Final Post... for now

Alright. It's been a while... Here's the pictures from the trip. Thanks for following. Hope you enjoyed it.

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2297170&id=6404399&l=3a7b4ca5a7

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Finishing up

Alright... Leaving Amarillo, TX riding my ditch proven road warrior I continued west. Well, being Texas, I soon found myself hot and uncomfortable. So I headed north to get into the mountains along the Continental Divide. So far north I made it all the way to Las Vegas... Las Vegas, NM that is. Kind of a let down. I kept heading north deeper into the mountains. After leaving a gas station I noticed big thunderheads to the north so i added some westness in to try and skirt the storm. Operating without a map has its advantages. For one, you're never lost because you don't have a specified destination. You may not know where you are, but that is more just something you come to accept. But it also had disadvantages and we'll get to that in a bit. Anyways, I was now riding through increasingly heavy storm. I have finally learned at the first sign of rain to put on my windbreaker. Still haven't broken all the way down and put rain pants on at this time though. dont know why. now its coming down hard and its about 5 ish. After the long night last night, I just want to camp and get out of this brewing storm. I take a road to the west. It looks good... enough. 20 miles later i come to another fork in the road and head north. This takes me towards a town as it starts winding west. Just before i catch a road that is heading north because the one that is headed into town looks as though it may go no further by the looks of the looming peaks surrounding the town (I later found this to be true). This fork winds along a creek for a ways through some beautiful cattle ranches. Real cowboy area. Well this road comes to a "town" and as I look dismally around I realize that this road does not lead to any pass as I was hoping. Instead it goes the quarter mile through the 20 odd residences and spits me out at a fork. The right fork is a gated catlle ranch. The left, however, is a steep unmaintained gravel road with a bullet riddled rusty sign that read "unmaintained road, private property, no trespassing." Luckily half the letters are missing so I rationalize to myself that I will plead negligence should the oppurtunity arise. Left it is. But first I wait for the car who found themsleves in the same predicament as me to turn around. They leave and I head up this road. Becuase of the altitude and pitch of the road my bike can hardly make it up. I put it in first and give it some choke just so i can hobble up at 5 mph. Finally the grade eases up and my bike can handle it. After passing a few more ranch entrances to the left I come to my final dead end about 2 miles down this road. This is the end of the line. The ranch has an automatic gate and clrearly states no trespassing with a newish looking sign. Disheartening to say the least. The thought of riding back the 40 minutes or more through the storm just to get back to a road that will continue through the mountains is the last thing i want to do at this point. Just to the left of this dead end is a big tree so i pull my bike under it out of the rain while i assess the situation. That's when I noticed across the road there is a 10 foot gap in the ranch fences that seems to continue on as far as I can see. I decided to hike down and check it out. After crossing two good flowing creeks I found a clearing just big enough for me to pitch my tarp. Perfect. Turns out this passage between ranches is some county imminent domain issue which worked out great for me. So I got back to my bike, got my camping gear and covered my bike. Then I wrote a quick note along the lines of "please dont tow my bike... Happy labor day!" That's the best i could come up with. So i pitched my tarp tent and layed out my gear and ducked under it to relax, read, and listen to the rain coming down above me. Then the thunder started. It was close too, my favorite. The thunder is so powerful, I tried to record it on my phone but it just doesnt do it justice. With the rain pouring down I started to get hungry. Not wanting to leave my dry haven i put the stove at the edge and boiled the rest of my water from the camelbak bladder. After i put in my pastat I realized I had left my fork on the bike. No way in hell was I going to go the quarter mile back to my bike barefoot in my boxers. so I decided to whittle a... fork! Not really. But I did come come up with some pretty good chopsticks. Ate my meal, enjoyed the storm and slept well.

