Real Life Bike Trip 2009: The Incident at Roswell, Stillwater Steve, and the Floods of Lubbock

Dearest whomever,

There are a few stories that have fallen through the cracks along the way -- Some you'll have to hear in person... and some I'll try to tell you now.

Stillwater Steve

As promised in my last post, I will now try to tell you the story of Stillwater Steve. While we were in Stillwater, OK staying with Maigan, we went out for lunch at the 'Pita Pit' (Think subway with pitas... but twice as yummy.) We sat down outside to eat our Pitas and up walked Steve -- I have a picture on my cellphone that I will upload when we return and drawings as well but if you will open your mind's eye... Steve looked like he might have aspired to be an ACDC roadie in his younger years. Now perhaps in his mid forties, Steve strutted towards us (And believe me he did strut) wearing a black sleeveless t-shirt, dark black sunglasses, black pants, and a gold necklace with a lightning bolt pendant. His hair was dark black as well and spread outward into an impressive mane (think 80s). With a large black mustache to boot, we knew we were in for some awesome. He started by telling us that his plans for the evening were to bring a bunch of speakers on to the Pita Pit patio area and blast ACDC until well after bar time. He then said "You know how the volume nob goes to 10?" and he held out his fingers to demonstrate how far 10 goes. "I'm gonna go... a little bit past" Moving his fingers apart another inch or so. Steve talked about taking it a little past ten almost a dozen more times during our conversation. We discussed a great many things with him -- topics ranging from Government conspiracies, FEMA, the nature of attraction (Steve likes the "Little wispy baby hairs" on the neck), Storm chasing (have to listen to ACDC while you chase the storm), Tornadoes, His career as a radio disk jockey, and his ultimate dream of strapping an amp to his back, putting on roller skates, and traveling across the country playing his electric guitar (he played a little air guitar while he told us this). I don't think I'll ever forget Steve and I can't wait to show you the photo.

Somewhere, Texas

Lubbock

We got into Lubbock Texas mid-afternoon expecting to spend the night with a couch surfer named Holly - we knew it was going to thunderstorm later and we were looking forward to getting our bikes someplace safe and settling in early. When we could not get in touch with Holly we stopped off in a Pizza place called "One Guy's". Holly never did get in touch with us even though she replied to our request -- luckily we had Daniel (Yes a second Daniel), another couch surfer, who was available at very short notice -- unluckily, however, we did not get in touch with him before the rain started. What started with a light shower quickly turned in to pouring rain, thunder, finger nail sized hail, high winds, near by tornadoes, and flooding. People were sprinting up and down the streets soaking wet, cars were up to their doors in water, and our bikes were under tarps and still getting soaked. The Pizza place we were in had the local weather on and I've never seen a weather man so completely overwhelmed. The television screen barely had enough space for all of the weather advisories and he kept repeating "We are being literally pounded!". It was quite the sight. When the rain let up we biked through the flooded streets to Daniel's and were able to get most of our things dried out by the following day.

Someone's video of the storm that day

The Incident at Roswell

When we were planning our route through New Mexico a stop at Roswell was an easy sell. Jesse and I both enjoy the bizarre and Roswell promised to have plenty of it. The city was expectedly covered with aliens and space ships and space themed nonsense on every corner. The street lamps had alien heads on them and even the chain stores incorporated the Alien themes in one way or another.

Space Ship McDonald's

It was late and we were out of spare bike tubes so we went to the only place that was open - Walmart. We bought two extra tubes each and decided that we were too lazy to find a real place to camp that night. Having seen an open field off to the side of the Walmart we decided we would find some shadows, pitch our tent, and pack up early. We sprinted across a field that was mostly just dry grass and dirt and found a nice place near a fence. We pitched our tent and got ready to settle in. Just before we piled in to the tent I noticed something on Jesse's tire. Both of our tires were covered with dozens of 'Goat head' Thorns.

We knew we would have to change all four of our tubes (with the new ones we just bought) but figured we'd wait until the morning. We got in our sleeping bags and went to bed hoping we wouldn't get yelled at by any employees. A few hours into the night... The sprinkler system turned on. EVERYTHING got wet. The tent, the bikes, camera, clothes, everything. By morning a lot of the water had frozen due to the extreme drop in temperature and we woke up cold, wet, and grumpy. With sunlight we were able to see how well hidden the sprinklers were and noticed that if we'd pitched our tent 15 feet away we'd have been completely dry. We spent the morning drying things out and pulling thorns out of our tires.

Jesse does the new state new timezone dance as we enter New Mexico

These flats marked the middle of Jesse's recent spree of flat tires. In the past week and a half he has had over 10 and has taken to looking down at his tires every minute or so. It's been causing some serious headaches and some even more serious delays. Hopefully his stream of bad luck ends soon, but we're heading off later today to buy more tubes and patch kits just in case.

Jesse prays to the bike gods to stop giving him so many flats
(He had another flat shortly there after)

Jesse will have another blog here bringing you up to date and provided we don't melt under the hot desert sun we'll be in Arizona in a few days. Until next time.

Jesse's flats: 10
Danny's flats: 5
My top speed so far: 36MPH
Cheapest gas so far: $1.49
Cheapest Cigarette's (that I've noticed): $2.50
Longest distance without a water stop: 74 miles
Times we've been whistled at: 2 (we went a few days without shirts and we got honked at and yelled at a lot more)
Couches surfed: 5
Times confronted by police regarding public urination: 1 (Jesse talked his way out, I hid in the sleeping bag)
Total money received from strangers: $120
Times almost run over by an ambulance: 1
Number of dogs who have chased us into the street: 26