Day 6: Graves of Gold
Best Ride of the Trip, So Far–The 40 mile leg of Hwy 290 between Fredericksburg and I10. Great road. Great views.
Most Notable Terrain Feature of the Day–What feature? Oil pumps on a sea of dead grass, covering flat, boring land which is sparsely punctuated by under-nourished trees is not quite a “feature.” I look forward to the Sandias. In Carlsbad tonight.
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Texas Hospitality
Bought spark plugs this morning to replace the ones ruined by yesterday’s “bad gas” incident. Mistake of the morning: started the ride without putting them in. A few miles down the road (oh, say about five) problems ensured. Pulled off onto an access road and started the plug changing. Five minutes later, a guy pulls over in his truck to ask if I need help. He says, “Is your gas bad? I got a bucket we can drain it into. I don’t know how big your gas tank is, but I have five or six gallons of gas in back.” How could the “helpful guy” state also be the “dummy pres” state? Crazy. After telling jokes over a couple of Mountain Dews the plugs are finally in, Justine is happy, Curtis M. goes off to continue checking/repairing oil pumps, and Curtis B. is off to continue his westward trek.
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This Costs How Much?
For the third time on this trip, I am a bit annoyed by a restaurant that charges New York restaurant prices for New York deli food. I managed to get a reasonable steak tonight, but over-cooked vegetables and a wilted salad bar should automatically place the upper limit at ten bucks. (Why do restaurants think charging more will make bad food better?) I have now confirmed that if food were my prime deciding factor, there are just a few places in the U.S. in which I could live: New York City, Los Angeles, San Francisco, The French Quarter, Provincetown, and Niles, Ohio (Niles for Italian food only).
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Fashion
Blue jeans, cowboy boots, cowboy shirt and stetson. That has been the uniform of choice in Texas–always worn sans irony.
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Austin and San Antonio are each 30% Latino.
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Just an hour away from LA.