Woke up to good weather so I packed up and moved out. My bike was still there, as was the note in the ziploc back. Warmed up the bike and headed down the road which was now a bit more washed out from the rain that formed creeks down it during the storm last night. I got to the fork to the previous fork and tried going north and when I came into the town I slowed down because now the road had turned into a one laner. Coming around a corner a dog saw me and immediately sprinted towards me barking and snarling. He chased me for a while I reminisced of the time riding scooters around Koh Tao when Kiel and I ventured down a steep gravel driveway only to find rabid dogs at the bottom. That was funny because i turned around in time, but kiel having waited up the driveway a bit (apparently to avoid the dogs) took longer to turn around, so when I came flying back up the driveway with a dog litterally nipping my heels Kiel was just getting moving and without the momentum neede to get up the steep drive, well.. he didnt fair as well. funny stuff. for me. anyways back to the first dog, he eventualy got tired just before the road dead ended so i turned around and this time took the road faster hoping to find that dof in the middle of the road and run him down. not really. anyways never saw it again. musta been gathering a posse to await my return. musta. back on the road. blah blah blah. oh that's right. I decided to by my heroic stomach breakfast for its glorious work two nights earlier so I stopped at the first hole in the wall joint i saw. Hung up my tarp on a nearby fence to sun dry and went in. Definitely cowboy town. I could tell by the look of their 'staches. The bigger the handlebar the bigger the cowboy. Luckily mine could hang. Ate, talked, whatever. But as i was packing my things two gentleman approached me. Local pastors. Nice guys. I told em my story, and they told me theirs of working in guatemala and one even got a malaria souvenir. He said it almost killed him. then he told me he was from granit bay and ended up knowing my roommate from freshman year. small world. I left, dont remember what else. Got to Bryce Canyon and the Monument Valley for sunset which was amazing. I wanted to get to Zion that night so I could camp there but no such luck. I was sleepy. So after nightfall I was on a relatively busy interstate and wanted to camp. Surrounded by desert/ ranch land I knew there would be some place I could lay my head unbothered. As I rode down the freeway at 70mph I kept seeing ranch driveways fly by at the last second. After missing the first 30 I finally timed it right so I could slow down enough to stop in time for the driveway and not get hit by the car behind me. And of course there was a gate. but... no lock. just a wire latch. So i waited until there were no cars within a quarter mile each direction and swung the gate open. Waited again and brought my bike in. closed the gate. waited again and rode down this cattle road. Lot of washouts, all overgrown, and a few sleeping cattle. After a ways I pulled off into the bushes and made camp. That night as I slept uder the stars my mind kept wandering to the thoughts of cows grazing my face. but i lucked out. good full moon too. Packed up in the morning and headed to Zion.

Zion is awesome. Too many people but it is amazing. Hiked a bit, decided against taking the bus through the more of the park with 50 tourists, caught an imax movie on preserving the African coast and the sardine run, and headed on my way. Next stop Vegas. Real Vegas.

Before I got to Vegas, I stopped at my favorite spot, The tribal fireworks store. Loaded up on bottle rockets and ice cream sandwhiches started riding again. It was so hot I changed my course to upper lake powell so I could swim and escape the heat. Then i noticed a sign saying fee area. Looked in my wallet to find the usual 2 bucks and turned around. Vegas it is. Figured I'd play poker to escape the heat and either win a bunch of money or... i guess i just planned on winning a bunch of money. got to vegas. rode down the strip baking in the sun, by that point i was in no moood to be gamble. I was hot and sweaty and just wanted to swim. So i headed east. forget vegas. about 10 minutes out i saw a sign for a hotel/ casino so i stopped. and they had a pool! for hotel residents. But you could get in no prob though a subtle entrance. Got my suit on and swam. so nice. getting out is when i realized that you need the hotel key to get out of the pool area. being the only one in the pool area, i swam some more. finally someone came. As the door was closing I jumped out, lodged a croc in it. Dried off and made my way to the casino to drop some cash. Played some crap with some fun people and just before the sunset Iheaded out of there with empty pockets. Timing it just right, I caught the glare of the setting sun in my eyes for the ten minutes before sunset. It was a long ten minutes on the highway filled with semis and oncoming traffic. 40 miles down or so I came to a pseudo pass through the mountains. Not really a pass just high desert (4,000') at its highest point. I took an exit called summit road which led into the hills to the north. As soon as I exited I saw a cattle grate over the road I wanted and I sign saying "end road maintained by... anybody" or something like that. It was exactly what I wanted to see. It was a sandy road covered with sharp rocks and the occasional downed joshua tree. If you've ever touched one of this tree/cactus hybrids its not hard to imagine them fallen on the ground. They can barely support their own weight as it is. Camped a ways down the road after passing some impromptu fire pits laden with spent shotgun shells. Practiced my slingshot aim for a bit and hit the sack.

