Tag Archives: mexico

Allende to Galeana, Jan. 5 – 7

On January 5th, 2016 I wrote:

We are at a Couchsurfer’s house named Sarmach, in Allende. As usual he (and his sister), are2016-01-05 17.00.26 ridiculously kind and generous. They brought us to a restaurant immediately after we arrived at their house. They took us to a store so we could get some warmer supplies [we’ve been pretty darn cold these past few days!]. They let Dagan buy a blanket, but insisted on giving me a sweater from their house, as well as a ‘tuk’ [a warm hat] for Dagan.

The houses and restaurants were all cold (again, no central heating), so by the late afternoon I was cold through and through. But I finally warmed up once we took a nap in the evening, under piles of thick, warm covers.

Jan. 6th:

I dreamt I looked into my own eyes. I was afraid to hold eye contact with myself, but I finally did. Than I embraced myself. I felt what it was like to hug me. The “other” me started crying. I could feel my back move as I cried. And I realized I was crying too.

I look to this dream as some progress on my path of self love.

handstand in rayoneI am in Rayones today. The sun is shining brightly on the faces of the enormous mountains that surround me on all sides. Tufted titmouses are singing in their Southern, mountain accents. The fronts of their little mohawks are black, and around the base of their beaks is white. [Different than Austin titmouses]

Yesterday Sarmach and Co. drove us up the long, winding mountain road to this town. They brought us to a small restaurant, which also turned out to have two rooms, one of which we stayed in last night.

When we were driving here, just at the base of the first mountain, a new road had been put in. But you couldn’t drive on it yet. There was a big pile of dirt blocking the entrance, with construction signs perched on top. But the side dirt road that would take you around was blocked by a huge semi truck that got stuck in the mud. 

Cars and pick ups were turning around at various points on the dirt road, or they had just given up and parked somewhere. We turned around as well, and parked in front of the dirt pile.

Without hesitation, Sarmach got out and grabbed his archaeological pick [he likes to dig for dinosaur bones, of which there are many to be found in these mountains, he told us]. He began to attack the dirt pile with his small pick. This spurred the other Mexican guys who had been standing around into action. They seized the constructions signs and wielded them like alien shovels. The girls (and me and Dagan) grabbed at random stones or clumps and tossed them aside.

When enough dirt had been cleared, we got back into Sarmach’s Explorer and drove through, creating a path for the smaller cars. 

There was another dirt blockade on the other end of the section of new pavement, but Sarmach dropped down the side of it and around. 

I hope the semi-truck will be gone when they return, because I wasn’t sure how they would climb back up onto the road on their way back, without having to dig through another dirt pile.

Jan. 7th2016-01-07 09.07.15

Last night, while I was journaling in my tent with my light on, I heard the sound of a car coming up the mountain road.

“Do you hear that?” Dagan asked.

It was the only car we’d heard since the one pick up that passed us at the beginning of  our ride from Rayones to Galeana.

“Yeah,” I said, quickly switching off my light. “I turned my light off.”

We’d left Rayones around 1:30 pm that day, knowing that maybe we couldn’t make it all the way to Galeana before dark, but that camping would be an option.

The only road between Rayones and Galeana cuts through the mountains, and is rutted dirt. Some places large boulders lay across the path, other parts there are steep drop offs along one side, and then there’s even the occasional cow. We didn’t see any houses once we left Rayones. Just mountains, some distant caves, and enormous cactuses of many varieties.

At around 3:30, my back rack started making funny noises. I kept stopping to investigate, when I finally discovered the bolt holding my rack on the frame (and, consequently, all my sh**) had snapped in half. One side of the rack was dangling, so to speak.

Dagan had pulled over to wait for me, and was feeding us oranges. 

“My bolt broke,” I told him. “And I don’t have another one.” I swore. “Watson, the bass player for our band, is also a cycle tourist, and he told me I should have a bag of extra bolts, screws, etc. But I didn’t have any bolts at my house, so I just brought screws.”

“I’m eating another orange,” Dagan replied. “You want one?”

“I’ll eat one after I fix this.”

I dug into my panniers and found my bag with lube, screws and a spoke wrench.

“I guess I’ll just have to use a screw to hold this on,” I announced.

Dagan didn’t say anything, so I drew the conclusion that this meant he had no bolts as well.

He held my rack up while I lined up the fender attachments with the rack opening. I turned the screw in, and watched tiny shards of metal fall from the hole.

“Well,” I said, “it’s a screw, but I think it will hold.”

