A question I’m often asked about my painting is whether I paint a picture through to completion and then begin a new picture, or if I have more than one on the go at a time.

I think it’s fair to say I have more than one on the go at any given time. [click to enlarge]

So I can work on them in my head I like to have them facing me. Most of these were eventually finished and sold - while the big one in the centre, the half-painted Blue Mountains, Green Grass was the focus, there are a whole load of paintings mid-way through that you can see.

That’s Killarney in the bottom left, Doolin over to the right, Cobh at the back under the window, Galway Street at the front on top of Poulnabrone Dolmen, Beehive Hut back a bit on the floor to the right.

Keep looking and you’ll spot Connemara Coast, the Rock of Cashel, Ballina, Kenmare River, Burren Tower, Kinsale II, and more.

Some in there I never got to finishing though - not yet anyway - like Rosmuc, Sneem, and one of the Cliffs of Moher, and some have never sold - like Benbulben (to the right) and Roundstone Boats (to the left in red with green sky).

So feel free to make an offer while I get back to looking for painting space.

More About My Paintings:
   • My Favourite Paintings
   • So I Painted It
   • Things I Paint the Most
   • Things People Say (When They See You Painting)

But you knew all that if you were keeping an eye on Twitter.

We really will talk later. It might be impossible to stop me.

This is it.

It’s 10 months since I returned to Ireland, and bearing in mind that in the same time period in Kansas City I would have found comfortably well over 200 tennis balls, how many do you think I’ve found on the streets of Ireland in that time?

Yep, a big nada.

Despite the visits from Celtic Tigers 1 and 2, people in Ireland would appear to be just not as throwaway with their luminous fuzzy spherical wealth as people in America.

I did actually find two, but they were both ripped almost in half, thereby failing the ball test. And I saw one on the road in Kilbeggan as I was a passenger in a car whizzing by at 97km per hour, but that failed the pickupability test to see if it wasn’t ripped in two.

Brother the Younger found one whilst out cycling one day, and gifted it to Dog-dog who was beside herself with the emotion of been given something she used to be given all the time. But obviously that doesn’t count either, because he is not me and the Kansas City collection was put together by myself with the aid of just the dog.

Dog-dog herself has found a ball here in Dublin, and a perfectly intact one, but it too doesn’t count as it’s not a tennis ball. Dog-dog is assmiliating; she brought home a sliotar.

Unknown to the dog I took one from the Kansas City collection for a swim in the Irish Sea recently - I have big pockets in my big swimming shorts (because I’m a big swimming shorts sort of guy) - and the plan was to walk out of the sea, just like Daniel Craig, or Ursula Andress, whoever, and hand my waiting dog a tennis ball I would have pretended to have found in the sea. And the dog then would have been overcome with nostalgia and happiness.

But a big wave came and pushed that ball right out of my pocket and on its way to Wales.

Technically speaking my Irish collection of tennis balls is therefore a negative number.

So, as far as I can tell, tennis balls still stand as a little, but definite, difference between our great nations.

Other Little Differences Between Ireland and America:
   • Turkeyed Out
   • End Times
   • Pharmaceuticals
   • Hosting Tourists

Part 61 of the Cycle-Across-America series. (Read from the start in Boston or see the full index)

It’s morning time and before setting off I’m documenting the previous day, my first full day in New Mexico.

Excerpted from my handwritten journal:

October 24th, 7:30am

Today is the anniversary in the Hebraic calendar of Yitshak Rabin’s assassination. The O.J. Simpson Civil Trial has got going and the coverage already is massive.

Far more interesting in Television Land was the Yankees comeback last night in Atlanta in game 4 of the World Series. From 6 - 0 down they won in extra innings 8 - 6 tying the series 2 - 2.

Yesterday’s 67 miles was easier than the 37 of the day before. The wind. Take it away and the day does indeed become idyllic.

West for 12 miles and south-west for 14. It was flat. Very. To the north is the Llano Estacado and then I went across the Caprock. There were some cattle but mostly it was oil fields. There was a hard strong yellow soil from which clumps of pale yellow grass and cacti grew.

The cacti had limbs that grew almost at right angles giving each cactus bush a maze like appearance. They were only a few feet high with a blooming yellow flower. Thousands of them. In my two foot shoulder I stopped a few times to photograph them but it wouldn’t work so I didn’t. So far New Mexico, like Kansas and Texas, is too big for a camera - even in Panorama.

I’m currently watching live the trial of a talk show guest accused of killing another talk show (The Jenny Jones Show) guest 3 days after taping the show. In the show in question the victim revealed himself as the secret gay admirer of the accused. Meanwhile over on “Sally” a woman talks over the caption “I killed my husband and hid his body”.

Approaching Maljamar I dropped down dramatically. This was the Mescalero Ridge. From the top I was looking down on a grassy desert with nothing visible for 30 miles. Even Maljamar was just a short stretch of road with a few buildings and space to park trucks.

There was a cafe where I had a burger and fries. These chips were home-made - hand cut just like Mam’s chips. There was nothing to see so after an hour surrounded by truckers in baseball caps who all knew each other, it was time to move on.

On this flat level the vegetation was different. A sandier soil than above the Ridge, with no Cacti whatsoever. I was now regretting not taking the photo for documentation purposes. There was bushes and grass, and from ground eye level it looked less barren than from the top. Looking back I could still see the Mescalero Ridge for miles from North to South.

[The rest of this day is continued below the fold]

14 miles later in the town of Loco Hills - I say town but out here if there’s trees, trailers and trucks you get a Post Office and call it a town.

In the middle of these flat lands was a very slightly raised bit and this was the Loco Hills after which the town is named. The last building along the stretch of road was a store. I bought a huge coke from a fountain machine. I wasn’t thirsty but seeing a land so barren told me I should drink even though I still had water on the bike and I was only 25 miles from my destination and going a comfortable 12mph.

The next 13 miles were more of the same with the permanent smell of petrol from the oil fields.

Then there was road construction and I was held up with the rest of the traffic until I was let go ahead alone. And then the road dropped again, and there was this fabulous view.

At long last, after thousands of miles on flat sweeps of land where I could see forever, now there were mountains. Mountains. They formed the horizon to the west maybe 50 miles away with a couple of very large mountains standing out much nearer. Behind me to the east the Ridge was still clearly visible and to my right were gentle slopes of land almost lime green in colour with dark olive green bushes peppered throughout, capped by brown and red soft ridges. But straight ahead was the view.

At the bottom it was so much more fertile. This was where the Pecos River runs. Of course the view was much too big for a photograph again and the mountains were too distant, too feint, too blue. Despite that I couldn’t take my eyes off them. It was downhill for about 10 miles. A gentle slope in a new wide shoulder where I just looked around in every direction. Idyllic.