The next morning I woke before the sun so I could get some miles out of the way before the real heat began. After a while I got to a 50's diner I had seen ( and I'm sure you have too) advertised on billboards for miles. Turned out to be pretty good. Met a couple other guys at the bar who liked hearing some of my stories about this trip. One was a fly fishing guide from Montana, while the other drove BMWs (car) and wanted to go fly fishing in Montana. Kind of a snob but offered to buy my breakfast after he saw me put down the entree and the better part of a peanut butter creme pie. Normally I would have but this would be my last breakfast purchased (also, one of the first) of the trip so I put up the bill for it. Hit the road and headed towards Ca, the 21st state of the trip. I didnt feel like taking I-10 so I headed north on some highway at the advice the flyfisherman and found my way through Apple Valley. When I got to 101 in Carpinteria I pulled off and went for a swim in the cold ocean. Very refreshing. After a bit of body surfing I was ready to get back on the road. Got to SLO, saw some friends, went to Morro Bay for dinner, stashed some fireworks in a bar for some of my rugby friends coming into town over the weekend and slept a bit. The next day I went and checked on the wheelchair ramp I built earlier this spring for the Post family. Ended up hangning out there for a bit as I told them some tales as Shirley kept serving me more and more breakfast. I kept eating but was still full from the Frank's breakfast burrito I had eaten earlier. Frank's is great because they still remember me and the same order i get everytime. After leaving the Post's place I stopped by my mom's rental place to check on the roofs and do a bit of repair. nothing but one missing shingle. Then coming back by my old apartment I saw my old landlord outside so i turned around and talked to him for a bit. He was blown away I had done the whole trip without gloves. "wasn't it cold?" he kept asking. "hell yeah it was cold!" anyways, it was nice to see a bunch of my friends still in slo and later in the day i left for the bay to see my roommates from last summer.

Got there at dusk just as Erin was leaving for a trip to Tahoe. Erich told me some stories from Burning Man. And yeah that's about it for the trip. Next morning I rode off towards home...

Westward

So, let's see. When I was last blogging twas many moons ago. but here i am again. blogging. so. i said my goodbyes to my new cajun amigos and rode out the gravel driveway wondering which direction to go. All right. north. I was tired of the bugs threatening to devour me whole so that was the only feasible option. I had heard of a town in NWestern Lousisiana so I headed towards it. Maybe i'd hit it. Maybe I did hit it. who knows. anyways eventually i was in Oklahoma. btw i passed through Lahoma, Oklahoma and realized i was in the home of the most creative people on the planet. exciting stuff. moving on. as i was riding on the highway i saw a sign to Paul's Valley. I couldnt remember where i knew that name from. Then i remembered! It's the okie noodling capitol of the world. I followed that sign.  40 miles later i was there. Expecting to see people walking around with whole catfish dangling from their arms I was a little taken aback when no toothless boat bearing folk tried to get onto their noodling rig for the afternoon. It was saturday afterall. However, I persevered. I went to the nearest live bait shop, once again a little disappointed when I didnt see a man with only wooden limbs behind the counter, but I still asked the fella if he knew where I could noodle. Well he started spinning some yarn about no noodling now because blah blah blah. I've never experienced a broken heart before but this had to be close. Holding back my tears I sprinted out of the store screaming. probably. It's all a miserable blur now. Anyways I spit on Paul's Valley and got the hell out of there. Heading west now. and north.  and east. but that was only once. 

