Day 17-Tues. Nov. 3, Livingston, TX--100 miles

Probably my roughest day of riding yet. The Texas road shoulders are so rough. Basically gravel loosely spread over tar with lots of cracks, bumbs, and debris. It about jarred me to death, and with a hard leather saddle it sure doesn't feel good. It also slowed me down considerably. The smoothness of your riding surface makes a huge difference. When I was able to ride some smooth pavement, I was able to go between 3-6 mph faster without any more effort. I also had so many more hills today. It's about as bad as doing a long mountain climb. Then I had a little head wind most of the day. So I decided to stop early, 3:45pm, and only put in 100 miles. Oh well, I know every day can't be a perfect riding condition day. So I guess I should stop complaining. On the positive side the weather was beautiful, sunny and 72-75. Had some great cooking to eat thanks to Faith, and the Lord kept me safe as the roads have more and more traffic as I go east.
Yesterday, I said goodbye to my last cactus I saw, and today I saw some Spanish moss hanging from trees, and some palmetto growing in the woods. They are a lot of pine trees now, and the woods are about as thick as back home in TN. Only difference is all the trees here are green. I've seen no fall colors. I guess I missed it this year. Too bad! I always look forward to the beautiful autumn colors each year back home.
We stopped for the night in Livingston, TX, only about 80 miles from the LA border! Yeah! Texas is a great state but I'll be glad to move on to another after seven and a half days of riding in Texas--about a 1000 miles. Hopefully the road shoulders will be better in Louisiana.

PS. Sorry I couldn't get any pictues to upload tonight. Sometimes it just won't work no matter how many times I try. To see the pictures go to my facebook page.