Man is the Texas Panhandle Flat!

That's about all I can say about 472 miles of straight flat road. I can also say that the people of Texas are well protected, as there appears to be one State Trooper per person in Texas and they all live along Interstsate 40. This adds significantly to the boredom of riding the Texas freeways. I am in Vernon TX to catch a few zzzs before tomorrow's run into Louisiana. I am here at a motel operated by the Patel family, apparently an old Texas family name in motels, and occupied principally by Contract Landmen from Houston, oil exploration drilling teams and the like. Our Harleys prove very popular, and we sit around the flaming barbecues which the Landsmen have set up outside their motel rooms and chew the fat for a couple hours until we need to find something to eat. (They woulda invited us, but didn't know we were coming.) Anyway,l oil exploration is alive and well in Texas! Not that they are finding any, but I guess it never hurts to look. Where direct exploration is not in the picture, there is always litigation. The Landsmen crew has been moving from Best Western to Best Western for the past three weeks, visiting the county courthouses in fifteen Texas Counties -- not on behalf of an oil company (their usual client)-- but on behalf of a Dallas law firm. The firm is representing the kids in a lawsuit against their mother's guardian ad litem over mineral rights which were apparently deeded back and forth by their deceased father and his cronies, and eventually secured as winnings by the father, during an extended poker game. I know some of you will think I am making this stuff up. I am not.

Larry, the Landsmen chief, sends his regards to California, even though Houston apparently has a lock on the "purtiest women and the friendliest people" market. Larry is garrulous to a fault, and is a former computer systems manager turned entrepreneur. As I leave him to come write this, Gordon -- whose profession is unclear but whose uniform suggests garage mechanic -- is still trying to figure out how to explain the best way for us to avoid all the traffic lights in Texarkana, a feat which all agreed is devoutly to be desired. Gordon, however, has difficulty in giving directions that do not depend on a local knowledge of the location of truck weigh scales.

Most people would probably think you could get to LA from TX by just going due East, or -- God forbid simplistic minds -- going in a beeline Southeast right into New Orleans! But no, we are going north in the morning to poke our noses into Oklahoma, then reversing course, heading back down south and then turning east for a while, and then heading north again into Texarkana, which happens to be located in yet another state in which my present companion has never ridden a motorcycle. Apparently there is fetish for counting the number of states you have been through (or at least in) on a motorcycle that is deeply rooted and readily outvotes any other call, such as the voice that murmurs "cafe au lait and beignets await you in New Orleans". To my horror, I discover that Rick is on a diet, so thoughts of several lungfuls of Oklahoma dust followed by Arkansas dust are all that dazzle in his eyes.

There at least will be some reward for our madness at the end of tomorrow. We will be shooting to land in Natchitoches Louisiana, mostly because of the great name, but also because from there we can drift down on Thursday along back Delta roads and into NOLA.

Today's riding sing-along list, by the way, was New Mexico and Texas town name songs--"Weed, Whites and Wine" (yes,Tucumcari is featured in that one) and "I want to go home with the Armadillo, sweet country music from Amarillo and Abilene....." etc. Thursday has gotta be Delta Blues stuff. But what to sing to myself tomorrow while roaming around Oklahoma, Arkansas and the rest of the NE Texas Panhandle? A puzzle indeed. Suggestions would be welcome.