Near the town after I crossed the river there was crops. Green luscious fields, and cotton again although it seemed all dried up. The main landmark of the town from a distance is an oil refinery. It seems I’m finished with grain elevators. There had been one in Lovington but it was metal and looked unused.

This town is really pretty too and also has quite a few shops. I went through a walkway with murals on both sides detailing the history of the town. A great idea but the execution of the murals was terrible.

Like in Lovington I cycled around the town before checking into my motel. Yes it’s Indian run again.

I’d been looking forward to ringing my old Connecticut hosts for miles across the semi-desert and did so immediately after calling the safe signal home. Used up the rest of my phone card and it was good to hear of life in back in Fairfield.

They also gave me contacts for Phoenix and for San Diego. I filled them in on life on the bike since Kansas City but it doesn’t translate into stories so well, as the land is flat and the people are few. That said I think they correctly understood that I’m still enjoying it.

For dinner I went out to the family run Mexican next door having Soapipilla which was great with a huge basket of tortilla chips.

The forecast for today is good and indeed out the window it looks great.

Today only a short trip is planned. Maybe 45 miles north to Roswell but main concern is after today. A big storm in the North West of the country is hurtling this direction bringing rain, thunderstorms, snow and winds. It’s meant to dominate the weather in the state for Saturday, Sunday and Monday, and even tomorrow there is a wind advisory warning issued for with winds of 35mph from the south-west expected. I want to go west tomorrow so that’s a problem.

Right now I need a phone card and much more importantly I need new tyres. The walls of the back tyre are almost worn through. It won’t last much longer. There is a bike shop in town so I’m hopeful. If not then Roswell is bigger so I should get sorted there. I’m a little bit annoyed with myself for not replacing them in Lubbock. That was unnecessarily reckless.

Perhaps if I hole up and wait for the storm to pass at the weekend I’ll phone some friends in Dublin then. Tomorrow and Saturday I’m due to be in mountains but that may not be wise with snow on the way.

I think I’ll go and look for a breakfast burrito. Or maybe a corn dog. Yes I’m hungry and it’s time to put the winter pants on and cycle in the cool dry air of New Mexico. So far I adore this state, its landscapes, its towns, and its people. Will it continue?

Read more from my Cycle Across America

Part 60 of the Cycle-Across-America series. (Read from the start in Boston or see the full index)

The storm that had stopped me by ice-raining into my face had dropped baseball-sized hail 100 miles in one direction, and in the other direction, dumped a load of snow. When it reached Kansas City it dropped so much snow on trees that had yet to lose their leaves that they came down under the weight.

Excerpted from my handwritten journal:

October 22nd

Shortly before noon I left the town of Denver City and the largest Carbon Dioxide plant in the world. Maybe that was the horrible smell.

At the Post Office I had armed myself with stamps and explained my presence. This detour brought me finally over the 4,000 mile mark. I forgot to cheer. I think it was because I was looking at the flags in the wind.

Burger and fries for breakfast at yet another Dairy Queen. For the first time when it wasn’t on the menu I asked for a hot tea. It was so cold outside.

There was no snow on the ground. The advisory was still in operation for the county until 2:00am when I went to sleep, but no signs of it having fallen now under a cloudless blue sky.

5 minutes later the friendly waitress apologised. There was no hot tea, would I like a hot chocolate? What a great idea. Had she suggested coffee as an alternative I wouldn’t've spoken to her ever again.

As ever in Texas everyone wore cowboy hats. They were all in their 60s and male, and they all talked and joked across tables. Everybody knew everybody else.

With the strong west wind I knew there was no time to look at the museum so with 2 bottles of ice tea I left the town of Denver City and its population of 5,145 people behind.

[The rest of this day is continued below the fold]

Lovington was only 32 miles away but that took 4 and a half hours in the wind.

After 14 miles it was time to say good-bye to Texas. More immediately it was time to say good-bye to cotton. Under such a perfect blue sky it looks fantastic, especially beside ploughed fields of orange soil. The colours are almost abstract in their arrangement.

In the wind the cotton shimmers as thousands of white speckles peep in and out of the dark green leaves. In the rain the cotton takes on a pink appearance I don’t understand, but is very warming nonetheless.

The grasses of Texas like that of Kansas and Missouri seem so much richer in colour in the rain. As well as cotton to the state line, there was peanuts, and the oil fields continued.

I saw a couple of large very fat (almost an inch) grasshoppers and was pleased they didn’t jump at me. They were not as interesting as the Salamander I saw yesterday.

Like yesterday the hawk I saw today coped a lot better with the weather than I did. The only Monarch butterflies I’ve seen travelling to Mexico in the last few days have been motionless on the ground.

New Mexico is my 22nd state. The shoulder stopped at the state line and the condition of the road deteriorated dramatically. All the way into Lovington millions of cracks. That could be significant in terms of tyre wear. Will my tyre make it to Phoenix?

I saw a flock of 120 or so birds. They just went around and around and landed and took off a couple of times. They were large with a very long beak but I didn’t get a close look at them.

Pale yellow grass and oil pumps. The skyline broken by pylons and oil wells.

Eventually I saw the water towers of my destination and a hour later was here. I liked Lovington instantly.

The town was established at the turn of the century. Cattle were driven through here and later ranching came to the area. The first shop was built in 1908 and was named “Jim B. Love Grocery Store”. It also housed the first Post Office with Jim B. Love as the postmaster.

In 1917 Lea County was formed from parts of Chavez and Eddy counties, with Lovington designated as County Seat. Oil was discovered in 1928 but did not have a significant impact on the economy until 1950 when the Denton Pool, located 9 miles north-east, was discovered. In a short time the Denton Pool had 92 two wells and along with subsequent oil developments shaped the economy, labour force, and lifestyle of present day Lovington.

The population here has increased with the oil and gas industry from 411 in 1920 to the approximate 10,000 of today. In 1982 Lea County led New Mexico’s 32 counties in crude oil production and was 2nd in natural gas production. Crude oil = 71% and Natural Gas = 29% of total production in the state. Retail trade here = 1.2% in the state. Only 2 counties have more irrigated cropland. Lea, the 11th largest county, has 8.5% of the state’s total irrigated cropland.

Every year here on the 4th of July a big celebration is held at Chaparral Park. Approximately 7,000 atend. This is where they host “The World’s Greatest Lizard Race”. Over 100 lizards are entered each year.

Mack’s Motel. Yet another one run by Asian Indians. Only 22 dollars and clean. Fell asleep when I came in the door so it was too late to phone home when I woke. I’m also in another time zone and this weekend coming they change their clocks here so I’m confused.

Spoke to Kansas City on the phone and got some advice on flights back to Boston via KC. I suppose come Phoenix I’ll have to seriously think about it. Today most of my thinking about home was about the dog and I began to worry whether she’d still be there when I get home.

