Day Thirty-Three
Today was a big day. I covered only 58.29 miles, but I'm out of Houston, past the rain (at least for the foreseeable weather forecast) and I think the flooding issues from the recent deluge are behind me.
Yesterday, I had a great visit to the NASA Mission Control visitor's center and then connected with Kirsten Westmoreland.
Kirsten is an alumnae CLCer, climbing and rafting, and is now a PhD Psych professor at Rice University in Houston. She and her apartment mate Felicia were wonderfully funny and irreverent. I learned a lot about their experiences as Texan immigrants. The takeaway is they are looking forward to being Texas emigrants, but for now, the opportunities are good, moving them along towards where they want to eventually be.
This morning, more violent rain in the forecast, but it would be dissipating as the day wore on, so there was no real rush to get out. I returned my rental car in Spring, Texas, well north of the Houston core, and looking more closely, found something I did not expect. A greenway, with a bike path that is not on a road. 13.5 miles of bike path not on a road, to be precise, along the Spring Creek open space. It was also very close and most gong where I was going. I found it and had my first peaceful riding in a long time.
Soon, however, there were traffic cones and barriers across the path. Which I of course ignored. When I got a look at Spring Creek, it was very high, the color of chocolate milk, filled with debris, and close to the height of the path.
On occasion there was running water across the path, finding its way to the creek. And downed trees, which I had to bushwhack around. Finally, that is, the end of my ride on the path, it disappeared underwater, and as far as I could see, it didn't come up. I rode along it anyway and soon my bikes bottom bracket, wheel axles and soon the bottoms of my panniers, were underwater. Pedaling became swim kicking. And I still couldn't see where the path surfaced. I walked the bike along the bank, then abandoned the bike and kept hiking forward in the woods next to the path. Still the path never surfaced.
So I backtracked a few miles, and returned to the road system, just as the skies let loose with my first real downpour of the trip. But the rain was warm! I decided to just get wet, and left my rain jacket in the pannier. Lightening and thunder were right overhead, but I was under trees so felt safe.
On two occasions the rain was too strong to feel safe in traffic, so the first time I pulled into a burger joint and ate french fries while studying the weather report, radar and wind maps.
It soon let up, then started again. This time I ducked, dripping, into a Kristy Kreme donut shop. When I'm burning this many calories I can eat anything!
Finally, the rain stopped for good, but standing water was everywhere. Driveways, fields and forest floors were underwater. Many buildings had wet feet and drainage ditches were flowing fast. This northeast part of Houston had been pounded. But the highway was above water and the pavement as good as I have come to expect in Texas.
The suburbs soon became the country, and unlike previous afternoons, the temperature remained in the comfortable mid-70s. After making a wrong turn and heading north for a few miles, then realizing my mistake and backtracking my highway, US 90, I eventually arrived at my modest motel in Liberty, Texas at about 7:10 PM. The motel manager was pleasantly chatty, saying he'd seen several cyclist coming through recently, including a couple from Japan doing the coast-to-coast.
He said 14 inches of rain fell over the last two days and the water was the highest it's been since Hurricane Harvey hit the area in 2017. His motel was nearly filled tonight with people whose homes are currently flooded, and that the local Trinity River would rise another foot and a half tonight because the Livingston Reservoir upriver was full and about to overtop the dam on the river, so a lot of water would have to be released, further flooding people out of their homes. Unfortunate, but better than destroying the dam. He wasn't exactly cheerful about all of this, but no doubt it was good for business.
Tomorrow I ride to Beaumont, Texas, 42 miles east, and visit the BicycleSports bike shop, which should have a lot of good information about my possible routes east. Then I'll have to decide which way to push, south along the Gulf Coast, or inland to follow the formal Adventure Cycling Southern Tier route, which has a lot more information than the coastal route, but is longer. The weather is improving, but that means it's getting hotter, so it's an early start tomorrow. The hottest weather coming up should hit while i am taking my non riding day in New Orleans, which again is lucky, but I'll take credit for fortuitous planning. Out of Texas tomorrow. Texas is fully one third of the entire Southern Tier route, which I've probably mentioned, but now I fully appreciate what a big and diverse place Texas is. I can hardly remember the dust storm in El Paso, which seems like years ago.
I’d love to hear from you. Donate to the ride and send along your words of encouragement and tell me why getting kids outside matters to you.
