Happy Birthday America

Sorry I haven't posted in a couple days, I know how everyone is hanging on my every word, so let me catch you up. I'll start a Bourbon St. in New Orleans; what can I say, its Bourbon St. Drinks were drank, Hooter Shooters were shot, big girls and old ladies were danced with, indecent liberties were taken, times were had. We recovered the next day in New Orleans, toured the French Quarter and waited out what seemed to be a hurricane under a small balcony. We decided that day we would ride maybe 30 miles the next day to get out of town and then head to Baton Rouge the next day. Well, we ended up riding 75 miles to Gonzales, LA. Judah did want to ride the 25 more miles into BR, but cooler heads prevailed and we stopped for the night, definely the right choice. The next day we were going to head up to Opolusa, LA. From my previous post you know what happened when we tried riding out of BR. So we headed to the bus station, boxed up the bikes and booked a trip to Houston for 7pm that night. THis gave us 5-6 hours to "explore" BR. Since we were going to be spending the evening on a Greyhound, we figured beers were in order. We went to the bar, played some shuffle board and pool and got sufficiently lubricated for the bus ride. Now I have never been on a Greyhound before and it was an interesting experience. I sat next to Patrick for LaPlace,LA. He was going to see his mother in Houston. The wierd part about this is, his wife also went to Houston but on an airplane. This guy just preferred the bus, not because he was afraid to fly, just loved the bus. I got his whole life story, pretty nice guy all around. Judah sat next to a guy from Mexico who was taking the bus all the way to southern Mexico, they chatted in spanish the whole way. Then we got to the station in Houston. Now that was an interesting experience, especially since we got in a 1am. I can sum it up as "salt of the earth."

Well Sarah picked us up and brought us back to her place here in Houston. Very nice. We got to sleep in and relax most of the day. At this point I was particularly pleased not to be riding through the swamps in nowhere Louisiana. We went out that night to Armadillo's. I love Texas bars. Got some Shiner Bock's, life was good. The next day we went over to Sarah's friend Will's house and lounged poolside most of the afternoon. This was just a little precursor to the 4th activities. Yesterday we had a pool party at the same location. Beers, slip and slides, real barbacue ribs and chicken, again life was good. Oh yeah, and the Tour de France started yesterday, totally awesome.

We are spending most of today taking it easy a getting ready to get back on the bikes tomorrow. We are getting a ride out of town from Sarah and Will, which we will be uber appreciative for. It will be three days up to Austin where we intend on staying at a hostel on the lake. It has been great to take a few days off, but I think we are both ready to get back on the move. Only 350 miles left to ride.

Everything is bigger in Texas,
Steve

PS. I accidentally jumped in the pool with my cell phone. Needless to say it is dead. So if you call me and it goes straight to voicemail thats why. See you down the road.