As if awakening from a dream, Dagan peered down at what I was doing and then said, “I have a bolt you could have used.”

“What??” I stared at him, laughing. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I didn’t know you needed one.”

“I said 2 or 3 times I needed one!” I told him. “I took your lack of response to mean you didn’t have any either.”

We laughed and I swore some more. When he did produce a bolt for me, I discovered it wouldn’t work in the hole anymore.

“I think I stripped out the opening with the screw.”

Afterwards, when I tried to put the screw back in, it didn’t really work as well either. Eventually I ended up holding it all together with zipties.

“Great, just great,” I sighed, feeling how wobbly the rack was. “I ruined my bolt hole.” Where the rack attaches to my bicycle is a part of the actual frame, so it’s not just a piece I can replace.2016-01-07 10.54.35

It was an hour later when we decided we should find a place to camp before it got dark.

After some exploration of a relatively flat area, I insisted we push our bicycles up an old horse track (at least it appeared to be a path beaten down by horse hooves), where we would be out of sight of the road.

“Is this really necessary?” Dagan had asked. “It’s not like any cars have driven passed us all day.”

“Even if one car drives up through here tonight,” I said, “if we’re camped right next to the road where they can see us, I’ll feel really  paranoid and probably won’t be able to sleep. I’d rather be out of sight and have the upper hand on any situation that might come up.”

Well, lying in my tent right then, listening to a truck driving up the road and then stopping at a spot that sounded like it was just below us, had definitely gotten my adrenaline pumping.

I held absolutely still.

Dagan, on the other hand, rustled around on his sleeping pad (which, for some reason, sounds like a herd of gastronomically challenged giraffes when he moves around on it), unzipped his tent, and looked out.

“I don’t see anything,” he told me.

“I heard an engine die just a minute ago,” I whispered. “And now I hear voices.”

We both fell silent. So did the two men’s voices I had heard.

“I don’t hear voices,” Dagan said.

Just then, I heard them again, and the car door open and slam. The vehicle began to drive again. The way the sound carried, it seemed like they had turned onto the dirt track and were driving up to our site.

They must have seen my light, I thought, adrenaline squirting into my blood stream at a rapid rate. Why are they trying to find us?

The car drove past. I lay still, shaking.

“Good call on choosing a camp spot on higher ground.” Dagan rustled around some more.

“I think they were looking for us,” I said weakly.

“I don’t think so,” Dagan insisted. “I saw where the car had stopped. It wasn’t anywhere near where we’re camped. We’re in the mountains, so sound carries really far.”

It took a while for me to calm down, especially when I heard a car coming back the other way. It also sounded as though it were up to our camp spot, but it eventually passed us by.

Trembling, I went out and got my pepper spray and gave Dagan his dog mace. We lay in our tents, discussing the possibility–or lack thereof–of our likely demise.

“I don’t feel any fear, whatsoever,” Dagan assured me. 

I was relieved to hear this. It’s easier for me to calm down when my adventure partner is calm. 

“I don’t believe in random acts of evil,” he said. “If someone was desperate enough to find us and steal our stuff, they probably could really use the money.”

“I’m not afraid of my stuff being stolen,” I told him. “It’s just the thought of unknown people rolling up here while I”m exposed and vulnerable. Not knowing who they are and what their intentions are.”

And I don’t relish the idea of being raped, I added silently.

I thought about what the shaman/seer/medium, Elena, had said to me.

“You have an intrinsic belief that the world is not a safe place, because of a past life experience.”

The world is a safe place, I told myself. I am safe. 

I eventually drifted to sleep, only awakening occasionally when Dagan’s herd-of-gastronomically-challenged-giraffes-sleeping-mat sounded.

2016-01-07 09.06.46

Be a sponsor 0f this adventure at Patreon.com/jahnavi  🙂

 

Ramos Arizpe and into the Sierras – Dec. 31- Jan. 5

On Dec. 31st I wrote in my journal:

It’s the last day of 2015.

I feel in alignment with the movements of my soul. It’s hard sometimes, but then I remember to trust that following the directives of my soul will always point me in a good direction.


I’ve been at Ceci and Julian’s
[in Ramos Arizpe] for 3 days and I feel calm and happy.

2015-12-30 18.16.43

Dagan [a Canadian cyclist who is riding from Houston down to the bottom of Mexico] contacted me on Warmshowers and, as I had assumed and hoped, he is someone traveling the same route as me and seeking companionship.

