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01-10-19

Distracted by too many gadgets, and things in the gadgets, and things in the things in the gadgets. There is a red light beaming from my forehead, like a third eye to see through the dark. Red because it glows dimly and is difficult to see from a distance, but I can see by it to read and write just fine. This is ideal because I’m camped behind a fence bordering houses in a neighborhood and it’s not so late (nine pm) and I’d rather not be seen.

I stayed with an extremely Louisianan couple last night in Sulphur. That day was mentally taxing and long, as days with headwinds in the range of 15-25 mph are, and I missed my estimated day’s distance by twenty miles or so. Remembered in the nick of time that their was a Warmshowers host in the area, texted her and she sent her boyfriend out to scoop me up in the dark, around 6 pm. Good thing too because I discovered after texting her that I had lost my bottle of stove fuel, God knows where and when, so that had I camped I would have had a cold, miserable, unsatisfying dinner of two bananas and a Clifbar.

These two were a fascinating yet at the same time utterly boring couple. I’m still not entirely sure what to make of them. When Jay picked me up I told him I was planning on pitching my tent somewhere around the Rec Center in Mossville (where he picked me up the next town over from Sulphur) if they were unavailable, but he told me that could have potentially been bad had I had to go through with it because there were “blacks” living all around, and there had been murders at that Rec Center several times over the years. I was naturally somewhat taken aback by the brazeness of the statement, as I think many might be. Later there was another incident at a gas station where we tried to break a sixer of beer and the Indian attendant at the counter (there’s a stereotype for you) refused to break it and Jay stormed out annoyed then went on this rather uneducated, conspiratorial rant about Arabs (which Indians are not, of course), how this one fellow could have sold him the two beers and put the rest in ice but didn’t because he was too lazy, which then led to the statements that they’re (Indians, Arabs, I don’t know, but it’s interesting how to the ignorant that whole part of the world just gets grouped together, like all the peoples and the whole of the population is all the same culture) going to buy up all the gas stations in the country and stop selling gas to Americans which would somehow shut the country down, or some sort of cockeyed, outlandish, nonsensical horseshit. It was clear that he had no clue what he was talking about, but was simply flailing about mentally, attempting to make sense of something frustrating him, changes in the country, or perhaps in his own state, city, or community, that he doesn’t understand and is unable to grapple and reconcile with (like, probably, hundreds of thousands of other Americans).

I thought these peculiar ideas coming from a guy who travelled the world with his father in the merchant marines for many years (favorite countries being Sweden and Brazil (Recife, specifically, in Brazil). These comments, though, contrast sharply with his desire to take his most kind lady friend out to Colorado, then to New Mexico to explore the lands of the Apache and Navajo Indians. He practically glowed talking about this, and it was clear to me that he has an admiration and esteem for the natives of this land. Being there and listening to him speak I could hear it in his voice. Racism, it seems, is not nearly as cut and dry a topic as many people like to think it is, but this was the first time in my life that I had witnessed this sort of polarity of it within one person.

After arriving to home for the night Jay was kind enough to cook up, in his words “a real cajun meal” which in this case meant rice and two kinds of deer and pork sausage. One was storebought. The other was made from a deer his son had slain. Not sure where the pork was from in that one. I’m not quite sure where the “cajun” comes from in this respect either, unless he just meant “cheap.” Maybe it’s cajun because the sausage was a bit spicy. Really the meal just struck me as extremely simple and rustic. And honestly not all that good even setting aside the fact that I prefer to stay away from meat if at all possible. Still, it was better than the sausage, egg and cheese biscuits he brought back from Burger King the following morning for breakfast. His girlfriend, Rebecca, however, whose WarmShowers account it is that I contacted was the most welcoming lady, giving me a hug upon our introduction and treating me as a respected and honored guest. For a time she did bookkeeping for a bike shop in the area, but after a change of ownership she was let go. She doesn’t need to work though, and said she wasn’t at all upset about being let go, actually expected it, and very nearly welcomed it if it was for the benefit of the new owner. Currently she’s been scavenging lumber, nails and various other useful raw stuffs as materials for creative projects—benches for a friend’s outdoor wedding at the moment, but has other ideas which she is formulating projects around. For the last fourteen years she’s been volunteering her time with an organization that handles taxes for destitute and poverty stricken people. She says she does taxes for three to four hundred people a year. An astounding number. That was the task she had set herself at when I arrived—re-certification, actually, so that she could continue her philanthropy. Her home is full of knick-knacks and memorabilia. Family photos primarily. Remembrances. Pictures of her dead husband. A photograph of a family dog who had died a few years back. Christmas lights strung over and across everything. The small Christmas tree still up, decorated, standing on a table beside the television that is always always on so that I feel I’d go brain dead if I was to be there for too long. Eventually chit-chat got tiresome, and I was tired as well, and being as nothing much else was happening I went off to my bedroom where I could hear through the walls and the door the television blaring in it’s brainless stupid way.