Sun was setting  and I was homeless once again. So... I took a random road off the highway and made for somewhere other people weren't? Well lucky me I found an overgrown road half a mile down that other road ( I should probably learn to use adjectives).  And this road was a beauty. Weeds taller than me, gravel, sinky sand, and washouts 3 feet deep. I loved it. Nobody had driven this road in some years. My bike was fishtailing back and forth in the sand threatening to get stuck, but I just laid on the throttle harder kicking gravel high in the air. It was a blast. After a bit I was now deep in the woods. Got so far I found an abandoned house. Kinda gave me the creeps so i turned back a bit and made camp in a clearing just a bit before. Still had some daylight so I got my ground sheet out laid against a rock and started to read my book. The Godfather by Mario Puzo. I have to say Puzo is a phenomenal writer, first discovered this when i stumbled across one of his books in a used bookstore in Thailand. Hooked ever since.  As I was reading I kept hearing rustling behind me.  First a ways away, then closer. It was dark now and I was using my headlamp to read. I figured it was probably a dog smelling food. I got up looked around but couldn't see anything. The noise stopped too. Nice. Five minutes later the rustling is bigger and closer. Now its' fully dark, and the moon hasnt come up yet. I pull out my knife and turn around. Scanning the woods with my headlamp I saw nothing. Untill. 2 eyes lit up huge in the brush! A deer. Figures. Frozen in my headlamp. Luckily I had been practicing my slingshot skills lately. I grabbed it from my tank bag while it stood there. I pulled one back and let it fly. I hit it square in the ass. Instictively it kicked both its hind legs hard in the air and took off sprinting. This was now my turf.  Slept great that night. Even the bugs knew not to mess with me.

Next morning I warmed my bike up real well while I packed it so it could make it through the sand no problem. Back on the highway I started making miles.  Ended up doing 500 ish miles and came to Amarillo, Tx in the panhandle. Feeling weary I decided to check out one of the KOA campgrounds I have seen all along the way through this journey. I walked into the office, and noticed the free chips and salsa. I asked how much it was for a night to camp. 29 bucks she said. I said no way jose but didnt stop eating the chips. Now I had to make small talk while I ate more. I was hungry.  Little awkward. Finally, with just crumbs left I left.  There was a limo outside. "Weird." But not one to turn away a limo, i decided to get in. Afterall it said "free steak" on the top. Well they're already 5 or so people in there. Waiting for me I suppose.  They could see the hunger in my eyes and the salsa on my 'stache so they welcomed me with open beers.  Told me about this steakhouse challenge. Free 72 oz. steak if you can eat it all, otherwise it's 72 dollars. This made me cringe a bit. I definetely had no desire to pay for steak so I looked at my stomach and made a pact. "You help me now and I'll buy you breakfast tomorrow." It growled in agreement. It was on. Got to the steakhouse. Other restaurant goers looked at us in awe as we got out of the limo to start our cow eating quest. Sat down and soon enough the steak was in front of me and my fellow gluttons. it was a monster. medium rare, i swear it still had a pulse. 2 inches thick and  overflowing on all edges of the plate. I knew it was a race against the clock. So I ate. for a long time.  One of the others dropped out by now. There were 3 of us left. and probably a combined 10 pounds of meat left. Nobody spoke. The women watched as we took bite after bite. Another dropped out. It was just me and Earl. I had about a pound left and my stomach felt as though it was topped off. Too bad. I kept eating. Finally I did it. 6 pounds of steak in my belly. Mentally I felt great. Physically. Otherwise. Earl finished too. Gave him a fist pound and looked in disgust at the two failures sitting next to me. Somebody said dessert and I almost puked. Time passed and with no wheelchairs readily available I was forced to crawl back into the limo under my own strength.  Got back to the bike and realized it was dark and I still needed a place to sleep. 

