Waltzing Across Texas

Day 1 (24), September 7th: After a very long drive of 1,068 miles we finally reached Texas Sunday afternoon, September 7th. It was a great feeling to finally be across the Great State of Texas. We were greeted with an extremely large population of black bugs which the locals call love bugs. They are every where and we were told to wash the dead bugs off the van every night as they have a acid fluid that will damage the paint. Our goal was to reach DeRidder in Louisiana which we did around 5:00 p.m. The team was most anxious to watch the Colts football game. It was a very hot day with temperatures in the mid 90's and the humidity was about the same. For some reason it was a challenging ride even though the terrain was very flat. We did have a slight, irritating head wind.

Day 2 (25), September 8th: This was a very difficult day for me. I did not eat and drink properly and paid the price for my ignorance. I fought off cramps after about 50 miles. Jeremy did great and was not affected by the heat and humidity. Just outside of Mamou we stopped to rest in the shade of a large tree. I was laying under the tree and Jeremy as at his bike along side of the road when this lady is a big white car drove by and stopped. She came back and asked if were were okay as she thought I was having a ceasure because I was swatting bugs. It was kind of funny. Were were out of water and still had a few miles to ride to reach Ville Platto so she drove up to a relatives house and filled up our water bottles. She was a real saint. We reached our goal of making it to Ville Platto, but Ineed to drink a lot of fluids and eat better if we are going to make it to Simmesport tomorrow. The forcast is for rain the next three days. We rode amost 80 miles today in extreme heat and humidity.