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01-08-19

I was feasted by the owner of Myers Rv Campground–I think she said her name was Joleen, or something to that effect. I’m not quite sure why she fed me so, unless she was really that desperate to get rid of the food from the “party” she had last night, or she realized that as a cyclist I would be very hungry, or maybe she is just this generous with everyone. All I know is that I was feasted to the brim on gumbo, rice, veggies, dessert and now I am satisfied and all the mosquitoes in my tent are dead. No finding refuge in here, no siree!

I went to Avery Island my first day in New Iberia for a TABASCO tour, and I’m reminded of this because I kept my rather large ticket as a bookmark, and on the side currently facing up, which I hadn’t bother to read as it’s something like a crest or seal, it states: “Avery Island “Man and Environment In Balance””. They do a lot of environmental conservation on the “island”, which, if you’re interested you can read about briefly here. I shall like to go back some day as I didn’t pay the fee to wander the jungle gardens within which there resides a large Buddha statue from, supposedly, the 12th century—quite a wonder! The gardens are themselves too a wonder.

In the distance, the middle-near distance, a cow moo’s, and another, and that is a wonder. A mournful kind of wonder, though. And fifty yards straight on is an oak wreathed with Spanish moss lit up by a lamp, the moss radiating light faintly, like a phantom, like horror stories from nineteenth century African(-American) slaves. And THAT is a wonder, a fearful, savage, sad wonder.

All these fucking RV’s are humming with the energy of their generators, or whatever is producing electricity for their microwaves, tv’s, air conditioners, stereos, computers, or whatever it is to run. I don’t know if that’s a wonder or not. I suppose it’s a technological wonder. But what I can’t understand is why when camping one wants all that noise and blather around. Where went the sanctifying peace and quiet of nature? The soft and continuous chirp of crickets. Or the mysterious crunch and rustle of leaves as a curious creature scurries past. Inside their five insulated walls they miss all this with their televisions and stereos blowing static, and they miss the mournful lowing of the cow, and the “who cooks for you” of the barred owl, and the chatter and squeaking that has just sprung up out of the darkness like hundreds of rubber duckies squeezed over and over in a sort of distant musical cacophony.

Of all our senses I think the sense of hearing is the most mysterious. All these ethereal tinglings of hair follicles in one’s auditory canal. Things perceived at a distance just far enough away so that you can not quite make it out visually, or so nearby that you might step on it but unable to discern where at all it is, and so unfamiliar that even if you could see it it would be almost meaningless. Sound can come from anywhere and be transmitted through anything. It floats on air, is carried by the wind, is the wind itself. It is like millions of taut wires protruding from your ears in countless directions being tripped by tiptoeing feet or colossally heavy hammers or butterfly wings of dynamite. We hear things in the dark, and may, through their agency, be brought into the light, yet we may hear things in broad daylight and be pitched into an impenetrable black.

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01-06-19

Another day.