He just finished a Vipassana meditation retreat in Houston, so combined with that and the fact that he’s riding his bicycle across Mexico, I think he’s probably a pretty swell dude.

Things move slowly here, but I like it.2015-12-30 12.27.44 

Lingering at the breakfast table, talking, visiting with in-laws, squeezing babies…2015-12-30 13.06.47

It makes me hope that one day I can stay at home gardening and making crafts, writing and squeezing my own babies.

And on Jan. 3rd I wrote:

I spent New Years Eve with Julian’s extended family, and New Years day with Ceci’s. It was nice. Awesome grandpas, lots of tamales, and some serenading with the mandolin on my part. 😉2016-01-01 13.57.33-1 2016-01-01 16.39.59

Dagan is leaving Monterrey on Sunday, and I can either find my way back into the city to join him, or I can meet him further down the road.

Coordinating at a mountain pass will be a little tricky, but the idea of going back in Monterrey after finally having escaped it is not appealing to me. 😛2016-01-02 11.29.56

Julian, Julian and Ceci became my family away from home.

Julian Jr. was like my little brother.

We teased eachother, tried to steal one another’s food, and Julian never let a day go by without quoting a Shia La Bouef youtube video (“Just do it!!”).

The whole family would squeeze on the couch together at night and watch Jurassic Park, or Forrest Gump (in Spanish!… until I complained about the sacrilege of watching Forrest Gump dubbed, at which they obliging changed it to English…).

On Jan. 5th I wrote:

Today I left the comfort and family fun of Julian and Ceci’s home. They brought me to Villa Santiago [in the mountains just South of Monterrey] to meet up with Dagan.

But first we walked around Monterrey, visited a museum (reminded me of when we would walk around Paris with my grandfather as kids), and they took me to an all-you-can-eat-buffet.2016-01-03 13.11.42

They could quite possibly be the nicest people I know.

We arrived in Villa Santiago around 4:30 pm that evening. Villa Santiago

Once we had located Dagan (which was easy to do, since his was the only bicycle loaded down with gear, including a large, Gerber knife strapped to the frame), I assembled my bags onto my bicycle and hugged everyone good-bye.IMG_1831

Ceci was crying, and I knew I had to leave before I started crying too!

Dagan and I rolled out of the crowded, downtown plaza of Santiago around 4:30 pm. The sun sets at 6:00 pm these days. He had found a couchsurfer for us to stay with in Allende, which is where we were headed.

By the time it was dark, I realized he hadn’t gotten an actual address for the host. But before I could really worry about that, a white van pulled over on the side of the highway in front of us. A Mexican dad got out and waved us down.

He explained in Spanish that it was very dangerous for us to be riding on that road at night. He wanted to follow us until we got off the highway, and bring us to his house to stay for the night.

After some consideration (and after meeting his tri-athlete son), we accepted.

He followed us in the van along the highway, then pulled ahead for us to follow him through the neighborhoods.

When we arrived at his house, he stepped out of the van and his entire family appeared from inside of it as well.

His name is Miguel, his son’s name is Miguel, his wife is Nancy, and his daughter’s name is Natti.

Miguel teaches swimming lessons during the spring, summer and fall.

He and his family set us up in a little room that was next to his enormous swimming pool. We each had our own cot, blankets, water, orange juice, and hot showers.

When we told them Dagan and I had just met that day, they quickly separated our cots and placed a plastic table between them. 🙂

Miguel, Miguel and Natti took us out to eat pizza, which we gratefully accepted.

After hearing more of our stories, Miguel said (in Spanish), “I am so glad to know people like you. It is so amazing what you are doing.

When I saw you riding on the side of the highway at night, I thought ‘cyclists? at night? that’s very dangerous!’

I want my children to learn about being kind to other people. When I told them I was going  to turn around and ask you two if you wanted to stay at our house, they said, ‘What?? Why?’

Now they get to meet you and see how amazing you are, and see that it is good to be kind to people, even if you’ve never met them before.”

We told him that we were very happy to have met him and his family as well.

That night it was a bit chilly (there are no central heating systems in Mexico that I am aware of), but after tossing and turning in my sleeping bag for a while, the ice cubes that were pretending to be my feet eventually melted.

The next day it was grey and chilly.

We ate breakfast upstairs in Miguell and Nancy’s house.

They piled our plates with eggs, avocado, tortillas, pan dulce, papaya and apples, and poured us a steady stream of ‘cafe con leche’.