Being on the outskirts of a big city like this I headed north to get away from the interstate and hopefully find some abandoned land. No such luck. While there is nothing but land all around, it is all properly locked. Went down some road until it dead ended at some power plant. Had to turn around.  Now I decided to go back towards west towards town, not wanting to back track even a mile. Finally came to an abandoned fireworks warehouse in an industrial part of the city. A perfect building to sleep behind. Now I just had to get around the chain gate and I could rest in peace. I started going slowly around the metal pole staying close because there was a big drainage ditch 3 feet away overgrown with 4 foot tall grass. As soon as I  got my front tire across it immediately slipped a foot into the ditch. I couldnt tell the contour because it was dark and the grass area all along the border. With my tire there I knew i couldnt back my bike out now. I had to give it gas and get out of this ditch. As soon as I did my front went forward a bit, but now my back was in. well i gave it more throttle and my bike tire spun a bit and my front started sliding down the slick grass toward the bottom of the ditch. There was nothing I could do, I had to ride down 90 degrees until my bike was completely in the ditch. As my front tire slipped down it hit a block of concrete which stopped my bike but the momentum carried me and the bike over sideways. My bike was now tits up in this grassy hell. My bike was revving uncontrollably so I stuck my hand down into the thorny weeds and hit the kill switch. It was 10p and I was in a ditch with my bike exhausted after riding 500 miles and eating the better part of a cow. So after giving a couple attempts at lifting the behemoth I stood in the ditch a bit dumbfounded. Just then I saw some headlights in the distance. I ducked into the grass and let it pass. I was in no mood to talk to anybody, especially whoever was driving these roads late on a saturday night.  After making sure no gas was leaking from my inverted tank I began pulling grass and covering my bike with it. After a few minutes and a few more ducks into the weeds my bike was now perfectly covered. I headed out behind the fireworks warehouse to the woods to sleep with nothing but my motorcycle jacket and the clothes i had on my back. All my sleeping gear was pinned under my bike. That night I slept terribly. Lying on sticks and rocks listening for anyone to come and try and steal my bike. Soon though i rationalized that I should be so lucky to have someone take the time to get it out and just when they had it out of the ditch ready to go I would come and say "So that's where I parked my bike!" and ride away. No such luck. It ended up being a cold night so i used one sleeve of my jacket as a pillow and put the rest of the jacket over my chest as a blanket. 

Morning came and I got up at 6. My camo job still looked immaculate. It took me an hour and a half to get it out of the ditch. But I did. It took some heavy lifting and a bit of ingenuity finally it was out, running, without a scratch. A huge relief to me. While I was standning in the ditch working on it, people would drive by... and wave. I wold wave back. Then 3 seconds later they would double take, see me in the ditch with my bike, and keep driving. I'm glad they knew that I understand it is always better to do things for yourself. 

SO with an hour of sleep and my bike frshly out of the ditch I rode until I came across a barn where I slept in the cool shade until the sun woke me up around noon. Then I rode some more. ...

I yearn to learn

Im tyred of tiping. Here it is. I have been here in Broussard, LA for the past week learning everything I can about flying ROV's and how exactly they work. From hydraulics to flight cards, I'm learning it all. It's great. After riding a motorcycle for the past 6 odd weeks I have relied on my brain for such menial tasks as finding stealth shelter and how to get free food. Now I'm learning a great deal about ROV's as well as the massive oil industry. Interesting stuff for sure. Been refining my soldering skills, and even had a chance to do some more maintenance on my bike. Now, however it is time to leave. The job we have been waiting for has been put on hold for a week so I am out of it until I come back in a few weeks time to make some real money. I've met a lot of good people here and had a great time. Horse racing with cajuns is pretty fun. People know how to have a good time down here. It's been a lot of fun. Met some interesting people to say the least. I'll explain more down the road. probably.
Now it is time for me to figure out which way I am heading. It is a very weird feeling packing your bike not knowiing where you are going. All along this trip I have know the general direction, but not today. I have talked to some people in Oklahoma about noodling (google it if you dont know), as well as some adventure moto riders in good ol mississip. Or i could head west. I suppose I'll figure it out when I get on the road. All for now.

Insert creative title here

All right. As many of you have noticed I have been ever slacking on the blog posts. Moving on.

I sit here in Broussard, LA typing away in the office environment that has become all too familiar. Time to backtrack to the future.