Another day spent questioning what I am doing, or, rather, why I am doing. Most of this stemming from thoughts abut the self-guided tour of the TABASCO facility: of was it worth the money ($5, which is very little, really) on a Sunday when no one is there working, and so the bottling plant, which is where I would see any activity, is just a large room with a lot of inert machinery, instead of a place humming, alive with employees applying themselves to whatever tasks are tasked them. You might say it’s like going to see an opera on a day that it’s not being performed, and paying for a ticket anyway, and going to your seat and sitting for two or three hours. Well, the theater it’s being performed in might be beautiful, but what’s the point of rustling up the price of a ticket to sit amongst the old bones, to stare up at that sternum and ribs vaulting over you like a cage just to look out on an empty black? It’s the musicians and actors, the set design and props that put flesh on the skeleton, that are the blood and the heart and the lungs that give it life, that enable it to move one to tears or make him laugh uproariously or gasp in astonishment. That’s what people go to the opera for. Not to stare at a skeleton, no matter how old or fascinating it might be! Leave that to the archaeologists and historians to sweep away the dust from the bones, and inform you on just which date it was born and how old it was when it died…

[Later]
I was interrupted mid-thought for dinner with my hosts, and now I’m back a different person. The way they talk, these two! And their life experiences! Their knowledge and feeling for the South, but Louisiana in particular, is a beautiful, admirable thing. It’s like finding a pearl hidden amongst all the junk and trash and sediment of the road, or on the banks of some garbage-strewn bayou. It shines with the light of a thousand suns, and its flame is fanned by all of these crazy yet simple contraptions that have been collected and refurbished so that they work and shine like they are new, and are placed just so on the shelves and tables like so many trophies and pictures of loved ones smiling down at one affectionately. “Would you like to go on a bicycle ride around town? We can eat at such and such a place and you can take a tour of Shadows. It’ll be fun and easy. New Iberia is small so it won’t take much time at all, and there’s a lovely city park just the other side of The Teche. Or how about some open-water fishing? I can tell you the fish like to congregate around the oil rigs out there in the gulf. If you get hungry again Kathy’ll make you some of that delicious shrimp gumbo. NO tomatoes in gumbo, and the stock is made from boiled shrimp heads like it should be. And you know why Louisiana has such a French character, or at least it used to, well the English who were busy settling Canada and the northern United States didn’t like these French mongrels and kicked ’em out and they somehow ended up in Spain and later a deal was cut whereupon the Spanish shipped ’em into the swamps of Louisisana and then you got cajun cooking. If you need some salt to season anything just head on over to these places called “islands.” They’re not really islands, but just look it as they’re large mounds surrounded by swampland, but these mounds are solid, subterranean mountains of salt forced up out of the earth like a pimple. If you go to Avery Island you can get yourself some TABASCO sauce and pray at the buddha all together. The camelias might be just beginning to bloom too. And when you’re done all that just come back to the house and we’ll feed you some more and we’ll give you a history of Mardi Gras, how it’s a Catholic event, Fat Tuesday preceding Ash Wednesday and all, and you can look at these pictures in the creole cookbook of how the holiday is celebrated out in the country because it is far different from what they do in New Orleans.”

So, now I am relaxed and happy with a full belly and WILL be taking a tour of Shadows tomorrow and getting a Po’ Boy and eating at Victor’s Cafeteria, and God knows what else. The bike trip. Ah, the bike trip. I’m less concerned about that now. What comes, comes. I’m just here to record the experience.

