Austin, Houston

I wake up and load up my bike. By now I have a pretty streamlined method for this. Guitar first, with the straps looped over the sissy bar, then my extra helmet on the sissy bar, then two bungee cords underneath the sissy bar and on top of the guitar. I put my tent, sleeping pad and blanket on next and secure them with the bungee cords, and then put my little backpack on those. My towel gets stuffed in and acts as a back rest. Usually I do this after snapping my saddle bags in because its awkward to put them on when my stuff on the backseat is already strapped down. Sometimes I forget though. From Hobbs I take small highways through Lamesa, and Big Springs. It is all farm country out here, and as I am passing through some tiny town, a crop dusting plane is doing its rounds right next to me and now turning around above me and flying back. It is pretty cool to see planes flying right next to you. It's not a long drive into Austin and as I come into the city on 71, I can remember most of the directions my brother gave me. I come in to the southern part of the city and successfully make my way north on a couple of the bigger highways that run through the city to my brothers apartment complex, and in fact I find his very building without a hitch. It is a Saturday evening and I get a quick tour of his suburban neighborhood and we watch Snakes on a Plane at night and I deal with his horribly behaved little dogs. Oliver has some thing with nipping at people's feet, which is amusing. I get a couch upstairs to sleep on, as there is not a whole lot in the apartment since he will be moving soon.
When we get up on Sunday we basically lounge around for awhile and head over to my aunts for a delicious homecooked dinner before we play in a hockey tournament. Andy's league apparently had extra ice time left over and they organized a four team tournament, in which I am participating. I last skated about a year ago, and that was filling in for my brother in goal while he was on his honeymoon. And before that it was about a year since I had skated. I am rusty at best, but it doesn't take me long to get my feet under me. In the first game I play my brother's team and I really hope to score on him. I get a break and I am skating down the ice on a two on one, and I pass to my teammate, but it is a terrible pass and goes right to the defender. I should have just shot it. That turns out to be the only chance I have and we lose the game four to one. The next game is only slightly less worse, a three to one loss. We win our next game, but then lose our last game to the team we just beat. In between games there is endless beer and pizza which is nice, even though I am still stuffed from eating copious amounts of steak and garlic mashed potatoes for dinner.
I spend most of my time in Austin not doing a whole lot. I bring Andy to a Thai restaurant for a belated birthday dinner and I meet up with some other friends in town. We have dinner at my aunt and uncles place three of the four nights I am in Austin. This is a very good thing because Andy's fridge is perpetually empty. When Andy is at work Wednesday I put up with his mutts around the house. I can't get them into their room when I try to leave, and I just get pissed off. Finally they go in, little bastards. It is Thursday and I have all day to myself so I drive my bike to Barton Springs. This is a massive, spring-fed pool just south of downtown in a large park. I spend three hours lying on the grass and reading and jumping in the cold water when I get hot. That evening, after dinner at my aunt uncles, it begins to rain and I don't want to drive to Andy's place on the two freeways necessary to get there, so I spend the night at my aunt and uncles and I leave early in the morning to say goodbye to my brother who went back home. I take a quick nap and pack up my things and get my bike ready to go. I clean and lubricate the chain and check the oil and fill the gas and check the tires.
I am taking 290 to Houston to see my cousin Caroline because it is a smaller road than using the freeways. The only downfall is that I run into stop lights once in a while but really it's not a big deal. As I am riding into the outskirts of what is the Houston freeway debacle, I am in the right hand land and I see a small SUV about fifty yards ahead of me stopped on the shoulder. It's left signal is on, naturally indicating that it is planning on rejoining traffic. As I approach I think to myself that it had better wait until I get by. A split second later, as I am even closer, it starts to move forward, and I think, OK, it is getting some speed to merge more fluidly once I get by, but a spit second after that, when I am now about twenty yards behind it, it starts pulling into my lane. I am going sixty-five miles an hour, and instantly I determine that I can't afford to take my eyes off this jackass to check my left and see if I can switch lanes and avoid him, so I edge to the left of my lane and zoom past his driver-side mirror as he pulls into my space. I am irate and lay on my horn and give him the finger, and wish I could scream in his face. These are the sort of idiots that can kill me at any second, and I maybe should have moved over when I first saw him stopped on the shoulder, but as I drive off I just hope he realized he nearly killed me through his dangerous ineptitude on the road. Once I hit 610 in Houston the traffic just piles up. At this point I wish I could split lanes like in California, but no such luck. I can't believe how much traffic there is, and I realize I really had no idea how large this city is. I am forced to inch forward slowly like everyone else. I make it to Caroline's at six and when her fiancee Mike gets there, we head right out for dinner. My stay in Houston will be short since they are leaving for DC tomorrow morning. I have a tasty salad for dinner at a "Latin Fusion" restaurant. I spend the rest of my evening planning out my drive through Louisiana for tomorrow, writing down roads and directions and distances. I wake up very early in the morning to a hard rain falling complete with lightning and booming thunder, and I can only hope that it all dries up by morning.