Day 5

Day 5 – Wednesday
Breakfast in Oberlin. My mom describes this kind of meal as ‘food’, it keeps your belly button from touching your backbone, but that is about it. Not bad, but just basic ‘food’.
10:00 DeRidder, LA. 1,710 miles on the ODO. 3.2 gals.
12:24 pm, Wells, TX. 2.8 gals. Stopped next door at the Dairy Queen to cool off and take a break. We all agree that we’re glad to be out of Louisiana; people there very unfriendly, almost grumpy. The roads aren’t great and the heat and humidity were very draining.
3:26 Crandall, TX 1,975 miles on the ODO. 2.74 gals
Ray calls Karen for direction to a boot store. Chris calls Kathy for directions to a campground. Again, thanks to our support crew at each end.
Hi-Ho Campground for the night. The manager tries to charge us each $12.00 per tent; for $36 we can almost justify a motel. We reason with the manager and she only charges us $24. Talking to her, I find out that she is originally from Flint, MI where my Dad’s family is from and she grew up about ½ a mile for my Grandparents house.
She recommends a restaurant and we get the camp set up prior to going to eat.
This is the earliest we’ve gotten camp set up. Every other night, we’re setting up in the dark. Tonight, we’ve got the bikes unloaded, tents set up and gear stowed before 5:00 pm.
Dinner at the Acapulco restaurant in Desoto, TX.
Chris and Dan go back to the campground and Ray is going over to WalMart to get a bigger tent, some laundry soap, a battery operated lantern…
Our plan tomorrow is to pack up, head over to a Cycle Shop (Dan still needs a tinted visor for his helmet, Ray wants a cruise control, and Chris is looking for a different pair of gloves – starting to develop a strange tan on the back of my hands)
We’re then heading for the Boot shop found by Karen and then heading toward Amarillo, TX and the Big Texan restaurant: that 60 oz. steak doesn’t stand a chance against us.
We’ve been very lucky with the weather; other than the heat and humidity it’s been completely dry the entire trip. As we approached Dallas this afternoon it looked like rain, but the clouds blew out by the time we set up camp. The humidity here in Dallas is way lower then Louisiana. Looks like a good sleeping night.

I can't seem to find my USB cable to transfer pictures. So, tomorrow I'll either find or buy one and post a blog mostly of the last couple of days of pictures.

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