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01-04-19 Leaving New Orleans today. Don’t really feel like it. Don’t feel like it at all. Not sure what I want to do, though. Apply for hire at this wonderful, little bakery and cafe that I’m currently writing this at and learn how to make delicious breads and vegan treats. This trip has just been so disjointed. Like a bloody asthmatic trying to run up a dusty mountain trail: all fits and starts and stopping to take breaths off the inhaler. I haven’t had a chance to build up any kind of momentum. I’ve spent more time in cities, mainly Tallahassee and New Orleans, than I have cycling. Frankly, I’ve enjoyed being in town more than I have cycling. The question is is that because I’ve cycled so little, i.e., the disjointedness of the trip, or is it because I just don’t really feel like cycling? And do I not feel like cycling because I have this deadline for the Australia trip that I don’t even want to go on, or do I just want to travel differently? Like via motorcycle, which I continue to think about. It seems to me that all these questions and considerations are tied in such a knot that one can’t find the cause of it all (and so never the answer), or that they’re all simultaneously causes and effects, and so intertwined with each other that they can not be separated. It is a fine day though, regarding weather, but I wish there wasn’t such an abundance of gusting winds—leavings from the rainstorm that blew in last night, I suppose, all upset for being left alone, and so thrashing about in their anger and frustration. My next stop, briefly, is New Iberia, where the Shadows on the Teche, a 19th century home that has a special appeal for me, is located. I’m curious about it because Henry Miller visited there on his cross-country journey, which he recounts in his book The Air-Conditioned Nightmare. There are Warmshowers folks in town, so a possibility of staying with some people in a cozy home before my next and final stop in Houston. From Houston I’ll be taking a sleeper train to Los Angeles. I’m most excited about spending two or three days in Houston exploring, and then traveling in fairly luxurious style to L.A. over a period 36 hours, leaving Houston on the fourteenth at seven pm and arriving in L.A. at five am. [Later that night] Not the best day. Not the worst day. Just a much much much… much much much… MUCH too windy day. That together with leaving so late meant covering only fifty miles. On the other hand I have a great camping spot in the area of a boat launch. Wonder if anyone’ll be here early tomorrow morning. No matter. It’s nice here, and lit up and surveilled for my safety. The only company I have is the noise of passing cars and the neighbor’s air conditioner, the few mosquitoes outside my tent, and a backhoe which is propping up my bicycle. I would expect frogs, so close I am to a bayou, but nothing. Perhaps they’ve all been eaten. So, as I said, today was rough. Clear blue sky and cool temps, but I couldn’t stop myself from cursing myself, Australia, and the wind. THE DAMNABLE WIND! AND DAMNABLE DEADLINES! And my foolish self. Foolish for being a fool, and foolish too for getting so worked up about all this. Well, in less than a week I’ll be in Houston, then it’s only a couple more days by train to L.A., then the flight to Perth. In the meantime New Orleans was great and I’m so grateful to Nico for giving me his apartment while he was away. Not sure what I would have done otherwise (probably left sooner). But New Orleans! It’s stunningly beautiful, even if most of the buildings are half-decrepit and rotting, molding, and falling apart from the constant damp and humidity and mild to hot year-round temperatures, and many people can’t afford to fix their dingy hovels, or some people just don’t care. Crazy too that one could see on a single block two magnificent specimens of Greek Revival architecture, one building being immaculate with fresh coats of paint gleaming in the sun, and a verdant, manicured lawn; and the other green with algae, lichen, moss, the concrete chipped, pillars discolored, lawn in disarray, basically looking like it’s been neglected for half a century. The food can be wonderful too, if one goes to the right places. I saw many lines of people waiting to get into certain tourist traps in the French Quarter. There are of course many excellent restaurants nestled in there; you just have to know where to go. Like anywhere else I suppose.

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01-02-19

Fair Grinds Coffeehouse, Mid-City, New Orleans

On the back patio. Birds chirping. A fine, wet day. Wet, but no rain. At least not now.

Voices from over the fence. Through the gate people whooshing to and fro, and waiters in white linen aprons carrying boxes to the cafe across the street; children’s toys, and bicycles and tricycles interspersed with the potted plants and the dog bowls filled with water which the birds drink from. From inside the cafe comes the muffled noise of conversation and people jabbing away at their laptops. And I’m out here sopping this all up like a sponge, sipping my okay coffee, nibbling my decent muffin, and feeling strongly nostalgic for my early days of cafe culture back in Annapolis before I, and much of the world, discovered that coffee could be as good as an excellent bottle of wine or a great cocktail, that with care the most extraordinary flavors could be coaxed out of that little seed. Those days for me weren’t so care-free—I was broke and in debt at the time, working jobs that barely paid me enough to live on and pay the minimum amount necessary on my credit card statements to keep from getting charged those absurd fees that do so well to keep people in financial manacles (as if being poor and in debt isn’t enough)—but it introduced me to a life, a culture that has shaped my life and acts now as a key on a map advising where to go. And I’m eternally grateful for that.