Their generosity towards complete strangers astounded me.

Later, when Dagan and I decided we would find the couchsurfer in Allende to wait out the cold weather, Nancy brought us each a neatly packed sandwich with 2 cocao puff bars each. She insisted we take down her number so we could call them if we needed help or wanted to come back and stay there longer.

Allende
Allende

I will never forget them!

P.S. You can be a part of my adventure at Patreon.com/jahnavi

Peace in the Middle East (of Mexico)

Hello dear friends and family,

Just a quick update:

Many people have been concerned because the last post I did ended at a scary moment for me.

I am safe and happy now, spending a week here in Ramos with my wonderful hosts Julian and Ceci.

In a couple of days I head south towards Real de Catorce, and I will be meeting up with a Canadian cyclist, Dagan, who also happens to be going a similar route as I.

So it would seem the universe has shifted to meet my needs, and sent this traveler to be my companion for some unknown period of time!

Also, there are no more massive Mexican cities on my travel horizon. Monterrey is the second biggest city in Mexico.

So it’s all good in the hood.

Don’t worry, be happy! 😉

P.S. This is my current, projected route for the next couple of months…

Screen shot 2016-01-01 at 3.37.54 PM

San Antonio, and headed to the Border…

On December 20th, 2015 I left Cibolo, TX and made my way to Rohn’s house (a friend of a friend of a friend) who lives near San Antonio.

When I showed up at his door, we hung out by his pool-converted-into-a-fish-pond and talked about life, death, birds and cats.

rohn's pond

rohn's kitty

Then I took a nap to give my concussed brain a rest.

That night we spent some time with Jocelyn (she’s the friend of a friend who found me Rohn to stay with) and her family.

FXmKeBlFUbCXIBv6SEm4kuAVYVLCWq0QVsD2paNUVII

Then we hit the town on bicycle, to see the beautiful lights along the San Antonio River Walk, and narrowly avoid running over oblivious pedestrians as they stared at their phones (or the beautiful scenery around them).

san antonio riverwalk

The next day I had to decide whether I was letting Addison drive me over the border in Laredo, or whether I would just cycle the whole thing.

On one hand I didn’t really want to cross the border alone with a big pile of gear and then ride the semi-truck infested toll-road from Laredo to Monterrey, with naught but cactuses and muffler exhaust for company for 3-4 days…

But on the other hand, I didn’t want Addison to have to bring our car through the border and then have to drive back from Monterrey alone.

What if the Narcos got him??

After meditating with Rohn and his tiny cat…

2015-12-21 09.26.13 (1)

I packed up and we headed downtown to a coffeeshop.

During coffee and breakfast, Rohn told me about the video project he wants to embark on (I’m hoping he’ll set up his own Patreon account so I can support him!) about the history of San Antonio beginning 20,000 years ago.

I bid Rohn adieu…

tetNEJC4VLL4byuFnsTIkQsB1sr3sJFAbvkOazgrR2U

…and pointed my bicycle in a southerly direction (I hear that’s where Brazil is!).

For some time I was trapped on the river walk because after I had gotten myself deep into the heart of the city and the river walk, stairs appeared in all directions and I couldn’t find a way out.

A kindly young lady (who worked for the park) gave me directions, and I told her and a mom and her son what I was doing and they all gaped appreciatively. If there’s any reward for what I’m doing, at least seeing people’s expressions when they find out where I’m headed is rewarding enough! 😀

By the end of the day I found myself on I-35 Frontage Road, watching the sun begin to set. I knew I should find a place to sleep, but I was really enjoying riding and wanted to keep going!

(coincidentally, it was the shortest day of the year, so it definitely felt like daylight had run out too quickly!)

Just then I noticed a man in a black leather jacket standing on the side of the highway with his motorcycle. I smiled and waved, at which he began to yell and wave his arms and run towards me.

It turns out his motorcycle had run out of fuel and he needed to use a phone to call his girlfriend.

Once he’d made the call and I told him what I was up to, he shook his head in disbelief but then said, “I want to come with you!”

“You can!” I laughed. “I’d love some company getting over the border.”

“Yeah, but I’d be riding that,” he pointed at his motorcycle.

I nodded. “You’d be going quite a bit faster than me, that’s for sure.”

When he asked where I was sleeping that night and I said, “I don’t know yet”, he told me the road I was headed to next didn’t have much of anything on it.

So after saying good bye to him, I turned back to the last town I’d seen and rolled up to the first church I could find…

‘La Iglesia de los Hechos’.