I like this town. Love Street and the square with the County Courthouse surrounded by trees so rare down here. The altitude is 25 feet short of 4,000 feet even though it’s flat for, well for ever, so perhaps it’s not surprising that it’s freezing now. The temperature is in the 20s.

Walking back across a large car park with my pizza a girl drove up to me and offered me a ride. Even though I was only going across the road she insisted as it was so cold. I was grateful. Like the girl in the pizza place she was friendly, more than people were in Texas.

Wrote a postcard to friends back in Ireland. I like writing them, little pieces of conversation - monologue to friends.

Forecast for next 2 days is good, but can I believe them?

Read more from my Cycle Across America

Part 59 of the Cycle-Across-America series. (Read from the start in Boston or see the full index)

Having cycled south right through the Panhandle of Texas, I’m now turning west and heading into New Mexico, my 22nd State on the trip. At least, that’s the plan.

Monday 21st October

Snow Advisory, Yoakum County. Never mind the 5-day forecast, I don’t trust those weather people much when it comes to the 24-hour affair.

It had never happened before. My arms, from shoulders right down to my fingertips, numb.

It occurred to me my arms were like Action Man’s with a rubber grip degenerating into a plastic one - the earlier model of Action Man. It hampered my waving. Not too many people were, in heavy rain, but I see them staring at me a lot. All I could manage was to raise my gripping hand slightly by bending my elbow a bit.

When I tried to move my arms around a bit to bring them back to life I simply got pins and needles and got giggly. With an icy rain beating into my face helped by an 18mph wind from the north, I was worried about falling off the bicycle so was relieved to see the space burger water tower of Denver City.

[The rest of this day is continued below the fold]

When I left the motel this morning the forecast said there was a 30% chance of light rain only. Eating breakfast in McDonald’s - a “Big” breakfast or something, I so despise Mc Donald’s for reducing my English - it rained, using up all 30% of the light rain.

13 miles in the rain to Wellman. Like a lot of towns in the southern part of the Panhandle its elevator was a dour unpainted grey rather than the popular brilliant white up north.

A truck was leaving a cotton gin. It was loaded up with pillow shaped plastic-wrapped packages. I understood them to be the next stage in the life of the cotton. About a hundred of the pillow shapes on the truck I counted. There was no population count on the town limit marker but judging by yesterday’s towns it was about 400.

Highway US 62 continued south-west to Seagraves. The wind and the rain on my back I made easy progress in the safety of the wide shoulder. Without the wind filling my lungs I was able to sing again.

There was a railway track on my right hand side but it was separated from the road by a small ridge. This ridge was comprised of a deep orange-brown soil, probably the colour most people call red. Perched on top were many bushes I was thinking would look at home in the Pine Valley.

I crossed the tracks coming into Seagraves and a train coming out of town waved at me. There was no real need to eat with Denver City only 14 miles west of here but I decided to take a break from the rain and cold and supplement the large breakfast. The County Cotton Cafe and Motel had a great mural accurately depicting the surrounding countryside but it was closed. The Dairy Queen, as ever in Texas, was my only option.

Eating my burger and chips I was the only person there. One of the members of staff came out to me.
-Sir, I don’t mean to be nosey but me and the girls were all wondering why are you going around on a bicycle ?
-For the laugh.
-For the love ?
-Laugh.
-For the life ?
-Laugh. Ha ha. For fun.
-Oh.

A trucker came in later and spoke with me. He lived 60 miles away to the south but came up here for the peanut harvest season. I had cycled on 2 miles of spilled peanuts earlier wondering if you could get a puncture from peanuts.

I kept hearing about, reading about, and indeed seeing peanuts but I felt stupid - I hadn’t seen, or at least noticed, any growing. I was used to them over in the East but all I was seeing in these parts was cotton with some grass and the odd field of milo.

The phone outside was a 25 cent a minute to anywhere in the USA so I rang a contact I had stayed with all the way back in Connecticut. She wasn’t there so I left an unintelligible message where I forgot the name of the town I was in and possibly didn’t even say my name. I told her I would ring again in the coming week from New Mexico.

In the hard beating rain I set off wondering if it was the wise thing to do. I had intended to go into New Mexico and stop 32 miles west of Denver City but there was nothing in between and I was fearful of the rain increasing or a thunderstorm.

I knew there was snow up in Amarillo. Once my arms went numb I had stopped debating with myself. My face was sore too, the rain strong.

When visibility is this bad it’s so much safer to have the wide shoulder. I wouldn’t've liked to have been without one and was wondering about whether they would be as common in New Mexico as in Texas. When I crossed frontiers in Europe I usually gave myself a lot of time to adjust to the new roads among other things. In the US changes aren’t so drastic but road policies can be very different. I concluded that if I had to lose half a day at least I could enter New Mexico when it wasn’t raining tomorrow - I hoped.

Like entering Brownfield last night, entering Denver City today I got a repulsive chemical smell. It wasn’t petrol although for 2 miles coming into town there was nothing but oil wells on either side of the road.

The last mile was directly into the wind and rain, and it sent me straight into the first motel. He never said hello and he never smiled. The place was immaculate but I couldn’t see why he should have my custom. He never said good-bye either.

This motel, the Crown Inn, is on the main street called Broadway. I had to be given a towel to warm my hand up so I could write. It took 15 minutes to write my name and address with my hand and arm still somewhat numb. I have a huge bed in a large clean room with everything you could expect from a motel. As the sign says, you could pay more - but why ?

Once I’d warmed the place up and got all my senses back I rang Kansas City and heard news of my hosts from all the way back on August 7th in Maryland. It was all so much easier then. And warmer.

The forecast is still for snow through the night but only an inch and maybe it’ll melt. At the moment the temperature is about 32 degrees Fahrenheit which is about 15 degrees with the wind-chill. As Lovington is only 32 miles away I might set off a bit late tomorrow giving the day a chance to warm up.

I need to visit the Post Office having added to my unstamped correspondence with a another card last night. There’s also a museum in town I could visit. Alternately if I find out there was lodging 20 miles north of Lovington in Tatum I could head there and from there take a new route along US 380 to Roswell. That way I’d get my lost day back but it’s not that important and it’s down to the weather really.

Read the Next Entry (#60) in My Bicycle Trip Across America

Read more from my Cycle Across America

Part 58 of the Cycle-Across-America series. (Read from the start in Boston or see the full index)

This was one of those rare days where I journaled it both on audio tape and in handwritten notes. Regular readers will know the tape transcripts are inaccessible at the moment, so once again I’ll go with brief notes from memory and below the fold revert to the handwritten journal which was more reflective.

After several days resting in Lubbock I felt like I’d had a good look at the place, so on the bike I decided to skirt around it.