I left my sister Rebecca's place in Austin heading east. I decided to go east based on a call I made to Jim Whitehead with Sea ROV. Anyways not being much for interviews on the phone I told him I would meet him in person. So i went. Having stayed at my sisters posh city apartment for a week I had gone soft. bigtime. Anyways I rode for a while, it was muy late by now, and stopped at a gas station near Houston. Two guys in a broke cadillac with spinners were off to the side of the station. One approached me. I counterapproached. We both gave salutations. Then he asked me for money. As I said earlier, after living in an apartment for a week I had gone soft but worse, I had lost my edgy homeless look. I couldn't beleive he asked me for money. He told me their story about how they were coming from working offshore, and their alternator quit on them and first their lights went out while driving... then the car shut down. I felt some compassion for them because this exact scenario happened to me in dangerous rural south africa. So I did a noble deed and gave them all of the money in my wallet. Two crinkly George Washingtons. But more importantly I offered them some of my sandwhich. This was far more a gesture of my good faith. Not only could it feed a family of 12 if need be, it was made with love. They turned down the loaf of bread laden with a whole chicken, and various other delicouties. Getting sidetracked sorry.
I was now back on the road. I rode until I was overcome with the sleepyness. Time to find a place to camp. Out of the rythm of finding abandoned roads it took me a bit longer than normal to find my hideout for the night. Soon though I cam across an overgrown strip of something between the frontage road and I-10. Got my bike hidden and covered then made camp and laid down to try and sleep. No such luck. Bugs in the south are impressive to say the least. It took them about 10 minutes to realize some poor sap was actually attempting to sleep on their turf. My sleeping bag must have been the wrong color because it was an all out gang war. They came out me with everything they had until... my friend 98.11% deet showed. Game over. They had nothing on me now. I won. Still couldnt sleep though, too damn hot. Got up early in the morning. Packed my stuff and started my bike to warm it up. Two passerbys jumped a bit when they heard the purr of my bike coming from some bushes. I rode out, they saw the tattered american flag flying in the breeze and immediately ran home to lock up their daughters. probably.
Back on the road get to Lafayette. I pull in there looking for a library so i can kill some time before i told Jim I would meet him. First tho I find a table and grab the remaining half of my delicioso sandwhich. Within a few minutes somebody eyes my bike and starts a conversation with me about it. He s very into the bike... until he sees my sandwhich! Inquiring where i bought such a beauty I reveal the sad truth that no deli could create something this perfect. Blah Blah blah, walk into the library, grab the razors edge and sit down to read it. Because I always read before I go to bed, it naturally puts me to sleep (one of the reasons I never studied during college). So in ten minutes I was asleep. Luckily the librarian dictator woke me up. That was close I almost got some rest. Another few minutes and I am out again (probably helped I had half a chicken in my belly). Awoke to the stern finger in my face of the same guy. "One more time and you're out of here!" Great way to be woken. Unfortunately I didnt have the wherewithall to draw pupils on my eyelids so i forced myself to stay awake.
But I did strategically move seats to a more stealth area of the library. Relaxing in the chair not bothering to read two kids approached me. (Must have been the 'stache). One told me if he had all the money in the world he would buy the library... and a candystore. Stayed there for a bit becuase the afternoon thunderstoom had just hit. Time passed. Kids left and the storm lightened. On to meet Jim.
Got there. Walked into the building. Nobody in the officed so I opened a door that led to the back. Found four guys standing around a bunch of foreign machinery. Asked for Jim. Talked to him for a bit. He looked over my resume, asked some questions, yada yada yada, now I have a job. He told me that we'd be going offshore in a few weeks and I could contact him then. Cool. Instead of leaving then I walked back outside and met the other guys and figured out exactly what and ROV is (since i would be flying it.) It's a robot that can go 2000 meters deep and perform a bunch of tasks like cutting, grabbing, loitering, laundering, murder... the list goes on. After sittin for a bit, shooting the proverbial shit, Jim came back out and asked if I wanted to see what it was all about. Said yes. Told me they were slated to leave in a couple days and I could head out for a week or so. Perfect.

My niece Tyler ready to ride.

