A Glimpse of Texas

"Did you enjoy the peaceful Texas night?" Rogue asked me a little before sunrise. Between the lights from the gas station across the street and the bar, the swish of constantly passing cars and the roar of motorcycles going in and out of the parking lot, sleeping had been a little trying.

Beaux Jangles "campground"

"Meh," I responded, and walked across the street for coffee. I also used their bathroom mirror to put in my contacts. I'd attempted to do it without one the day before, and had inadvertently spent the day wearing only one lens and wondering why my vision was so screwy.

We skirted Houston to the north and got on 290 toward Austin. The first thirty or so miles were shitty; there was construction happening everywhere, and the lack of breakdown lanes combined with lane shifts and a generous helping of tractor trailers made for some very risky riding.

"It's a really balls-to-the-wall way to ride," Rogue observed. "Because if anything happens, there's no way out, so it's like, well...here we go."

If you're unfamiliar with Buc-ee's, I recommend the experience.

At an otherwise-uninteresting gas stop, we were approached by a man from New Orleans. He called me babe and then seemed to notice that I was bristling, because he quickly went on to say, "In New Orleans, everyone calls everyone else babe. Even the guys. When I moved to Texas," he laughed, "They warned me, Now don't go calling a cowboy babe!"

Those are the kind of weird travel tips I just love. I can't imagine finding that in a guidebook, but it's important and relevant all the same. It also gives a more interesting taste of the human culture in an area than a careful analysis of the quality of the steak at Whatsnsucha Restaurant.

In Rolling Rock, we were early to the apartment complex where Rogue's friend Lauren lives, so we found a spot in the shade and relaxed on the grass. It was a beautiful day - hot in the sun, but lovely under the tree. We watched several people enter the main building carrying number-shaped balloons, gifts, and a cake for what was either a 30th or an 03rd birthday party.

Lauren arrived looking very Texan in a truck, a big hat, and big boots. She brought us up to her apartment and put together a tray of cheese, sausage, and grapes while we took turns showering.

"So much better," said Rogue afterward, in the tone of voice of a person who has stepped into a warm house after a week outdoors in winter. For me, although the shower was lovely, slouching on a sofa was the really amazing concept. That and the grapes. Lauren said they were cotton candy grapes, specially bred to be extra tasty. I mowed through enough of them that Lauren gave me the bag when we left, saying I would clearly get the most enjoyment out of them.

Light 'em Up

There was a bikini bike wash at the rally. Rogue brought Hades over, I popped her up on the center stand, and we took some soap and scrubbed out the sipes in the back tire with toothbrushes. Drewbag had advised me that the oil could be flinging out from the sipes and causing the poor handling on wet roads. There wasn't any way to test her out in the dry weather, so we did the job and hoped it would help.

When dark fell, the bikes with decorative lights on them were lined up in the parking lot to shine for passerby. Rogue and I chatted for a while with the owner of a red-lit, red-painted Harley.

"You know, the woman who got the award for longest ride came like 1,700 miles!" he told us.

I laughed and pointed at Rogue. "You're talking to her."

"Wow!" he said. "Really."

The two of us were sitting on the concrete bench between the vendor and the sound stage when a petite blonde woman in a blue-and-white plaid button-down sat next to me. I don't remember which of us said hello first, but within ten minutes she and her husband had adopted us as their new kids. The group of us talked about home, bikes, travel, family, attacks and self-defense, wine, cooking, and personal identities. She told us we had to come stay with her the next time we were in Texas and we swapped phone numbers.

Neither Rogue nor I were really in party mode, so when the band shut down the stage and started packing up their instruments, we headed for our nylon home on the bar lawn. I was strolling toward bed after brushing my teeth when Melinda caught me. We hadn't seen our first group of Texas buddies since lunch at Cheddar's, and it was fitting to see them off on Saturday night. The rally was scheduled to run through Sunday, but we wanted to get to Austin to see a friend of Rogue's, and everyone we talked to predicted that Sunday would be boring anyway.

"I'm sticky," Rogue whined upon entering her sleeping bag. "I almost want to pay the $7 to shower at the truck stop."

"We can shower at Lauren's tomorrow," I reminded her.

"But I'm sticky now."