I like this little cafe with its mediocre coffee and pretty-tasty baked goods. There’s not much care that goes into the technique of the making of the drinks and food here, but in the right place where exists the right atmosphere that doesn’t matter. This is a coffeeshop for the everyman. People of all stripes, all lifestyles, all walks of life are of course welcome here, and do come here, but it’s the common, average Joe who is most familiar to this place, as well as the many varied inhabitants of the neighborhood and any visitors passing through. It is like a great river which winding, winding, winding back on itself becomes a great pool that all the plants and the animals may water themselves at. It is a home, a destination, and a stopover point during migration. It draws all to its fecundating nexus with its mystical energies. Some stay for hours, some drift in for only a moment, but when they all leave they are better off than when they arrived. And now they know on their next migration, when the next chapter of their life is set to commence, they may stop here and begin the long process, or continue that process, of mutation, evolution, growth (caterpillar to butterfly.)

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12-29-18, NOLA

First espresso of the day. First COFFEE of the day. Still no sustenance in the form of solid food. Wondering what to do about that. Had planned to get beignets at Cafe Du Monde but I refuse to wait in that line even if it “moves fast” as I’ve been told; it’s a good thirty or forty yards long.

The espresso was okay. Long creamy body, balanced sweetness, but still just meh. That’s my experience with Nicaraguan coffees though, even if it’s not a very longstanding experience. Anyway, the coffee shop is Spitfire. A hole in the wall with four stools to sit on in front of two planks of wood anchored to a wall. Two women on staff currently. Espresso, pour-over, cold-brew, and some specialty drinks make up the menu. It gets crowded in here quick. Simple L-shaped counter with an espresso machine and POS, wood laminate floors, and a stucco like wall finish.

I leave Spitfire with either Mammoth or Stumptown as my next destination. Strolling down Royal St.—a tiny one lane lined with antique shops, jewelry stores, and bad art galleries, I come to an intersection where opposite me looms a Walgreens. It seems so anachronistic, so foreign to this place that I am strolling through (which itself is a bit anachronistic to the current century) that I am for a moment quite taken aback. Like while wandering through this living theater I somehow stumbled backstage, to the real world as it were. I stand here staring at this anomaly for a short while until I am accosted by a crazy African-American guy looking for money for McDonald’s. I offer to buy him a sub at Subway in exchange for a photograph. He agrees but won’t stop moving around, creeping here and there, turning his head this way and that so that getting a portrait is like trying to pin down with a needle a squirming worm. I get one though. Quite magnificent too. A portrait of the maniac in the midst of his mania. Something is wrong with his foot or leg so that he has to limp alongside me, all the while he’s talking about things I don’t even remember. Certainly nothing important. Likely nothing at all. Just talking to talk. Like he has all this verbal puss building up inside of him that this continuous chatter is a squeezing of the pimple which then just reseals and builds up again immediately. If he doesn’t talk, no matter what it’s about, all this puss just backs up and becomes an even greater abscess, and then God only knows what he might do. We arrive at the Subway and all he wants is a six inch tuna salad on wheat, plain. Then asks me to get him a beer across the street, something he very plainly does not need, to which I decline. He’s rather unpleasant to the Subway staff, but clearly he suffers from a mental condition. He seems quite irritated with everybody, and has an acerbic, vitriolic temper. He starts talking to someone else and I take that as an opportunity to escape.

At Stumptown on the ground floor of the ACE Hotel. I remember reading in a coffee publication when this place opened to much fanfare and interest. Now, looking around, it just seems old and outdated. A bit abused. Worn out. It’s lost its sheen. Lost its luster. There is a door inside the cafe that opens onto the hotel lounge. Everyone in there sitting on the couches and chairs looks bored, like a bunch of monkeys sitting in trees waiting for something to happen. It’s a strange sort of motionlessness in there, like at any moment a bomb could go off, and that’s almost like the most likely thing to happen. It’s a period of subdued pandemonium, like this moment’s just been wrapped up in a straight jacket that a nut in a madhouse might wear, before the dinner bell goes ring-a-ding-ding, and once that’s done its drunks either at the table or at the bar or at a different bar, and the riots and the whoopee!, and the dynamite and the sex and the headache the next morning, and some more sleeping in soft beds with soft pillows and the room service bringing up breakfast and coffee and lastly the question of are any of us happy? because if we really were what reason would we have for carrying on in this way.

I’m going out for a drink.