I was dropped back at that Texaco garage on the Idalou Highway that comes in to Lubbock from the northeast, so I decided to bypass town to the east and aimed for a turn west of a small town called Posey, about 12 miles away and far enough south that I could then head west without going through the built up areas.

Brownfield was my ultimate destination for the day, about a further 50 miles on and chosen because it was close enough to New Mexico that it would be my last stop in Texas.

I was liking the town names in West Texas. Very no nonsense stuff like Plainview and Brownfield, and now I was about to go through Ropesville and Meadow, with Shallow Water and Levelland to the north, New Home a few miles to the east, and Sundown to the west, naturally.

It was a day of pain. The muscles in my left leg went and I could no longer cycle. I took my left foot out of the toe straps and just let it hang, trying awkwardly to propel the bicycle with just my right leg, pushing down on the pedal and then pulling up on the strap. I’d been here before, where I was like a one-legged frog on a bicycle.

It was discouraging given that this was my first day back cycling after a few days’ rest.

Over the previous few days of television I had been bombarded with pharmaceutical ads, and I recalled seeing one ad with 2 smiling women taking something for pains they got while cycling. So after a few miles of limping jerkily along by way one dead hanging leg and one sore pedalling one, I turned east to Posey - the wrong way - so I could get to a shop and go looking for drugs.

Barely able to walk I was shocked that after a time, about an hour, whether through rest or through the drugs, I was able to cycle again. It was sore, but I could go on. 50 miles to Brownfield.

[More details from this day constitute the rest of this entry and they’re below the fold]

Sunday, October 20th , Brownfield, Texas.

Watching Farm-Aid last night - the concert, a presenter said there was a choice. Did you want families to run America’s farms, or factories? If it was families then you were encouraged to donate through a variety of options. Tonight on the box I saw part of a film featuring the selling off of a family farm’s equipment following foreclosure. It’s a subject that recurs often.

The large blisters are back. Underneath. One inch long, half an inch wide and high. They’re tender.

There seems to be a lot of pain on a daily basis now. My nose is quite sore. Badly burnt, it’s covered in scabs having lost a lot of skin. That said it’s nothing compared to the amount of skin that’s come off my testicles in the last 10 days or so. And I don’t stick my nose on a hard saddle and then grind it with my legs for 8 hours a day.

The last 5 miles today I had a bad stitch or stomach cramp. Even though the sun was falling I still had to stop. The safest place was some gravel on the central median. It was still sore as I reached the motel.

Looking at the forecast for tomorrow all the storms are due to pass just north of here. That said I can hear thunder now. The winds tomorrow are meant to be from the north. As I’m going west and a little bit south that shouldn’t be a problem at all. Storms would be though. The rain’s coming down outside now.

All the restaurants were closed so I resorted to McDonald’s. Tried out one of their new Deluxe sandwiches and concluded it’s the biggest con-job in fast food history. Having quickly established a new classic burger they immediately devalue it by extending the range. I also reckon the “grown-up” aspect of the Arch Deluxe was actually coming from the word “Arch” instead of Mc, so they got it wrong by taking the word “deluxe” to identify the range. Either way, they’re expensive and I reckon bad value for money.

The Latino who served me told me he liked my bracelet. I told him of the Cherokee Nation gift shop in Oklahoma but didn’t really dwell. You can’t in this country when it comes to complements from blokes.

Today was so hard, so horrible, so frustrating that I found myself thinking of stopping. Not considering it at all but thoughts of finishing kept entering my head. When the muscle went and I couldn’t even walk I was thinking that’s it. And everybody would understand. I was injured. I couldn’t go on. It wasn’t like I gave up.

Other times I looked at the lovely 6-inch fluffy grass by the roadside and thought of getting hit again. That would finish the trip too. And I could just be in that appealing grass knowing I wouldn’t have to cycle anymore. But do I have to anyway? I kept remembering a friend saying I’m supposed to have fun. It is fun, it’s just so bloody hard.

Omaha keeps creeping into my head. I’m not sure why. I presume because like a few other places I left it too early. My hosts were such good company, and there was a good feel to the place. More than Amarillo or any other town I’ve been in since. I’ve read of Bodmer a few times since then and I’m glad they introduced me to him.

The oddest bit of television I saw yesterday was watching Bertie Ahern, Mary Hearney, Dick Spring and John Bruton all make statements on Northern Ireland in a Dail session shown by C-SPAN2. So now I’m in touch again and it was all so similar and so depressing. Doubtful I’ll be going home to good news then.

Postcards and a letter for friends at home all need stamps. As does the card for the hospital in Virginia Beach.

Read the Next Entry (#59) in My Bicycle Trip Across America

Read more from my Cycle Across America

Part 57 of the Cycle-Across-America series. (Read from the start in Boston or see the full index)

The next section of the journal was done on audio tape but with tape and transcript inaccessible in storage I’ll just share what I remember and then below the fold will return to excerpts of the handwritten parts of the journal for the next stage.

October 15th.
An ambitious day of trying a 90 mile trip to get to Lubbock and a contact where I can rest for a few days.

I-27 is the road south to Lubbock for everything else leaving Tulia. On the bike I go parallel a few miles to the east of it.

Plainview was my first stop, after over 20 miles. It was grey town on a grey day, littered with water towers, and maybe it was the weather, or the bias its name gives it, but Plainview didn’t impress me.

I did eat in a fantastic cafe though, straight out of another era. But then I noticed the photos on the walls were all of Steve Martin. Closer inspection told me that a Martin film called “Leap of Faith” had been filmed in Plainview, possibly some of it even in this cafe. I hated that the cafe celebrated something else rather than itself.

It made me think of the town I cycled through before Tulia. It was called Happy. Welcome to Happy, the Town Without a Frown, is how its sign greeted you. A tiny industrial feeling little town of those corrugated roofed hangar style buildings along with grain bins and elevators, but the power of suggestion worked.

And when I left Plainview, things got epic. Which in West Texas means lonely.

The cars were so few I counted them. 3 cars in 20 miles. You do everything you can to avoid traffic, but when you avoid it completely you miss its company and you get scared.

It’s mostly west that I looked, because although I was cycling south on this day, overall I was going west across the country, and I kept thinking of the early white settlers, those who had travelled this far west - and then for some reason stopped.

Why would anyone stop here? No rivers, no lakes, and no mountains. No trees even. Just burning sun, and ferocious winds. I passed a couple of historical markers. They were sad. They told of communities that had existed here but after a major dust storm or two had effectively been wiped out.

Within 20 miles of Lubbock I was staring at a field of cotton. For all the cotton I had seen growing in America, I had never touched any of it. I wanted to squeeze a piece of growing cotton. There were no houses, no people; I hadn’t seen a car for miles. Yet for 10 minutes or more I debated touching cotton.