ketchup

It's been a while since the last post so here's a catch up. I'll be brief hopefully. Starting in nawlins, I broke my cardinal rule and paid for a nights accomodation. I deeply regret it and I promise it won't happen again. I suppose I paid for the hostel dorm room because i had recently been informed that new orleans has the highest murder rate per capita. which i ironic because the place i stayed at apparently had 5 murders the week before.  anyways got to the hostel, no one there, so i blogged. then someone showed up showed me to my room and gave me a tour the rest of the facilities. found a naked woman in the back... yada yada yada i bought her dinner dt. caught some great music downtown, met a guy who had a house and a job etc. and was now homeless due to katrina. sad stuff for sure. yada yada yada went back to the marriott the next morning where i had valeted my  bike the day before. rode out of there and onto tex to meet up with reilly and go to schlitterbahn! well i stopped by the gas station to fuel up and noticed my tire looking a little bare. so while on the road, my mind started to dwell on this tire and i decided i had better stop and get a new one before it blew out on the highway. now i was in baton rouge, land of the rebels, and succesffully looked through every tire store before finally finding the right tire 3 hours later. they could not balance it for me so i had to take it to a local bmw motorcycle shop. the guys in the shop there were awesome. they balanced my rear wheel for 20 bucks and sold me a brand new front tire for 20 bucks. as it turns out, my rear tire had at absolute most 50 miles left on it before it blew out. probably would not have made it the 400 miles to austin. at that shop i met a character named jack something. he had come into the shop trying to get one of the mechanics to come crew a boat in the gulf of mexico with him. he kept talking about this so i said i'll do it. took him off guard, but i told him my story and he came around. the only problem is that he is quite sure that obama is poised to destroy the us. I asked him how he thought obama would pull such a feat and he replied: "reform healthcare." maybe he and i have different definitions of the word destroy.  anyways good thing i had those new tires on my bike because by the time i left baton rouge the sky was poised to open up. and it did. this was the biggest rain i have ever ridden through. the drops were huge and for a bit it hailed. rain hurts when it hits you at 70 mph riding a motorcycle but hail is somethin else. the other moto riders on the freeway felt the same way because they pulled off under the overpasses to wait out the storm. this wa the point when the truck in front of me was generating a 10 foot rooster tail of water behind him.  too bad for them because i was loving it. it was intense but the payoff was i saw a bolt of lightning hit 50 yards ahead of me just 10 ffet off the freeway. the accompanying thunder shook my body. it is truly an impressive feat of nature. i just wished i had put on my windbreaker. the sun was about down and i was absolutely soaked. but it wasnt bad.  so i road for the next 8 hours or so and got to austin late into the night. met up with my sister rebecca and hit the sack. 

woke up early the next morning to meet up with reilly, paige, and kyla. We headed to schlitterbahn and had a blast. saw many of the worst tattoos on this planet (i hope) and tubed all day. lot of fun. yada yada yada, ive been in austin for the past week. loving it. took a few days to go visit my other sister shavahn and her husband dean and my niece tyler. Changed my oil there, helped dean and ashley out with and engine they are rebuilding, but more importantly fed the chickens with ty. she is a cute 3 year old that could pass as 6 based on her height. shes got volleyball written all over her.  next morning i woke up to her jumping on my chest yelling "wake up uncle woot." then she found some cow that moos far too loud to be legal in city limits. i was up. just as im getting up she had tucked the cow into the sheets and told me to be quiet because he was sleeping. of course. oh yeah, dean and i and ashley got a steak at some local steakhouse, and when they ordered the small steaks I was a little disappointed because i wwas very hungry. anyways the steak came and it didnt even fit on the plate. overflowing on all sides i wondered how you could get away calling this a small. texas lesson learned. it was damn good though. feeling a bit comatose i decided no more work today.

so much for being brief.

headed back west with a planned pit stop in austin. said id be there for a day or two, still here 6 days later. too much fun here that isnt blogworthy. but i did meet a great person name Luis through Rebecca. Luis is a retired accountant that now follows his passion of building and designing lofts. he is also very spiritual, something that i have never read much into because i cant use logic to rationalize it. However, he is very intuitive and was able to pick up on some obscure details of my life that few have before. the next day i told him the exact time and place i was born and he gave me a 3 hour long lesson on my life. it was quite intense. i'll spare you the details but i am more interested in the topic now and want to know why historically so many civilizations have based their beliefs not on the story of gods, but rather the alignment of the stars. lot to learn. 

leaving luis' place i saw a guy with a pv544, the very same car i have been working on practically my whole life. i turned around and followed him to his spot. talked with him a bit ( i have only seen one similar on the street a handful of times in my life). he was a  music bum, gave me his card, and i'll send him some pics of my frankencar. went to the bookstore after to get the book Luis told me i must read. they had it in stock, 15 bucks tho, i balked at the price but remembered how adamant Luis was so i walked to the counter to buy it. Fate happened and i had luckily left my tab open the night before, so after trying to haggle for the seven dollars in my wallet, i put the book back. i'll buy it another day. 

that night met a bunch of new UT faculty at a mixer with my sis. some were smug, some lacked basic social skills, but most were great people. had a great time with them all. over pizza that night with some of the more social, talk came to the show cheaters, and being the academia crowd, quickly evolved into a much deeper discussion.

alright thats enough, i get another post sooner. maybe. now i just have to decide if i am heading east or west...