I knocked on some doors but no one came out.

I called the number on their sign and a woman answered.

“Hola,” she said.

“Hola,” I replied. “Habla ingles?”

“No… Pero hay una mujer aqui que habla ingles. Solo un minuto…”

After a second, another woman picked up the phone.

“Hello?” She had a thick Spanish accent.

“Hi!” I said cheerfully. “My name is Jahnavi and I am on a bicycle tour right now. I’m riding from Austin to Brazil and I am outside of your church right now. I was wondering if I could set up my tent next to the church to sleep tonight. I don’t need anything else, just want to have a safe place to sleep.”

I could tell she was still trying to grasp what I was saying to her when she said, “You… want to sleep at the church?”

“Just outside, in the grass,” I said.

“The house where we have guests is full. A family from Mexico is living there. They have nowhere to go.”

“I don’t need a house, I have a tent.”

Finally she called the Pastor, who was inside the church at the time.

He came out to meet me and stared at me and my bicycle.

“Como se llama?” I asked after telling him that I just needed a spot to set up my tent.

“Salvador [and then a long string of names I can’t remember] Pastor.”

We shook hands.

He showed me into a building that was under construction. There was plaster dust and boards everywhere, but it had a door that locked, and windows that opened.

I was thrilled.

“Muchas gracias!” I told him. “Es perfecto!”

Salavador Pastor looked at me then with what seemed to be a mix of horror and pity. The fact that I was traveling alone and was so thrilled to be pitching my tent in his empty construction area, seemed to baffle him.

When he left me there, I found a room without boards and tools in it and set my tent up there.

1LCT83o7v3yTRX3A7JKJH-pTYuSTd6ZfKFKO9yzY1Mg

I also plugged in my devices to charge along the wall, before heading over to a Subway that was around the corner.

Vegetables are hard to come by on bicycle tours, so even though they were Subway vegetables on a foot-long sub, I was delighted. They were colorful and crunchy, and I even got to have some guacamole on my sandwich.

While I was eating, I noticed a brand new pick-up truck pull in. It was done up to the nines: lifted, shiny rims, guard-rail, etc.

I thought, Wow, that is such a big, fancy truck… If I was a native person who hadn’t seen cars before, I would assume that some kind of god would step out of it.

When the door opened, a small, portly man in baggy clothes plopped out. He looked haggard and stooped, and his health appeared to be anything but good. He spat out a watery glob as he headed into Subway with his two overweight children.

I stared at him and then at his his truck.

For a moment I had this feeling that the truck had stolen his soul… He must work so hard to maintain that truck and keep up with payments, I thought. What if he chose to just invest all that time and money into healthy food, exercising and taking a vacation out in nature once in a while?

I pondered this as I headed back to my empty building.

I didn’t sleep so well, because apparently, in this tiny Texas town, it is a ritual to hit the gas when you’re driving through a certain intersection, spin out your wheels, and gun it all the way to the highway… only between 2-4 AM.

Around 4:30 AM I drifted to sleep.

At about 8:30 AM, Salvador Pastor opened the door to the building and called in.

“Hello? Hello!!!”

“H-hi…! Hello!” I responded blearily.

“Are you okay?” he yelled.

“Yes, yes! I’ll stop by the church when I’m up,” I told him.

“I just wanted to know you’re okay,” he said, and then shut the door.

_9oiStoJhvMKWuXFOTFpZQkxucoAf2tT6scp6EeVNFc

After I had been up for a while, a Mexican man appeared at the door.

“Hola, buenos dias,” he said.

We were able to communicate by gesturing wildly and inserting random english or spanish words into sentences.

His wife had come by when I had been at Subway, to invite me to sleep in their house and eat dinner with them, but I wasn’t there.

He wanted me to come to the house and drink coffee, use the bathroom, and stay for another day if I wanted to.

I did use the bathroom and drink coffee with him. He showed me pictures of his four sons, all strapping young men who depicted themselves shirtless and flexing, lifting weights or posing in a backwards baseball cap.

He was so sweet and kind, that I wanted to give him our album (The Love Sprockets: Nobody Wants to Die) and my contact, and to figure out how in the heck to say ‘tent’ in spanish.

(google translate was telling the man that I had slept inside my ‘cottage’ that night, so it was cool)

I called my friend Negro/Felipe who speaks fluent spanish and asked him to be our translator via speaker phone.

I brought the album to the man and held the phone up, feeling relieved as Negro babbled in spanish to him and helped me explain what I was doing and what the album was.

