Days 372-375

It was finally time to leave Patricia and get back to my trip on Monday May 18th (Day 373). The night before was tough – the nights before I leave her usually are. Stress from the rain storms, the dog pack and my impeding separation made us both short on patience and emotionally raw. We started arguing and I decided a walk around town would do us both good. I was out long enough that I decided to get a motel room so that I wouldn’t wake the dogs up and as a result Patricia. Even though they know me really well – at least one will start the whole pack barking and as you can imagine it’s really annoying.

Note: a man walking on the edge of the main road through town, there are no sidewalks, will get the police called. Just as I was at the motel driveway a nice young office pulled over to ask me what was up. I explained no car and the desire to stay in a motel and after a few other pleasantries exchanged he was satisfied I wasn’t up to no good. Ah, small town life.

The next day as Patricia was driving me to Comfort we talked it out, apologized for being short with each other. I’m getting better at the whole arguing thing, that is knowing when to fight it out and when to walk away and resolve it with a cooler head. Or even when it is an argument to relieve emotional pressure and there isn’t an issue to resolve. It has been and still is a learning process that only in my 40s I’ve started making progress. Resolving interpersonal conflict is the bane of human existence and few people seem to do it well. Especially when it involved a man and woman. Insert a thousand jokes here…

The next two days were mostly a wash. I was staying in a budget motel on the outskirts of town near the US-87/I-10 interchange. There is no more alienating experience for a cyclist/pedestrian than trying to walk/ride around this type of place. Lots of concrete, fast traffic, no place to exist really and constant white noise of rubber wheels on the roadway. Blah! My version of personal hell if overcast skies and rain are added making the road noise a thousand times louder.

I was decompressing from being with Patricia. My head and heart felt desiccated and stiff. I crawled under the covers and slept for two days while occasionally getting up to work on editing the video piece about Colen and PWB Transport. Interspaced with listening to NPR podcasts about politics and the Middle East conflict. Nothing like adding depressing in depth news stories to being morose. I could try watching comedies are something next time.

After two nights of sulking it was time to ride to Kerrville. It was a quick 20 mile ride. I passed a historical marker for an armadillo farm (pic) and got to the massive Kerrville-Schreiner Park that is maintained by the city. After setting up camp I went to see The Museum of Western Art a few miles away. I only had an hour and could only take a picture of the art outside (pic), but had a great time seeing the place with docent, Fred Egloff. He is a self taught historian and sports car enthusiast. He gave me a copy of his book on a gun fight in El Paso between 4 men called – El Paso Lawman. I haven’t cracked it open yet, but hope to before getting to El Paso. He ended up getting a key to the city for his efforts at correcting the record of the event using original sources. Thanks for the book Fred.