I dropped the bicycle beneath me, looked all around me to make sure no one was within 10 miles of me, and I approached the cotton. In a dirty positively sexual moment, still expecting to be shot at, I quickly and guiltily bent down and softly squeezed some cotton.

It felt exactly as I thought it would feel.

As darkness came in I made it on to the Idalou Highway, and went as fast as I could on a wide shoulder with lots of traffic. I wasn’t going to make it into Lubbock in the daylight, but I was close, maybe 5 miles away so I stopped at a Texaco garage and called my host. I had to wait for a few hours for the van to arrive, but I was happy eating hotdogs outside as insects rained down on me from the roof.

[An account of what happened next constitutes the rest of this entry and it’s below the fold]

October 19th, Lubbock, Texas

Adopt-a-Voter. 8 out of 10 young eligible voters didn’t last time so now there’s a campaign to bring your grandchild along to vote.

And I finally realise that the list of names for tropical storms and hurricanes as well as being alternate male and female, is in fact alphabetical. So after Josephine drowning the east coast, and then Kyle being an ineffectual whimper in the Caribbean, we now have Lili over Cuba and expected to head north-east. So once again I’m unaffected.

They hover in the Caribbean threatening to come north and then they go east. As I’m going west next that should be the end of any dangers from hurricanes unless later I get one coming in from the Pacific, but I think that’s unlikely.

Looking at the route I’ve chosen from here I estimate there’s about 1,500 miles left. It will be tough as I start climbing fairly soon. One more night in Texas - Brownfield I’m aiming for - and then it’s New Mexico.

Because of the lack of roads, and the mountains, I plan on taking 10 days to zigzag across the southern part. That will take me over the Continental Divide from which it should get easier as the slopes on the far side are steeper than this side.

It won’t all be downhill though. I’ll have a couple of days of serious ups and downs and I haven’t yet worked out a route from Phoenix but I can hopefully do that when I stay with my Phoenix contact.

The mileages I’ve chosen aren’t big but throw in a storm or bad winds and I’m in trouble. The route is chosen based on available lodging and there’s virtually no options in between. Not worth worrying about on a Friday though when I don’t plan to restart until Sunday.

My Lubbock host’s son goes to Texas Tech. The Law School. The campus of the University was listed in the country’s 10 ugliest. We waited outside yesterday for him at 5pm. A patch of grass by some trees was waterlogged. It attracted birds. Some Mockingbirds which are the state bird were there, as were some large blackbirds. I first thought they were crows but they were sleeker and with a blue-green sheen, somewhat like a magpie. They also have a fan tail like a magpie’s. Maybe they are crows. Magpies are in the crow family after all.

The campus is not ugly. It’s simply western, squared off and built of a yellow brick. Maybe the list was compiled on the east coast.

My host works for the prison service and he’s spoken a lot about work there. He told me of a man in his 30s who’s serving a 10 year sentence for dealing in Marijuana. In reality he was just using but he sold over a pound to a friend. He had gotten it from someone who grew it here in Texas - 2 acres of the stuff.

Never having been in trouble of any kind before this was his first offence but as he sold over a pound he could be convicted of a felony whereas use of the drug is a minor misdemeanour. He told the police where the 2 acres were but he refused to give the name of the person who grew it (it wasn’t the owner; he had no idea his land was being used in this way).

So he was tried and convicted and sentenced to 10 years suspended. However he turned up at one of his weekly meetings with his parole officer, drunk - that’s expressly against the conditions of the suspension of his sentence - so he was forced to serve time. Being a model prisoner he was due for release shortly having served only 4 years, but this is election year. That means some politician didn’t like so many prisoners serving minimum time so he now has to serve an extra year or so. Now he’s not a model prisoner anymore.

There are over 600 prisoners in Lubbock. In Amarillo where my host was based for the first couple of weeks there were 4,400 inmates and in Brownfield, where I intend to go next and my host was based before his transfer to Lubbock, there are 500.

My host says he doesn’t have problems with the inmates. It’s not his job to punish prisoners or make them follow rules - that’s in the hands of the courts - he’s simply there to keep them in custody. If he needs to get them to do something he doesn’t come down hard, he simply gently suggests things almost in a joking manner. That means they don’t look bad in front of the other inmates and the prisoner knows he should do it anyway.

Most of the prison officers his age are mature enough to know that but the younger officers tend to almost provoke resistance. He says it’s mostly young black prisoners who cause the problems and it’s down to not being able to control their tempers. There’s no problem with older blacks or with whites, and the Mexicans weren’t much trouble either.

When someone kicks up they call in the special units who arrive all padded up. They hit the problematic inmate with a shield and then cuff them, leaving them like that in their cell until they calm down.

The polls say that Dole has made up a little bit of ground on Clinton by focusing on the so-called character issue. On the campaign trail today and yesterday he’s still hammering it.

A poll I found much more interesting was one on which is your favourite member of the Holy Trinity. The Son won with 46% of the vote, the Holy Spirit came second with 33% and the Father trailed in with a mere 21%

I watched the Chiefs beat Seattle comfortably last night. That stops their losing sequence and makes them 5 and 2. They looked good and I’m definitely getting attached to them. Meanwhile over in baseball the St Louis Cardinals were humiliated 15 - 0 in their final game against the Major League champions - the Atlanta Braves. So when the current storm is finished with New York, the Braves will take on the Yankees in the World Series.

And now my host has gone Line Dancing yet again, in his best shirt and boots, and his son is studying. He’s been studying every night - I’ve barely seen him. Once last night he floated past with cotton wool in his ears. It’s good to see all that subsidised cotton getting put to use.

My host tells me the cotton grown in Egypt is better quality and cheaper. The government pump money into West Texas so they can grow all this cotton I see. I’m glad, at times it looks like snow - there’s so much whiteness. So I’m watching an Irish film with Albert Finney doing yet another Irish accent. It’s littered with Monaghan accents and I’m laughing. When the studying is finished we’re supposed to be heading out for beers.

In the local paper - the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal, - there’s an article on Inishmurray and Sligo. It’s by a Joe Murray who reckons his ancestors came from the island.

The front page has a picture of a lot of peanuts. More than 30,000 pounds of peanuts spilled from an 18-wheeler yesterday on Locust Avenue, when it overturned. Meanwhile in Austin the State Higher Education Co-ordinating Board has given a tentative approval to build a 47 million dollar sports arena on its campus.

Flicking through the paper you can see that Texas Tech is mentioned in most of the articles.

There’s a refreshing dose of international news though too, not just in the paper but on the box. Lebed’s prominence in Yeltsin’s Russia, the crowd tragedy at the football match in Guatemala, the protests in Belgium about the removal of the judge, the nuclear protests in Taiwan, but as I prepare for the land of Cochise and Geronimo, I don’t know that I care.