It was Dec. 22nd. The sun was warm and pleasant as I continued riding south around 11 am.

Addison was coming to get me from Austin that day, and I wanted to ride as far as I could before he caught up with me.oG1NSaLmgmXLscmGqeN5ljPU7PpJRwghbh1Oh0XwQ_0

I listened to music and to my spanish lesson, pedaling along cheerfully. I stopped in the shade of a bank to eat food and greet the people who pulled into the parking lot to do their banking.

I rode on mostly back roads, listening to birds and bugs and rattling along on the uneven pavement.

By 5:30 pm I had managed to go almost 40 miles and I was ready to stop. I knew Addison was close by, so I pulled into a gas station and waited.

I felt so happy.

luBv4xBMsXOVpryBkqKD5i8ZQZU5ZbncRvZNhD0qIMQ

Next stop? Laredo and the border…


	

Riding Through 8 (or 9) Countries — You can come too! :)

I have some exciting news that I wanted to share with you!

It’s about Addison and I finally setting up a place at Patreon.com where you can join me on my adventures…

Patreon is an online community which supports artists on a monthly or by project basis.

It’s a way that you can be a sponsor of your favorite artist by donating as little as 1 dollar a month!

I’m thankful for this community, because now I have a way to be a patron for other artists as well as receiving support for my own projects.

Thanks to Addison’s unswerving attention to creating this page and video with me, I now have my own Patreon account!

Hooray!

Click here to watch the video, etc:

https://www.patreon.com/jahnavi?ty=hScreen shot 2015-12-15 at 11.27.07 AM

Imagining my way in and out of imaginary disaster

All hail the unruly, wily mind that is comparable to a flame: never ceasing to move, always changing and transforming!

I am sitting in the Black Hole Cafe in Houston, TX right now, after a restless night of sleep in my aunt’s guest bed.

Last night Addison and I arrived in Houston and stayed up late with Aunt Michele, playing her songs with guitar and mandolin that made her weep.

And as we lay in bed last night, I shifted, tossed and turned, unable to drift into sleep. My mind just won’t STOP!

I lay awake thinking about Addison and how dear he is to me.

When we play music together, it’s as if the world around us falls away.

We sleep in the same bed at night, tangled together with arms and legs wrapped around one another, as have almost every night for the past three years.

What am I THINKING?? Why would I leave Addison for 6 months to a year?

My mind drifted to a few days earlier, when I had panicked and almost bought a ticket directly to Sao Paulo, Brazil. What if I spend all this time biking through Mexico and Central America and never actually make it to Brazil? I had thought. What if, when I arrive in Brazil via the Amazon river, the border patrol doesn’t let me into Brazil and I have to go all the way back the way I came, sweating and writhing around in a hammock on a slow moving boat in the sweltering heat?

I had considered just flying to Brazil and then biking back.

Then I did a yoga class with my favorite Black Swan yoga teacher, Dave, and I calmed down and felt resolved to leave from Los Angeles again.

Finally, after all that thinking, I drifted to sleep.

Only to awake again at 5 am, thinking about how I’ll need a 4 ft or longer cable to lock my bags together on my bicycle when I need to step into a convenience store to buy food during my trip. There won’t be anyone to stand outside and watch my stuff like when Addison and I biked from Vermont to Texas and had eachother’s backs. I’ll have my brand new gopro camera with me, and a world of supplies to get me through my long journey, all on my bicycle and easy for anyone to steal if they decide they want to.

Then my mind drifts to the mace I will carry with me. Should I hang it from my handlebars so it’s within easy reach at all times?

I imagine three men attacking me at once to steal my stuff. I see myself spraying one in the face with mace, and then quickly turning to spray the second one. But what about the third one that’s coming up behind me? And will they just writhe around once I spray them, or do I need to kick them in the nuts as well to keep them down? What if my stuff is all over the place when they approach, and I have to try to quickly pack it while they claw at their burning eyes, and then ride away? Or should I just run and leave the stuff?

When I finally got out of the bed this morning, I felt like I’d run a marathon.

Gosh, I am exhausted. 😀

Well, the fact of the matter is, none of that is happening right now.

What IS happening, is I need to pack my computer up and go play music live on KPFT Houston. The Love Sprockets are on at noon, central time.

Click here to tune in: http://kpft.org/listen/

And thanks for reading this post! Sorry it was a crazy one, but that’s how I’m feeling right now! 😀