North from Louisiana into Texas

I don’t know if you’ve seen the film ‘Into the Wild’ yet, but if you haven’t, go see it, because it’s pretty much where I’m at. I’m having an incredible experience, it’s just what I dreamed about. If you are my parents don’t watch the movie, you won‘t like the ending. A few people have told me they find the blog inspiring, which is the biggest compliment I can think of. Thinking of all my buddies reading it whilst stuck in an office helps stop me taking this incredible journey for granted.


Travelling north from Brandon’s has seen some cool changes in the landscape. Lafayette marked the end of the coastal swamps, and I entered lush green meadows sprinkled with colorful wild flowers, each one calling to me to come camp there. I think there will be plenty of rough camping coming up.






Heading out towards Alexandria, where I camped behind the bike shop, a piece of rusty wire comes from nowhere and wraps itself around my wheel, nearly tearing off the mudguard and making me skid to a halt, I’m glad I’m on the shoulder not a busy road.


I saw my first live snake the other day, about a foot and a half long and green, it came wiggling frantically across the road at me, I figured it was just trying to cross and managed to dodge it, looking back I saw I had and it disappeared into the grass. How many times in life do you have to dodge snakes on your bike!

The ride out from Natchitoches to Shreveport was pretty awful, a 20mph+ headwind reduced my average speed by a third, and even though I tried to just sit back and take it easy it’s still soul destroying to put in all that effort and hardly move. Amazingly, I’ve pretty much had a tailwind for all the time up until now, almost as if the wind has decided to help me, so I think of the headwind day as the wind drawing breath, ready to keep blowing me along. Amazingly, that’s exactly what happens, as the last 2 days have been a strong tailwind. I owe you one wind, big time. This ride makes me think about the old stories, where people dare the wind and get awful experiences in return, so I’m doing my best to keep all karma in the green. The day of the headwind I actually found myself trying to figure out what bad thing I’d done recently to deserve a headwind!



Crossed into Texas yesterday, that was a hell of a moment. I thought to myself “I’ve ridden to Texas!” and had a huge grin on my face. Louisiana was the south, but Texas is definitely the west. Immediately the road smoothed out, I entered beautiful pine forest, and started riding through rolling waves of hills as I begin the long, gradual climb to the high plains, which are actually higher than the mountains on the East Coast!




I unknowingly ride past the only natural lake in Texas, apparently all the others are dams, which is incredible as texas is huge and has loads of lakes. It is really thought provoking when you realise that a couple hundred years ago this land was inhabited essentially by nomadic tribes, then the settlers came, and have had a huge impact on the continent.


After 1400 miles of flat land the hills are a welcome relief, it’s great to stand up in the pedals and work the bike up the hills, then get the ‘free’ miles rolling down the other side. Even with the full camping load I still haven’t dropped below mid-front and mid-rear on the gears, so I don’t seem to have lost my welsh hill climbing ability.



The hills are mostly of the short and sharp variety though, which are kinda tough to make miles through, so after 55 miles I call it a day when I spot the beautiful and inviting Marley's Bullfrog Marina at Johnson's Creek, Lake o' the Pines, which has a board up showing that it takes tents, a big relief as many campsites only take Rvs.


It turns out to be closed, but Doobie (the boss) and Billy take pity on me and tell me to go camp anyway, and when they find out I’m riding from Miami to Seattle they refuse to take any money, tell me to camp anywhere I want, install me on the porch with some beers and chew the fat for a while, before filling a coolbox with more beers for me and offering me a free breakfast! Awesome! Time after time on this trip I’m blown away by people’s kindness, I always try to say no as I don’t want to inconvenience them, but they usually insist, and so I am grateful to accept their generosity, it would be insulting not to, and I‘m genuinely glad that they want to help me.

I camp on a deserted point sticking into the lake, it is beautiful, birds of prey are circling around, there are fish in the lake, I already don’t want to leave. I take a quick swim then sit there in the sun, taking it all in, laughing like a crazy fool with the sheer joy of life. As soon as the sun sets I fall asleep snuggled up in my tent, certain that this is how life should be. I can quite imagine spending a summer working here, chopping logs, clearing brush, fixing boats, cooking burgers, drinking beers.



I wake early and have the urge to do some miles, so pass on the free breakfast offer, wave goodbye to Billy as he opens the store, and head through more hills, these ones getting longer and longer as I head towards the plains. For the first time since Miami I get to the top of a decent hill, where the road disappears, the wind changes and all you can see is blue sky. I love these moments, it’s what makes me ride, wondering what I’m gonna see when I get to the top. I’m not disappointed, I see rolling lush green forest stretching to the horizon, with a sprinkling of white water towers marking settlements. The descent is a dream, the bike heavy but stable, the tyres scything over the road, the bugs bouncing off my grin.

A few more miles, a bit of grief with a bulge in the tyre, soon sorted by reseating it, and I’m into Mount Pleasant, which has a sweet little downtown district with a plaza, then into the campsite and straight out again for lunch. Service in the restaurant is slow, real slow, and orders are forgotten. An ex-schoolteacher lady has had enough, and organizes a diner’s rebellion. She marches off to the kitchen and breathes some fire, the staff are soon jumping and giving generous discounts. On discovering my ride she whips out her mobile and rings the local paper to see if they are interested in doing a piece on me! It turns out to be a bad time as they are in the middle of breaking news - the swat team is busting all the restaurants for illegal immigrants, an action to make the conservatives happy. But not the ladies at the table next to me, who have Mexican family members who crossed the border years ago when it was legal, have kids who have grown up here, and are now facing deportation. They are waitresses themselves, and so I ask for tipping advice, as it’s a bit of a mystery to me who to tip, when to tip, and how much. I am horrified to discover that waitresses earn about 2 dollars (one pound) per hour! When they say they live off their tips, they really do. I’ve been sticking to the 10-15 percent, but I’ll up that a lot for good service now. 2 dollars an hour, man, that is no joke at all to live off.