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12-28-18

New Orleans at last! Currently at a little, ramshackle cafe, Fair Grinds Coffeehouse, with colorful tables and chairs; and walls of painted wood boards, the paint worn completely away in places so that the bare, old wood showed through, and faded nearly colorless everywhere else; horses and their jockeys in mid-race form painted across the top, and a couple of old ceiling fans connected via a belt to a pulley on each. It is a decidedly second-wave shop. One of those fair trade joints serving coffee that “tastes like coffee”. It’s comfortable, warming, welcoming, and they serve day-old baked goods for a dollar. There is a strong community vibe here. I actually like it a lot. It’s sort of my ideal coffee space, and is reminiscent of the feel of an old cafe I frequented when I made my first forays into coffee shop culture. I just wish the coffee was better. That said, like the ubiquitous American diner with it’s $1.50 unlimited refills, the coffee quality or lack of, is part of the experience.

Across the street at Cafe Degas, a woman is picking glass out of her car from a smashed rear window. Crimes of opportunity are pretty common in the area according to my friend. She doesn’t seem upset, merely resigned. I wonder what, if anything, was stolen.

Back at the laundromat. Lost track of time at the cafe. I haven’t been to a laundromat in years. Forgot how I missed it—the people coming and going; the noises of all the machines, some rather surprising so that you think they might explode, or maybe just breakdown and stop mid-cycle. Walking tentatively, and slightly bemusedly, into a laundromat after having been away for years is an awkward experience. Where are prices for the machines? Where is signage with directions? Where is the change machine? Is there an ATM? Where are the detergents because I don’t have any of my own? You’re like a blind man clacking around with his cane. But once you get everything sorted—once you withdraw your money from the ATM, once you exchange it for quarters, once you figure out how to get the detergent you want from the dispenser, and once you’re tossing your clothes into the wash, it feels like home again, then you walk over to the cafe and read a book or write about your experiences entering a laundromat again for the first time in years, or you walk home, or you just stay at the laundromat and read or write there.

I particularly like, at the laundromat, the notes stuck to the machines proclaiming them “out of order.” Some of these are just sticky notes applied to the drier window perhaps, or a scrap of paper taped over the quarter slot on a washer. There are other reminders too; reminders to remove things from pockets, or to check for gum and other sticky substances because we, the laundromat, are not responsible; and notices that your clothing will be removed from the drier and you will be charged if they sit for too long. And many of the signs appear to have been designed in the 90’s. A combination of hand-written lettering and MS Windows clip-art. It must be a sort of laundromatist’s unwritten code because I’ve never been to one thats signs were designed any differently.

It’s 7:30 and I’ve found a bar I like: Bar Tonique. Ordered a Veux Carre. Never had one before but it has things that I like: brandy, whiskey, vermouth, etc. Should be interesting. You know, new drinks, new experiences and all. I feel like I should be paying $16 and not $9, though, so I’m skeptical about the ingredients’ quality. It’s a nice place, regardless. All warm brick; warm, worn wooden bar; warm, low lighting; weird sort of teal ceiling that isn’t really teal; and a chandelier of sorts that looks like it was made from the same part of various of the same model lamp; a bit disjointed and lopsided. Like they had eleven of a thing and cut each thing off at the same point and took those cutoff parts and stuck them together, all radiating from a sort of central rod. It’s one parts Beetlejuice to one parts Alice Through the Looking Glass to one parts Frankenstein. The menus are written in big letters, colorfully, on chalkboards mounted on opposing walls. There are two ceiling fans turning slowly, as if they know they’re supposed to be working but also know there’s no damn point in it so they’re just going to give the least possible effort. And just like the motivation of these fans, there’s a guy on the opposite side of the bar from me with a blank look on his face, and he’s sitting in front of a basket of citrus and his face is brilliant red so that he looks just like a juicy piece of fruit himself, and I can just imagine the bartender picking him up thinking he was a piece of fruit and placing him on her cutting board and slicing a piece out of his cheek or lips or nose to garnish a cocktail.

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12-26-18

What a day! What a day!

