Goin' Toco: Welcome to Texas

Butch and friends

Around midday I met Butch in Reserve, Louisiana. He is a transplant to the South. He's been down in Louisiana almost 30 years, but remembers enough about the North -- especially that they're nowhere near as nice as Southerners.

Butch spent a good 1/2 hour with me Friday afternoon (no charge!) trying to help me troubleshoot why my heated gear isn't working. The fuses check out. The readings on the voltmeter check out. Seems it's probably the controllers. But I can't believe BOTH the controllers for the vest AND the gloves are shot. I'm going to have to dig into this some more...

I met the Laughlin brothers, Matthew and Justin at a convenience store in Elton, LA

They're a couple of hunters, who enjoy riding around in Matthew's truck. Justin gets a glint in his eye when talking about traveling and seeing the world. I hope to run into these fellas again someday.

Last night I got to practice some of my Spanish. After leaving the US next week, I'll be passing though 10 Spanish-speaking countries in a row. It's about time I start getting some practice in.

So I went for dinner in the Mexican restaurant next door to the Lufkin Inn Motel (don't let the dingy exterior and preponderance of mean-looking truckers and oil field workers trouble you -- the place passes the butter and irons test.

As the waitress brings me my beef fajitas dinner, I tell her, "Gracias"

She stops for a split second, stares at me.

The most beautiful smile I have seen in weeks spreads across he face, and brightens the room.

She then let's loose this 30-second-no-breath-til-you-stop stream of Spanish.

All directed at me.

All apparently concerned with making an important statement, and seemingly asking a very pertinent question.

A question to me.

I avoid her gaze and and mumble to the checkered plastic tablecloth, "No. No hablo espanol" .

She stops again for a split second. I look up again, just in time to watch the smile fade from her face. She looks so dejected.

Many a time in the past I moved women from joy to tears fairly quickly in a relationship -- but this was a record.

I feel so terrible.

I must learn some more Spanish.

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I rise early today as there's a long, but time-critical leg of riding to do today.

Today I ride to Arlington, Texas to get my VIP Guided Tour to Cowboy Stadium (for only $27.95 including service fees)

I resolve to not freeze my butt off again today, so it's time to break out the cold weather gear.

On my legs I'm wearing my armoured motorcycle pants, my Tilley travel pants, and my Running Room long thermal running pants.

Up top I have on my First Gear Kilimanjaro jacket, over its liner, over a Tourmaster heated vest, over a light sweater, over a long-sleeved technical running shirt.

I have on my face mask/dickie, and my Tourmaster heated gloves.

The only problem is that neither of the controllers on my heated gear work. Plus we had disconnected my heated grips back when I was prepping for this trip.

And so... I was COLD when I rode out at 8 AM this morning!

Two hours later I pulled into Bubba Jean's for breakfast.

There I met the Thunderhorse Motorcycle Club.

I rode up to Dallas with Crazy Ray, Larry and his girlfriend. Along the way, the rear tire on Ray's Duece Softtail caught a flat. Twice.

A Kawi and H-D can be friends

Ray was quick as lightning dropping some plugs into the tubeless tire. Luckily I was able to help out by lending my portable air compressor.

I hope it holds...

Finally made it up to Arlington and the new Cowboy Stadium. The tour was well worth the money.

The facility is quite impressive. I suppose if $1.4 billion can't impress...

Of all the facts and figures presented on the tour, this one bit of calculus left me cold ... along the top of the stadium there is a Standing Room only section. In some sections the last 3 rows of seats are replaced with the platform on the right to accommodate wheelchair access. Apparently they're trying to work out if it's worth it to lose the 80 seats for 10 wheelchair spaces. No word on the 'value' of the 10 wheelchair spaces...