October 19th Lubbock, Texas

A virtual reality life of Christ. Another evening of Texas television. Charles Grodin interviews Gerry Spence and they talk of the greater issues brought up by the civil trial of O.J. Simpson. On another station Grodin acts with De Niro in the comedy “Midnight Run”.

The Huskers were in town today to play Texas Tech. They brought 20,000 fans with them which is worth a lot to the economy of Lubbock with its population of 187,000 fans. We met some of these Nebraskans last night as they ambled around the downtown looking for a restaurant. They were dressed in red and they weren’t young.

I watched the game on the box feeling a bit like a traitor as it was not the Red Raiders that I cheered on. There’s a limit to how many teams I can adopt and this was a definite conflict of interests but I remember fondly the passion of my host in Omaha and it prevailed. So did the Huskers 24 - 10.

As I write, in the WBA Middleweight Championship, Joppy the defending champion is beating up McElroy for the 4th successive round but McElroy keeps coming back for more. My host has told me that he sees Barry McGuigan doing commentating over here. Round 5, Joppy had predicted a knockout here. It didn’t happen. Round 6 and it did. He whupped him.

Monarch Butterflies have begun a migration across an uncharted expanse from southern Canada and all parts of the US to their winter refuge in central Mexico. How the insect with only a 3 to 4 inch wingspan can fly unerringly across half a continent to an unlearned 10-acre spot in the mountains of Mexico is not clear to scientists.

The butterflies visit flowers to store up energy needed for their annual migration that can require a flight of more than 2,000 miles. Until 1975 the place they congregate in winter was unknown to the outside world. A tree may contain from 15,000 to 20,000 individual monarchs and tree limbs droop under their weight.

I see a couple of them every day. Now I’m wondering if it’s the same couple I see all the time. Its wings have a distinctive orange colour with black markings. Its milkweed food supply provides protection from predators. As they consume the leaves they accumulate in their body some chemicals that make them taste very badly to birds.

Hawks are at it too. A wide variety of hawks are among the hundreds of bird species that fly across West Texas each autumn en route to warmer climates for the winter. Whether seen riding a thermal updraft or sitting on a telegraph pole, some of these birds of prey are on a trip that may exceed 10,000 miles. Some of them stay in West Texas for a while. The most common is the Red-Tail who are here pretty much the whole year round. The Mississippi Kite comes in April or May, stays for 6 months and then leaves. Most of the medium size hawks take rabbits, whereas smaller ones primarily eat smaller birds and mammals.

Other birds of prey that pass through this area are Kestrels, Bald Eagles, Swainson Hawks, Marsh Hawks, the Osprey, Northern Harrier, Harp-skinned Hawk, Coopers Hawk, Northern Goshawk, Harris’ Hawk, Ferruginous Hawk, Rough-legged Hawk, Merlin, Peregrine Falcon, and Prairie Falcon. I’ve seen a couple of these dead on the roadside. Even dead they often have a presence.

Round 2 of the next fight. An English fighter from Telford called Woodhall takes on Keith Holmes for the WBC title. He’s the underdog and playing it safe at the moment. 9 rounds complete and it’s still very even. In fact it’s so even if it stays like this the American will keep his title in his home town of Marlsboro, Maryland. The final round (12). Woodhall is urged to do it for King and Country. Stopped. 30 seconds from the end Holmes puts Woodhall down and then unleashes a punishment of sorts.

So in the morning I get taken me back to that Texaco garage and I begin the fight into the forecast south-west wind 10 to 20mph with gusts up to 30. I’m apprehensive but heartened by news from home.

Have I made a stupid mistake by not replacing my tyres with the next chance 900 miles away ?

Read the Next Entry (#58) in My Bicycle Trip Across America

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Have a read of a post called “Junction” from Mr Sniffle & Cry.

I’ve read it 4 times.

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Part 56 of my solo Cycle-Across-America series. (Read from the start in Boston or see the full index)

Excerpted from my journal as I continue cycling south through the Texas Panhandle heading towards Lubbock.

October 14th, Monday. Tulia, Texas

It’s like that feeling you get after being at the beach all day. Or wave watching at Doolin. Only it’s a very long way from the sea here.

That wind. My eyes are wrecked.

3,812 miles.

Didn’t manage that huge effort today. Or at least not the distance. I rode for as long as would normally do for a 90 mile trip but the wind kept me down to 62.

So if I’m to make Lubbock tomorrow then that must be my 90 mile day. There is a chance. Forecast is for a west to south-west wind. With the early start I never manage, and the wind more from the west than the south, I will do it. As saddle sore as I am it will hurt and I’ll need those thunderstorms also forecast, not to occur. That’s tomorrow’s problem.

This is the land that some people call flat, boring, desolate, nothing. Well it’s flat alright. Mostly. But it’s not boring.

It’s almost hypnotic, and it’s always beautiful. As for desolate, no it’s alive. It grows, it moves, it’s lived on. And the people here don’t call the High Plains of the Texas panhandle desolate. No, they warn me of New Mexico. Apparently there’s nothing there.

Here there’s always something. A house on a small ridge that is the horizon to the east two miles away. Dark roof and windows. Nothing beside it, not a shed nor a bush. The sun lights up its white walls against the huge background of the cloudless blue sky. Edward Hopper could’ve painted it.

Above me a flock of almost 100 birds circled and squawked for maybe 10 minutes. Then they came to a decision, formed a single file and flew east.

A lone bluebird landed on the road in front of me. I don’t think I’d seen one since Missouri. Any splash of colour is so striking. The twisted features of each cedar post holding the barbed wire, the swaying sea of tall grass, a single tree with a single crow, a train of 80 cars long hooting at me whilst its driver waves enthusiastically, a flock of Canada Geese leaving a flooded field that the dropping sun is shimmering all over through the grass, there’s always something here - how can anybody say there’s nothing - that I should get a train across the “boring” bit?

[The rest of this entry is below the fold]

Got out of Amarillo easy enough and in truth I was glad to leave it. Population almost 170,000 was probably too many for me at this stage.

Took State Highway 1541 south and was glad to see that Texas very much believes in shoulders. The only roads without them are the Farm Roads which don’t have any traffic anyway.

Crossed a canyon in-between the town of Canyon and the Palo Druro Canyon - supposedly the second biggest in the States. The river at the bottom of the canyon was either the Palo Druro Creek, or the Prairie Dog Town Fork of the Red River.

As I dropped in I was thinking of Georgia O’Keefe. I had been doing so for a couple of days. New Mexico was on my mind and I’d seen a couple of animal skulls. But now here in this canyon were the colours and textures, the formations and the light.

