. It took me a moment to realize where I was.

We took off fairly early and stopped at a convenience store that served breakfast. The only thing on the menu was biscuits. I ordered a bacon, egg and cheese biscuit. There was a round disc of something that resembled eggs, but if I didn't know what it was to begin with, I might not have been able to figure it out. The bacon was fried in french fry oil. My arteries hardened exponentially as I ate it. About half way through I couldn't take it anymore and gave it to Bryan. He'll eat anything. Won't you, Bryan?

It was a lovely day's ride. For most of the day, we rode a lonely country road. Since it was Sunday, there wasn't much traffic, and the road itself was decent, though there was no shoulder. We passed dozens and dozens of crawfish farms. They harvest the mudbugs with the most interesting contraption that looks sort of like a boat, but has four small wheels on it. It's hard to explain and, unfortunately, I didn't get a photo of one.

                                                                 (A crawfish farm)

Speaking of photos, I've tried to post photos for several days now, without success. A post is normally about 7 kilobytes of information. Photos increase it to 5 megabytes. When I have virtually no cell signal, I can't post to the blog with all of the photos attached. So I've been having to remove the photos in order to post with weak signals. Sorry.

There weren't many places to stop today to rest. We rode 25 miles in the morning without a break. It was too far for me, so my knees were hurting before noon, and we had 37 more miles to ride. We finally stopped for lunch at a diner attached to a convenience store. We got there during the after-church crush, so when we told the waitress (a young girl) that we were starving and were ready to order, she said, "Good luck, there's quite a few tickets ahead of you." It wasn't very encouraging, and we did wait quite awhile for the food to arrive.

After lunch, we had another 20 miles left to ride to make it to DeRidder, where we had planned to stay for the night. There were three choices of campgrounds, but we decided to stay in the one furthest along the route, which was in town, because it's supposed to rain tomorrow and we wanted to be within walking distance of places to hang out while it rained.

As it turned out, the RV park in town isn't really near anything to speak of, and it's really foul. I'm writing this post from the "washateria." I was going to take a shower, even though the bathroom is disgusting, since I didn't have one last night, but a woman who just came out said there was no hot water. Nice. I'm tired and filthy and there's no hot water in the scuzzy bathroom. Now what?

                                                        (A Smartcar can pull that!?)

But I'm getting ahead of myself. After lunch, the guys took off, and I struggled to finish the last 20 miles by myself. I'd already done 42, and I was tired. Moreover, the hills returned about 5 miles before lunch and got worse after lunch. Up and down I went. The weather had warmed up, too, but I had made a bad decision after lunch to leave on my long cold-weather tights and a long-sleeved shirt, so I was soon sweating profusely and had run out of water. And wouldn't you know there wasn't a store or anything for the next 20 miles so that I could change clothes. With about 5 miles to go, I pulled into a convenience store that was closed for the day and noticed that my back tire was almost flat. My right tire had been hissing and spitting some after lunch, too, so I was terrified that both were going to go flat at the same time. I had only one spare tube. Fortunately, the right front stopped spitting and didn't go flat. I pumped up the rear one, hoping that I could limp into town, and it held, but is now totally flat. Ryan was sweet enough to come looking for me after I texted him that I was having trouble. He is such a wonderful person (Momma Hasty, you did such a good job with him!). He then rode to the Evil Empire and bought me some extra tubes and a spare tire.

So here's the meaning of the title for today's post: While Ryan, Bryan and Mike ran to Walmart (principally to get beer, although they discovered that no one in town sells alcohol on Sunday), I decided that I'm not going to finish the trip. For many reasons. Carol left two days ago, and we haven't heard from her. Dave only intended on riding a week or so, and will be leaving the group in the near future. While I adore Ryan, Bryan and Mike, they are guys in their early twenties. I can't begin to hang with them day after day and do the miles we'll need to do through Texas and beyond. I'm already holding them back, as I am now the weakest link. At some point, though I'm not sure when, they will want to do more than I am capable of doing. Either they will stay with me and grow weary of my slower pace, or they will move on, and I will be alone. I would like to think that I am strong enough mentally and physically to finish the trip alone, but I know that I'm not. Nor do I want to do the trip alone. That's why I advertised to begin with. But my reality is -- or at least what I feel confident it will become -- that I will be on my own at some point. And I may or may not be at a place where I can easily go home.

Once we leave DeRidder, we will enter Texas in 15 miles. Ryan has an aunt in Hempstead, TX, and we've been planning on staying with her when we get there. I will either pack up and come home from there, or Dave and I will cut down to Houston, where he lives, and he will help me pack up and come home. I haven't decided yet which one to do. Either way, I will be riding for at least 4 more days (I think). And I will have done more than 600 miles. It's not 2500 miles, but it's still a respectable distance.

So, friends, wish me four fun days. I need to have some fun for a change. I suppose if I had some fun, I might change my mind about leaving. Right now, all I can think about is my home, my cats, my warm bed, my hot tub, my friends, and my mom (not necessarily in that order). I am tired and cold and dirty and sad and miss my home. Perhaps I'll figure something out tomorrow while it's raining. Wish me a dry night, at least. There's nothing worse than waking up in a soggy sleeping bag.

Sent from my Verizon Wireless Phone