Well, no, actually. It wasn’t that interesting at all. Not at all so interesting as “what a day” would imply, nor was it so interesting that an exclamation point be required at the end of that phrase. It was pretty easy and basic which, sometimes, isn’t a bad thing. It was a sentence ended with a period. No more and no less.

Happily I am writing in my journal rather than dictating into a microphone. I found the pen I thought I had lost while breaking my tent down this morning. Still don’t know where it was hiding.

I cycled from Dauphin Island to Ocean Springs today. Ocean Springs is in Mississippi. My Alabama photo section for this trip is going to be a bit thin. But I’m renting a car and driving to New Orleans thanks to the weather which has largely been frustrating my attempt to enjoy this bicycle journey and seems to want to make my life miserable (with a good deal of success), so I suspect, based on renting a car, that the Mississippi section will be even smaller still.

I’m camped at a grounds that is part of the National Seashore, therefore it is under federal jurisdiction, but because the government is shutdown there is no one working here, meaning there is no one to charge me the fee to camp, but also coincidentally not anyone here to tell me I can’t camp (because it’s closed to the public). It’s a very nice circumstance to find myself in, especially considering I’m not availing myself of any of their amenities and will only be here maybe sixteen hours. The downside to this, the camping, is that the rain forecasted for the next week begins tonight. I’m under a tree, so afforded some protection, but even still I don’t know that I will sleep well (rain on a tent is noisy). And I’ll have to break camp then bike to the car rental in the rain tomorrow. A sad affair not worth dwelling on.

The one point of interest for the day was running into another cycle-tourist headed in the opposite direction. He had a deep tan and deep creases in his tanned face from spending loads of time outside beneath the sun, and a longish pepper-grey braided beard. I thought he might be more at home in black leather chaps riding a Harley than a bicycle. His name was Joseph, John, James… something with a “J”, and he was stupendously loaded down with luggage, AND pulling a trailer, within which, seated like a queen, was his dog. I can’t imagine the speeds he must average. One’s speed is meaningless of course to the person whose speed holds no meaning, but me, I don’t think I could travel like that (though, to be fair, I’ve looked at a couple bikes with the capacity to hold some extreme amounts of food and water for potentially slower and more remote bike trips). Anyway, we had a short chat while simultaneously shooing away a male dog who seemed very curious and perhaps quite taken by the lady in the trailer. I eventually got him to run off by tossing a rock in his direction, no doubt a common tactic used before judging by his reaction. Was better than listening to J. shout at him every time he wandered too close, while also threatening to pepper spray him. We parted ways after a short bit of where-ya-goin’, where-ya-come-from, etc. He’s very nearly finished his third trip on the Southern Tier. I can’t for the life of me imagine why anyone would want to travel the same route across the same country three times, but good on him I guess. Sure beats sitting on one’s ass watching the world spin by.

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December, 23 2018

I’m leaving Pensacola today, and having my last coffee and breakfast at Polonza, a bistro that serves some of the best coffee in north Florida (and to my knowledge the only town or city serving great coffee until one gets to Jacksonville (it can be found in Tallahassee but it’s a bit of a secret)) as well as an excellent breakfast and lunch. Spent the morning down at Palafox Pier overlooking Pensacola Bay trying to photograph reflections in the lens of a distance viewer, as well as gulls, pigeons, and the occasional pelican gliding on the sea breeze. Difficult, difficult birds are to catch, most especially if one is trying to place them in a specific area of a landscape, or even just wishing to have a horizontal horizon in the picture.

Like trying to nab a fly with chopsticks.

Just had a long chat with Taylor, the head barista here. Turns out he used to work for Perc in Savannah, Georgia, and we met briefly some years back during my last bike tour. Absolutely crazy that. “It’s a small world” is such a cliche phrase, and some might say it’s overuse, but if it fits it fits, right? The specialty coffee world is even smaller still, and that makes it easy to meet and make lasting friendships and acquaintanceships. Here’s to another.