Climbing out of the canyon was probably my biggest climb since Mississippi or maybe Arkansas. I went past a ranch that does genuine cowboy suppers and a couple of miles up the road there was a sign for Georgia O’ Keefe’s house. She’d lived in Texas, in the town of Canyon for two years, 1916-18, and I hadn’t known.

On my way into the town of Canyon I passed a marker for one of the earliest barbed wire fences. 1876 was the date, which is actually 2 years after the 6666 Ranch was fenced. It told of its introduction including the resistance of cowboys who were needed less once fences were erected. It was introduced because of the lack of trees in the panhandle.

Outside the Panhandle Plains Historical Museum there was another marker. This one was about a Plains man called Goodnight. He’d rode bareback as a youngster following his parents’ wagon when they went west. He was from Illinois. As a young teenager he fought the Commanche and Kiowa. He trained with other Indians, and he drove thousands of cattle along famous trails including through the Palo Druro Canyon. Later in his life he got involved in preserving the buffalo and establishing law and order. He died in 1923.

The museum was big but I decided I’d rather spend my time out there now on the plains as they are living, than inside looking at reconstructed windmills, oil wells, log cabins, mud huts, barbed wire fencing etc. So around the corner I went into a Wendy’s for a burger.

I was lucky because 50 teenagers came in immediately afterwards. This is a national holiday. It’s Columbus Day. There’s been very little talk about it. No discussion, no revisionism, no fuss.

Definitely pampered here in a Best Western. Run by people from India again. They’re very talkative which is good and I’ve got my hand on a county map which has me tempted for a 5 mile shortcut across an unpaved road.

Eating mashed potatoes and green beans with my dinner was a great change from burgers and fries. Though nowhere as nice, the spuds reminded me of the garlic mashed potatoes back in Omaha, Nebraska.

I seem to be forever reminded of something. Yesterday morning before leaving the motel I heard Carrickfergus being sung on the telly. It was one of those Kenny Rogers Gambler westerns. Colm Meany was sitting around a camp fire at night and wishing he was in Carrickfergus.

Today leaving Amarillo I passed McCormick Road, and in Canyon I passed a cemetery where I could see Scots-Irish names on the gravestones. And then again in the evening I watch Mel Gibson direct the FCA.

Turning on the TV really makes the world small, reminding me of shared memories with friends scattered around the globe. Most of the time though I don’t need prompting. I spend so many hours alone on the bike I overdose on daydreaming.

At the moment I’ve returned home to Dublin, sorted out an income, got my own place, am all but married, and not far off set up really. In my garden I have a caboose. I use it as a bar and my friends join me there. My girlfriend indulges some painting fantasies and the weather is never an issue.

Tomorrow night the second Presidential Debate. Will Dole go after the character of Clinton as predicted? With the day I have planned, will I care?

Read the Next Entry (#57) in My Bicycle Trip Across America

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Part 55 of my solo Cycle-Across-America series. (Read from the start in Boston or see the full index)

Excerpted from my journal as I continue cycling south through the Texas Panhandle. And I wasn’t singing that song.

Sunday, 13th October

The wind has me exhausted. It’s like I’ve had my head in front of a hairdryer all day. And it was warm.

With the forecast for the winds to continue I’m in real danger of not making Lubbock on Tuesday as intended. If so, it’s not really a problem but I’m getting concerned at the frequency of these “extra” days. Once I leave Texas that’ll get more crucial as I have less roads and less towns and therefore less options to play with. Then again, when I’m in New Mexico is the time to worry about that.

This morning’s plan was to cycle on empty stomach the dozen miles or so to Fritch on Lake Meredith and then load up for the 40 miles into Amarillo. But I was told that none of the routes into Amarillo had shoulders and it being Sunday thought I might have difficulty getting a really good 40 mile feed in Fritch.

So I breakfasted in Borger after all. Taco Bell, first time in a long time. I was the only person there until some athletic but slight looking young fella came in for a drink. He was celebrated as the guy who kicked a 55 yard goal yesterday.

The new plan was a 24 mile ride due south to the town of Panhandle and then in from there the 29 miles to Amarillo. That suited the food better and I expected there to be less traffic.

Immediately out of town I was back in grassland with enormous views like yesterday. To the east from the north to the south I could see for 30 to 50 miles. The horizon was pure, broken only by grain elevators and very few of those.

[The rest of this entry is below the fold]

Seeing the expanse, so vast, of pale yellow grass with patches of reddish brown and at times speckled with green cacti and other bushes, with virtually no ranches or homesteads in sight, was so frightening at first but gradually over hours of looking at this magnificent flatness it has a seductive quality and I feel very comfortable, almost at home, in it.

A couple of miles out of town was the first historical marker. It commemorated the first Rotary Oil Drill in the Panhandle in 1923. They’d been in use on the Gulf coast since the early 1900’s but the absence of a particular part delayed their use in the Panhandle.

Oil wasn’t found until 1921 as it had been forecast by the US geological crowd back in 1904. Gas was first found in 1918. There was a lot of technical information but I neither understood it nor was interested in it. Better quality of oil nearer Borger and in south Pampa made Carson County one of the richest oil area in all of Texas. The county produced over 150 million gallons of oil which means nothing to me.

The Indian owner of the hotel was wrong. I had a fine shoulder all the way. This is very useful from a safety point of view when you’re faced with a 20mph wind.

Traffic was light but fast. Being Sunday there was very few trucks. The herds of cattle were bigger now and they still took off running stupidly until a few words in a loud Dublin voice grabbed their attention and stopped them.

I was thinking of the other Indian back in Spearman and his talk of racism in Texas. He’d left India 3 or 4 years ago and gone to Dallas. They’d been running the Motel in Spearman for a short time now and he was looking forward to returning to Dallas. There in the city they had their own community, their places to worship but here in small-town, panhandle of Texas he would never feel welcome. He said the locals didn’t like change.

Sometimes I just stopped the bike and looked. At the grass. Its movement in the wind was wild. It was full of grasshoppers as usual and they kept jumping onto me. In the wind they could get higher. One stuck to my chest, another to my beard and tried to get into my mouth.

Today didn’t have the excitement of seeing new animals for the first time, unlike the last 2 days. On Friday I saw my first Tarantula. He was just there on the shoulder of the highway. I didn’t hang around, and sped past. Yesterday I took more time.

In the bottom of the canyon with the Canadian River I saw prairie dogs. I watched them for 15 minutes as they poked their heads up out of the ground, made their squeaky noises, and scampered from hole to hole. I remembered the postmistress back in Hepler, south-east Kansas, talking about the man who vacuumed them up and sold them to the Japanese as pets.

The snakes I see are bigger. And more colourful. A lot of them are curled up. I can’t tell if they’re alive or dead. A 2-foot snake sped across the road just in front of me today. It’s too fast to say it slithered. And so silent. An elegant movement I feel thrilled to witness.