I had to laugh. I didn't enjoy being sticky either, but I'd thrown it in the fuck-it bucket with all the other standard annoyances of road life - refitting my earplugs, bandanna, and helmet at every stop, unpacking and repacking everything I had with me every night, the inability to call someone without coming to a full stop and removing a lot of gear, the generous coating of dead bugs on everything. Being disgusting is an expected part of the package.

Lace, Grace, and Gears: the Rally

Our first morning in Texas was warm but dewey; the tent and the bikes were dripping. We put on jackets and headed to the airport where the parade was staging. The agenda said that KSU (kickstands up) would be promptly at 9am; around 9:15 the leaders actually started moving, and Rogue and I, somewhere up in the 500s in line, rolled out around 9:40. There was a lot to look at, but they asked us to stay on our bikes, so I tried to get comfortable.

The "parade" was really a ride, which was great by me. Actual parade speed is brutal on bikes. We strolled about 60 miles in total, south out of Beaumont and back again, grouped into sections of a hundred or so riders. Our procession was led by a road guard on a Spyder.

I was a little surprised when we entered highway 10 and discovered that the police had actually shut down the interstate for us. Cars were stopped just before the entrance ramp, and a cop was waving us on with a grin. As we processed, we found some groups of people on the side of the road, waving and taking pictures. At major intersections there were more cops, and all of them waved happily at the biker parade.

Our goal was to break the world record for the number of lady bikers together in one place at one time. That record was 1,002, set in Australia. At a final total of 806 ladies on 624 bikes, we didn't quite get there, but we did set a new US record.

We got crawfish etoufee for lunch from a food truck, followed by beignets, which coated us thoroughly in powdered sugar. Full of fried food, we headed to the open space in the parking lot, where a large man wearing the biggest sun hat I've ever seen was running bike games. There was a slow race (who can ride the slowest without putting their feet down), a keg roll, a challenge for passengers to retrieve and then replace tennis balls from the tops of cones, and a weenie bite (the passenger has to eat a hot dog hanging from a string while the bike is moving).

Rogue and I participated in the road kill challenge, I driving Bee and she riding backpack. They scattered some stuffed animals on the ground, and she was handed a butterfly net and told to pick up as many as possible. We didn't do well, scoring only one catch because I ran most of the animals over rather than rolling along beside them. It was worth it just for the laugh, though. And to hear a man near the entrance tell me, "You have one of the nicest-looking bikes here."

At 4pm we wandered back to the stage as promised. I bought some pulled-pork sliders and we were about to dig in when the emcee asked for Rogue. She headed for the stage and I followed with my camera out, leaving the sandwiches in the guardianship of a potted tree.

"Rogue here learned to ride two months ago," Sunhat announced over the microphone, while Rogue grinned and looked awkward. "And then she rode here, from Massachusetts, 1,700 miles in four days. Can anybody beat that?"

One woman came up and said she was from Michigan, but when questioned about her route, said that she had taken "the long way." Sunhat, who had lost the hat by that time, waved her away. No other challengers appeared, so Rogue was crowned the Longest Distance Rider and given an adorable handmade replica of a motorcycle, about eight inches from tip to tail and intricately detailed. Both of our first thoughts were, How is that going to get home?

Whine, No Cheese

On Friday night there was a wine and cheese tasting, but the cheese was a lie, so we didn't stay long. I did meet a retired gentleman in a leather stetson who was a member of the Thin Blue Line police motorcycle club, who spent quite a bit of time explaining why there's debate over whether female officers should be allowed to join. From what I understood, the wives of the male officers don't want their husbands fraternizing that much with the female officers. The irony is that the wives are allowed in the club as honorary members.

Rogue was approached by a woman with her same hairstyle and startlingly similar overall appearance. On our way outside as the event cleared, we ran into another woman from Mass. She hadn't ridden in, but she was a long-time rider who enjoyed dirt bikes, which was refreshing.

The crowd as we got to know more of them turned out to be overwhelmingly Harley owners. They were all perfectly nice and we made a lot of friends; it's not a negative comment, but it wasn't what we were expecting. I saw exactly three adventure bikes over the entire weekend, and one of them was mine. There were a handful of sport bikes, including a couple of GSXRs and at least three Hayabusas. But the largest contingents by far were the cruisers and the Spyders. I had the only Triumph in the entire place, and I'm pretty sure Hades was the oldest machine by twenty years.

