I am clean. With brushed hair. brushed teeth. I am home... at the house I grew up in.. The only thing better than that was having my mom, pop, and brother greet me at the door this evening.
The past 5 days have been a great sample of what I am going to be doing for the next couple months. alone.
Sometimes I get lonely. Sometimes I wish I had a friend to ride with. Sometimes I wish I had "my person"... the person I get to grow old with. the person that helps me learn how life works.
For now... I am that person.
Since I left College Station, it has been raining on and off. Mostly on...
It has been really enjoyable though. It doesn't really bother me while I ride.
I had a late start out of Aggieland. We had a late night at NorthGate, and wasn't feeling too pressed to get back out on the road...
..I am not a huge fan of riding on the highway... or service roads.. (however they can be quite useful at times...) There is no rush, this time around..I get to set my own path...
That being said...I have been able to utilize the old highways and back roads.
The handy dandy GPS has zig-zagged me from East to West quite a bit... but again, I don't mind. The rolling, grassy hills filled with cattle, trees, and quietness have been well worth the extra milage.
Anyway...I picked up some bread and headed out of town. I went through some of the neighborhoods west of campus. The sun was shining. The breeze came and went. I road threw Bryan, Texas. I headed West on Mumford Road to get out of town...back into the country.
Around 5 PM the clouds rolled in.
The wind calmed down a bit...
A police officer that had passed me about 30 minutes earlier was now cruising slowly behind me...I figured this was his way of asking me to stop...
He got out of his vehicle and approached with uncertainty.
I said hello. He said hello, and asked what I was doing.
I told him I was riding to Dallas and then headed West.
Not being very specific...
With confusion in his voice..he asked to see my ID
I handed him my passport.
He then asked me why I was using a passport as my ID
I told him I don't have a drivers license....
He goes to check my "record" (I assume)
Comes back, even more confused, so it seemed.
He asked...are you homeless?..is this a choice you made?...does this have purpose?
I explained a little more about the 5 month tour I did with The Young Philanthropists earlier in the year, and that I was back on the road to get whatever I missed out of the first trip...
I could tell he was mostly concerned about this huge storm about to hit, and my safety...
but for some reason when he questioned if I had a purpose for being "homeless"...it made me want to laugh at him...but it also created a small, irritated fire within me.
He wished me well. told me to be safe, and left.
I road up about 2 more miles (if that) and found shelter under the porch of this baptist church.
The sky looked as if it might storm pretty intensely, for a short time, and pass quickly.
So I thought I would just sit, and enjoy the show.
A few minutes later, 2 trucks parked at the construction site, you can see across the road there, hauled ass our of the driveway...so that is when I thought maybe it would be a good idea to try to hitch a ride into some wort of town...
One more truck came out of the drive a little more calmly... I walked across the road, to ask first if they thought the storm would pass quickly...Just as he rolls this window down, the drizzle turns into a down pour. He starts to frantically clear the seat off for me. He drives me across the street to my bike and I tell him where I started from and he is confused. But he is not confused in the same manor as the officer was. He was confused in a brighter way..not inspired. not impressed. maybe he just understood it...
He said....well here are 2 or 3 options..
He explained he was about to go get some food at Denny's..
He was more than happy to drop me off at the next town..
Before he said anything else, I told him I was game for some Denny's!
The rain died down a little. We loaded it up, and off we went.
It was a complete back track for me...maybe 15-20 miles.
We talked a bit.. in the small living room of a truck he drove.
The coffee tasted so good.
We ordered some food...and started to talk.
I talked about my ride. I explained my first ride with The YP.
I talked about falling in love. I talked about why I decided to get back on the road.
Glen, talked about his job...He talked about his early life..he talked about his later life... Glen talked about meeting his wife and his god daughter. He explained how he enjoyed simplicity and working.
I asked him plenty of questions...I enjoyed listening to the facts and opinions.
We talked about the government...the smoke in the mirrors and the green dragon dancing between them. We talked about construction and contracting. We talked about dams. trains. roads. boats...
It was really interesting hearing what he had to say about distribution/trade and how transportation makes it happen...we exchanged stories about life on the road.
Glen didn't attend school very long...he was pretty much done going while in 7th or 8th grade. He became a traveler and worker early in the game... taught himself everything he knows..for the most part.. he taught himself how to read... He made plenty of money.. He made it work.
I understood Glen. I saw some of Glen in myself...more than I expected.
A kind, keep to himself, gentle, simple, work-o-holic, of a man.
He feels at home being on the road.
It was really calming.. to hear that being said, out loud, by someone else.
By someone like Glen.
A handful of coffee cups later, he offered to drive me into Hearne (about 20 miles North).
I agreed, easily.
When we reached Hearne, it was still pouring...he offered to take me further into Buffalo (50 or so more miles). In a grandpa sort of way, he felt uneasy dropping me off on the side of the road in the middle of a storm...
On the way to Buffalo, the thunderstorm was quite a show. As we drove down the road, in the comforts of conversation...in the small living room of a truck... I would have been kidding myself to even think about riding my bike in these conditions...
We talked about his family. We talked about my family. We talked about our beliefs. We talked about God... Helping me out was no problem for him. Opening up, was the other side of the coin...I think this experience was one of expanding for both of us...our minds. our hearts. our space. our trust.
...i'd like to think my purpose being on the road is to brighten people's day...to fill their dream cups up with hope...or maybe just confuse them enough to draw creativity into their world...
I want simply show others they can do anything they desire...
I want quiet time...
I want to find "my person" :)
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