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. ...