Abilene, Texas

 


Another winter storm, three weeks after the last one that derailed me north of Tulsa, has me stuck in a motel in Abilene.  Not as much snow fell here as in Oklahoma, so the plows weren’t activated to clear the roads, which meant the vehicles on the road packed it down, rendering the roads icy and treacherous.

It was an early morning snowfall starting just before dawn.  I was camped fifteen miles north of the city on a lightly traveled county road in the most unlikely of campsites behind a CAT way off the road in an empty field, which shielded me from the gusting wind from the north that blew in the storm.  

The light fluffy snow was whisked off the road by the strong wind, so I could ride along at a good clip.  But once I reached the city, the wind wasn’t strong enough to clear the road, allowing the traffic to compact it. I hoped if I could get through the city I’d be back on wind-cleared roads, but there was more traffic and more snow on the road heading out of the city, and with a predicted high of just twenty-two for the day and no prospects of the sun penetrating the thick cloud cover to do some melting,  I had to cut my day short and detour to the nearest motel two miles away, wasting the best tailwind of the trip and limiting my mileage to just twenty-three for the day.

Half a mile from the motel my bike slid out, as I had been fearing for miles, and I hit the pavement.  It happened so fast I luckily didn’t stick out my arm to break the fall.  Instead, my rump took the brunt of it, but I wasn’t going more than five miles per hour, so it wasn’t much of a bruise.  A motorist stopped to ask if I was okay.  It actually happened right in front of a hospital, which I had noticed before the fall, leading to the thought, “How nice in case I fall.”

It was a little after noon, but the Indian owner of the Antilly Inn made no fuss about an early admission and even kindly told me I could help myself to the cereal and bread out on a counter for breakfast, even though its hours were from 6:30 to 9:00. As I filled my Tupperware bowl with cornflakes, she brought out a couple of bananas as well.  It was the second act of kindness of the day.  

While I sat at a McDonald’s eating pancakes, staring out at the road hoping a plow might come along and clear the road, an eight-year old girl came over and gave me a twenty dollar bill. It wasn’t the first act of goodwill in a McDonald’s of these travels.  A few days ago the woman at the cash register brought me a second McChicken as I sat eating the one I had ordered.

If I were to actively prey upon the kindness and generosity of strangers, my coffers would be overflowing.  I met a homeless guy two days ago who had been traveling the south from Texas to Florida the past four years by bicycle, who plops down in small towns with a sign reading “Traveling America, Any Help Appreciated,” and would raise twenty bucks in no time.  It’s been his sole source of revenue the past four years.

I met him while I was taking a rest along the road on one of those thirty mile stretches between towns, my bike propped against a sign, eating a pecan pie and cleaning the gunk off the pulleys on my derailleur with a small screwdriver.   My back was turned to the road, when I heard, “Are you okay?  Do you need any help?”  

It was a surprise that it came from a guy straddling a bicycle pulling a trailer, the rare sight of another touring cyclist.  Except he wasn’t a touring cyclist, but a bike hobo with all his worldly possessions.  He was totally detached from the world with no phone or electronic devices or GPS, relying strictly on paper maps.  He was such a full-fledged dropout he didn’t even carry ID.  

Nor does he use the internet.  He said he’d just learned Trump was no longer on Twitter and wondered how that could be.  

I asked if the cops bothered him much.  He said, “All the time.”  

“What do you do when they ask for ID.?”

“I give them my name and date of birth.  They can look me up, as I’ve done time, a year for manufacturing meth. My picture comes up, so they can confirm who I am. Sometimes they offer to give me a ride to the next county, but I had one give me a hundred bucks.”

It was after he got out of prison that he took to the road.  He’d been a carpenter.  He sold all his tools and belongings and hasn’t looked back.  He’s fully content being outdoors all day, pedaling down the road and spending the night in his domed tent.  He has no monetary concerns with his sign generating all the revenue he needs.  He’d need less if he didn’t like to drink a couple or three beers in the evening.  While we talked he rolled and smoked a couple of cigarettes.

He said he’d only encountered two other traveling cyclists during all his years on the road,  two guys in Georgia on their way to hike the Appalachian Trail, so encountering me was an unimaginable surprise.  I figured he might be my age, but he was just fifty-one he told me after asking my age.  “You’re a ways from collecting social security,” I said. 

“I won’t be collecting any as I never put anything into it.  I always only worked for cash.  I’m not sure if I’ll live long enough anyway to collect any if I had some coming.”

It was the lone pessimistic comment he uttered.  He’d read the Bible ten times and mentioned a few times how blessed he was.  When his bike fell apart a couple years ago, someone gave him the Giant he’s presently riding.  A year ago he figured out how to attach a gas-powered motor to it.  He long ago tired of ramen, replacing it with macaroni and cheese, supplemented by beef patties from Dollar Stores.  He knew a storm was coming, so figured he’d be off his bike for several days.  He needed to add a couple of gallons of water to the gallon he normally carries, figuring he’d be camped somewhere isolated for several days.

He doesn’t take advantage of libraries, so he couldn’t tell me anything about the upcoming Carnegie in Stamford, fifteen miles away.

 

It was the first of the four I’ve visited in Texas to still serve as a library, but just barely.  The upstairs two floors had been closed off for years, and only the basement was being utilized, the space given to the children’s room in many present-day Carnegies.  The room was utterly characterless, other than the yellow walls of the children’s corner the new librarian had recently painted.  She pointed out a corner that was still the original color, as she had run out of paint.  At least one was greeted by the Carnegie portrait behind the circulation desk when one opened the downstairs door to the room.

If it weren’t for this storm I’d also be writing about the Carnegie in Ballinger, fifty miles south of Abilene.  I may have the pleasure of renewing acquaintances with it delayed another day what with another early morning storm predicted and temperatures below freezing until mid-afternoon.  But by Sunday it will be back in the sixties.  I haven’t had a rest day since Tulsa, so the legs can use the time off, but I’d sure much prefer being on the bike than being in a motel with all the news channels blathering on about Ukraine.  At least it spares the media trying to find something more to say about Covid.