June 3, 2003 - Day 15 Odometer 1716 Today was more or less one of those rides from hell! Battled the head wind all day but still managed 100+ miles. As soon as I crossed the New Mexico - Texas border the head winds picked up to 20-25 mph. A "huge" storm cell covered the whole sky. I could not figure out which direction it was coming from or going to. I tried to out race it, going a measly 6-8 mph., trying to reach a rest stop on I-40 which had disappeared from the map. I came across the second rest stop, which was basically a picnic area. I took shelter behind a 2 foot high brick wall and prayed that the rain wouldn't wash me away during the night. The winds were easily 40-50 mph. I missed dinner, "good thing I had all that candy yesterday". I spent the night there with plenty of diesel trucks to keep me company and awake. BOD - Brick Wall COD - Blizzard, Ice Cream Treat
June 4, 2003 - Day 16 "The no whirled peas west of Amarillo segment" Odometer 1825 By morning, 30 of my closest trucking buddies had made camp with me. When I looked around there were a couple of puddles on the cement near me, and couldn't tell if they were made by wildlife, dogs, or rain. I really didn't realize how lucky I was until I peddled 1/2 mile down the road and saw the pavement was soaked. I had missed that "huge" storm by l/2 mile.
Now most of the pictures of the Texas Panhandle are not much to talk about but the story of this day had some fantastic humor.
My plush digs for the night of June 3rd. The sleeping bag was next to the brick 2 ft. wall to protect me from the 40-50 mph winds.
The story starts out about 25 miles west of Amarillo where they were doing some highway construction. The contractors had funneled all of the east bound traffic onto the one of west bound lanes. The dead highway was sort of dead and had about 1/2 of a lane dug up. I had traveled about 2-3 miles on the dead piece of high way and was wondering where the construction was and why there was even construction on this road. It looked fine. Just about then this long bed dump truck pulled up along side of me with the ugliest female truck driver you might have imagined. I'll call her Bertha, and later one she earned the titled Bertha the _itch. (B's and W's are interchangeable). When Bertha pulled up along side of me "I thought" I heard her say "Mister you need to go up here to this overpass (about 1/3 of a mile up the road) and get on the service road, we got trucks going up and down this highway."
Well Bertha created a number of issues with this exchange. 1)She had a poor attitude 2) the rain from the night before filled a gully of water between the highway and the service road that I was not going to cross, 3) the service road still had trucks going on it so I didn't have any relief from the truck traffic the safest place for me to be was where I was at 4) she didn't say please.
So, I largely ignored Bertha. Well Bertha was shadowing me with her truck and I was a little curious about this. Then she pulled up along side of me again and said "sir you need to respect what I'm telling you and get on the service road." This didn't do anything to resolve any of the issues and I realized she actually had wanted me to get on the service road earlier. I just kind of pretended I couldn't hear Bertha because of the truck noise.
Then Bertha said she was going to call someone, which.....was no big deal to me. Then I started to get a little upset because Bertha was still driving along side of me and creating the same hazard she said I would create. Well I looked at Bertha and pointed my finger at her and in the sternest most forceful voice I could muster I said, "lady, you're creating a dangerous situation for me by driving your truck so close, you better get the "fire truck" away from me right now" She wound up her window and drove up the highway to where the construction was. About 3/4 of a mile.
In about 5 minutes a truck came from the other direction (towards me), which I thought was unusual. There were basically 2 lanes of road available 5 feet of shoulder and 1 1/2 lanes of road. The truck stopped about 1/4 mile in front of me and the driver hopped out. The truck took up the shoulder and half of a lane, while the open door of the truck took up another 1/2 lane and the driver stood in the remaining space. The driver had his trucking uniform on and with his sleeves rolled up on his biceps and he sported a butch-type haircut. His arms were poised on his hips in a somewhat aggressive posture. As I rode up to him I really wasn't interested in engaging in any conversation and I thought I would pass through (I wasn't going to move the truck or the door so......). As I was "passing through" Ray (from the name patch on his shirt) decided to try to push me off the bike. I decided that Ray and I were gonna dance.
I laid my bike down 30 feet from where the push took place, towards the back of the truck trailer. I went up to Ray and asked him if I had said or done anything to him to upset him today. As the juices in Rays noggin were stirring for a response I bolted for the cab of Ray's rig, hopped up into it, locked the door, pulled the keys out of the ignition, hopped over to the passenger side of the cab, opened the door, closed the lock, got out and shut the door. I had effectively sealed Ray from his communications and any weapons.