4 miles from the town of Panhandle I saw a train about 2 miles away. It was over 100 cars long and was headed east towards the town of White Deer. I watched it for a couple of miles. I could say it looked great as it snaked into the distance but the railroads are even straighter than the roads in this part of the world. Nothing snakes out here except snakes.

2 large flocks of those Blackbirds with the orange splash on their wings greeted me as I arrived in Panhandle. A very wide and deserted main street. It was Sunday. Yet another Dairy Queen, out on Highway 60. Fat Tony’s was closed.

I had passed 6666 Ranch (4 six) - Dixon Creek, the first ranch in the Panhandle founded in 1872 by an English company backed by Cunard, the shipping company. 2 years later it was fenced with barbed wire hauled from the railroad in Dodge City. The posts were made of cedar.

On the road into Amarillo I passed the first tree in the Panhandle. It died in the 1970s and they planted a new one beside it to commemorate it. Looking around the only trees you saw were a handful of carefully planted ones beside the very few houses in view.

The road took me right past the airport which was fun and it ran parallel with the railroad. I saw 3 trains and even got a wave from the driver of the last one.

I enjoyed the downtown of Amarillo - it has some great buildings. Now I’m ensconced as far south in the town as I could get.

I’ll need a huge effort tomorrow and then I’m okay for Tuesday, or else vice versa. Or else Wednesday.

Heavy rain is forecast for Thursday and Friday so things could yet work out.

Alomar and the Orioles lost to the Yankees last night so that’s the end of their season, and the Chiefs aren’t in action until Thursday so no sport for me for a bit. I still don’t know who won the All-Ireland replay, but at 3:30 in the morning Christy Brown’s Left Foot keeps me in touch with home.

Read the Next Entry (#56) in My Bicycle Trip Across America

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It was marked as sold in the recent big spring sale because I was asked to hold it for someody who would pay for it a week or so later. I don’t usually do that because this is how I make my living and I’ve been burnt a few times, but we came to an agreed arrangement and then for whatever reason I never heard from the person again

So the phallic Donegal Standing Stone I is now available for purchase again.

It’s now priced at $99 plus shipping with payment by PayPal and the standard credit cards. If you were purchasing from Ireland or Britain I’d accept a cheque, and if you were purchasing from Dublin I’d take cash and we could scrap the shipping if you bought me a pint.

More About My Art:
   • Some Older Previously Sold Irish Paintings
   • Murals in Dublin
   • Reasons I Painted Certain Pictures
   • My Favourite Paintings

-Wow, that was an intelligent post
-Why thank you
-I wonder though?
-What?
-If you could do one without?
-Without intelligence?
-Yes. Without
-Hey, without is my middle name

More Irish Conversations Without Intelligence:
   • My Family Are Irish
   • I’m Going to Ireland in December
   • Are you from southern or northern Ireland?
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Part 54 of the Cycle-Across-America series. (Read from the start in Boston or see the full index)

Excerpted from my journal. In the High Plains of Texas.

Saturday, 12th October

Slow progress through the Panhandle. My backside hasn’t been this sore since South Carolina. I might look for some new ointment.

3 days to Lubbock all goin’ well. The wind and me bum are the major issues at the moment.

About a mile south of Spearman is a field in which in 1934 Charles Lindbergh and his wife landed in their plane to refuel. They were on their way from California to New York and chose a small town with 100 miles worth of fuel still left rather than have to cope with the crowds and attention of a bigger town. It was turned 11am when I cycled past loaded up with a Combo meal of some description from the Dairy Queen.

It was a beautiful day, the sky cloudless again and the wind, although into my face, was less than 10mph. Had I known that in advance I could’ve tried to make the whole 90 miles into Amarillo.

The flatness continued. Milo, corn, bales of hay, the horizon broken only by grain bins, windmills, and low-roofed houses. It was 31 miles to the next town - Stinnett.

[The rest of this entry is below the fold]

Gradually the crops changed from crops to long grass to short grass and cattle. I passed by the marker for the Battle of Adobe Walls.

It said that in November 1864 the largest Indian battle in the Civil War took place when 3,000 Commanches and Kiowa who were allied to the South, attacked 372 Confederate soldiers led by Col. Kit Carson, the famous scout and mountain man. It was Carson’s last fight and reportedly his best, even if he did lose.

The second Battle of Adobe Walls was in 1874 and this involved 300 of the same Indians against 79 or so buffalo hunters. This one the Indians lost and it opened the way for settlement of the Panhandle.

Stennitt had a huge County Courthouse, built in the 1930s in a mock Spanish style. It was quite an impressive building and looked great perched high up off the road with the US and Texas flags flying in the strong breeze and the water tower in the background.

The only thing open for me was another Dairy Queen but I had a Burrito Deluxe and a Corn Dog to make it seem different to breakfast. Worked out that my mosquito bites couldn’t be multiplying so the Gatorade must be giving me hives with its high fruit juice content so I heavily diluted it with water.

When I saw a sign that said Stinnett was the home of the West Texas Commanches I got momentarily excited until I realised that it was referring to a football team rather than Native Americans.

It was 13 miles into Borger and by now the wind had strengthened considerably so I wouldn’t've made it to Amarillo after all. A 4-lane highway all the way but with a shoulder.

I spent most of the day thinking of life at home after this is over. I was mulling over the word of freelance contracts available at a big Irish financial firm and thinking they made sense, if I must return to computing. In my head I had my own place and was able to host the people who have helped me on this trip .

3 miles, maybe 4, outside of Borger the road dropped into a canyon. This was for the Canadian River and yes I did go over a bridge at the bottom but no, I saw no water. About 5 miles west down the canyon is Lake Meredith - the major recreational area of the Panhandle.

This is Hutchison County and I read of Fritz Thompson from this town who had conceived of the Highway system of Texas. So far I’m happy with his work. Borger is also the home of Miss Texas. I forget her name.

Given that it was after 5pm, all the shops were now closed so the Main Street was deserted. Completely deserted like Dublin’s Henry Street on a Sunday (excluding the Christmas build-up). A few of the shops had the name “Boomtown” in them which, apart from making me sing “I don’t like Mondays”, was a reference to the town’s beginnings founded on the discovery of oil.

Spoke with my Lubbock host to be and gave him Tuesday 6:30pm as my estimated time of arrival subject to wind. It’ll be interesting staying with him and his son.

And then New Mexico.

Laughed a few times today remembering the good nature of my stay in Liberal, Kansas. I should call the people that gave me that contact and tell them. This morning’s postcard went to Dublin; whose turn is it next?

After my two thirds of a pound burger and malt (something like a milk shake) I’m very much full.

Read the Next Entry (#55) in My Bicycle Trip Across America

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