Being on this bike trip I’ve begun to realize ever more concretely what it is I want out of travel, and mainly that is to find a good place to stay for a while and explore, and to explore from, and NOT to be constantly on the move. Yet bicycle travel is often about being on the move. Too, it may be difficult to stay in one place for long if one’s desire is also to be frugal, particularly in my case as I love cities so much. Yes, there exist Warmshowers hosts, but one can only stay for so long without being a burden. So, find another! Not always as easy as it would seem! Well then what about the natural world that I profess to love so much? As long as one has food and water for days, and doesn’t mind being dirty and smelly for extended periods this is great! Of course if you happen to be near a river cleanliness and drinking water is less of an issue, assuming the water source hasn’t been polluted or fouled in some way. I guess all this is really just to say that I’m happy to spend my Christmas, and perhaps some days more, on Dauphin Island at a host’s while he is away, which, while not allowing access to the inner keep, does have the desirable amenities (latrine, power, wifi, water, shower) out of doors. I’ll likely be in no hurry to hop back on my bike again.

Something else I’ve discovered that I want when I travel is flexibility. What that means to me is the ability to get where I want when I want in a relatively short span of time (within reason of course). The bicycle can be an excellent tool for this, at least in comparison to a slower means of travel such as running or walking, but it’s still rather slow, methodical, and, being human-powered, requires a fair bit of effort and energy, so that even something like a “short” five mile detour (which becomes a ten mile roundtrip) to visit some place or thing of interest can take a lot of daylight, as well as energy. This may be all fine and good for some, especially if planned for, but may prove to be impossible as a spontaneous side quest to one’s main objective for the day. So I’m beginning to think I’d like a motorcycle. And maybe one with a sidecar in which I could securely fit my bicycle because I’d still like to get in miles recreationally. As well, the bicycle could be used as a means of transport for various so-called side quests while leaving the motorcycle at headquarters (campsite, motel, whatever it is). The benefit of traveling by motorcycle is increased flexibility because higher speeds, and being able to pack one’s saddle bags a bit more full without suffering the great inconvenience of pedaling a bicycle with additional weight. Granted, there are drawbacks as well: insurance, cost, repairs, fuel…. But this is all just speculation for now….

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I arrived in Pensacola earlier today.

WINDY AS FUCK.

A steady-ish fifteen miles per hour headwind accompanied on occasion by gusts that were much higher than that. This got me to thinking about, and I mean really properly thinking about, why wind from any direction (excepting that from behind) on a bicycle is the bane, the adversary, the nemesis that it is. And I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s not so much just the obvious one, that it slows you down, but that it’s impact, that is the actual physical force of the wind, is of a feeling akin to getting punched by a gloved fist in the gut, like getting smashed in the face with a dense, heavy pillow, like having a bed sheet thrown over you while cycling in a wind tunnel. It hits you, it pulls at you, it pushes you with fiendish delight, and as a cyclist you have no defense. So, it is the physical force of the wind that is so demoralizing, not merely the fact that one moves at slower speed. And when it comes to crossing bridges that realization can become terrifying, particularly those with limited shoulders, because the wind can and does move you. Assuredly one of the last ways I would like to die is by being pushed by a gust of wind into a speeding semi. Naturally then my last real obstacle was a bridge, with little shoulder, from Gulf Breeze (funny name that) to Pensacola. This was a nightmarish death tunnel what with the wind and the cars and the semis barreling along the highway beside me. At the end of all this though, I was greeted by Jeb, the Creative Director at First United Methodist Church, where I would be staying, and who himself had done some bicycle touring in the past, and has plans for touring in the future, and organized and setup the WarmShowers account. It was a greeting I was only too happy to receive.

I’ve managed to find at least one great place for food in town: End of the Line Cafe, a vegan joint serving coffee, beer, assorted other drinks, and great food. I’m heading to a whiskey bar later for a drink. Need to find a proper pen instead of this silver marker I’m writing with. I’m not at all certain what possessed me to bring it, but it’s coming in handy right now.

Cities, though! They’re always undermining my resolve to be frugal. You only live once, most people say. And in this case it’s highly unlikely I’ll be back to the places I’m passing through, excellent food or not. Excellent food can be found nearly anywhere, especially if one knows how to cook. And that’s one thing I miss a lot—having a stove, a little good cooking oil, a frying pan, and some vegetables to go with the rice I cook on nights that I camp. But anyway, I guess my excuse is that I’m traveling through these cities so I should be enjoying them.