I'd been looking forward to meeting more people like us, but we were an anomaly even among a thousand lady bikers. When we returned to Beaux Jangles' lawn, two other tents had appeared, belonging to a couple of women on pretty Harleys. There was also a bike trailer; the bikes had been parked beside it and the trailer filled with pillows and other bedding. Apparently my seat-of-the-pants camping style was going to work as well as ever. We could have brought a motorhome and still had room to spare.

The four of us with tents commiserated over our expectation that our group would be much larger. Everyone else had either stayed with friends or gotten hotel rooms, and we were puzzled. I've realized that even people who motorcycle and people who camp are often mystified by the combination of the two.

There was one guy at the wine tasting who was also a new rider, and was so blown away by the entire concept of our adventure that he looked like I had smacked him in the face. He didn't seem to believe my words, so I pulled out my phone and showed him pictures of the loaded bikes, the campsites, and the stove.

"You look like such innocent little girls," he said, and we laughed. From most other people I would've been annoyed by his attitude, but there was something about him that was utterly inoffensive, a kind of innocent wonder that lacked the grating judgment wielded by so many adults.

"Hey!" he turned in his seat and called to friends across the room. "Come here, Scott. You wanna feel small? Check out what these girls are doing."

We repeated our mission statement to Scott and his lady companion, who seemed impressed.

Jimmy had started riding around the same time that Rogue did, and he was on an Indian Scout with what seemed to be the only tan leather seat in the whole crowd. After getting over his initial shock that girls, bikes, and camping can all be facets of one person, he said, "You know what? If you can do it, I bet I can do it."

"Totally!" we encouraged him. I love watching the light of a new adventure spark in a person's eyes. "Get a tent, get a map, go!"

He nodded slowly. "I will," he said, and I believed him.

Crockett Street

Our new friends were headed for an open house at Cowboy Harley, but Rogue and I hadn't yet checked into the rally, so we headed for Crockett Street in downtown Beaumont. In the middle of a barren industrial district with no other people around, Robot Lady informed me that we had arrived.

Confused, I followed Crockett Street until it became Hollywood Ave., and still there were no other bikers in sight. We pulled a U-turn and tried the other direction, but Crockett appeared to end before we arrived anywhere interesting. Idling at a red light, I inspected the digital map closely and discovered that Crockett began again nearby and went off at a strange angle to the rest of the streets. I doodled around a few blocks and suddenly emerged in front of a long row of bikes parked at a curb. Finally.

I swung Bee into the street and backed up to the curb, settling her into place next to a shiny Harley. Rogue rolled Hades up in front of me, then started backing toward Bee. I waved her off and to the right, and she backed toward Bee again.

"More right," I called, hoping she could hear me through her helmet. She stared at me and shook her head as a car came down the street toward her. I walked into the lane.

"I can't do this," she said. We switched places and I rolled Hades in beside Bee.

"I'm sorry," Rogue apologized when I was off the bike. "I just couldn't figure out the angle." It was the first time in 1,700 miles that she'd panicked about anything, and she had fewer than a thousand lifetime miles under her belt before we left. I was impressed it hadn't happened sooner.

A motorcycle is a strange creature, either easier or much harder to operate than a car, depending on the circumstances of the moment. There are a million tiny errors to be made that have disproportionately large consequences, and mistakes are easiest to make at slow speeds. I've dropped almost every bike I've ever ridden, and it's always been the result of some minuscule incorrect steering choice at low or no speed. Kestrel, Hades, and the Hornet have all gone down doing parking lot maneuvers, and Bee got dropped while trying to put a passenger on the back. My feet were on the ground for that one, but she's so tall that the climbing force exerted by a passenger is a struggle for me to handle.

It turns out that Crockett Street is not only a road but also a location; too bad my GPS didn't know that. A fenced-off parking lot with brick sidewalks and cheesy old-fashioned storefronts was acting as home to Lace, Grace, and Gears.

Searching for the registration table, we were greeted by a couple sitting under a shade tent and had our second round of a conversation that we would both repeat innumerable times over the next two days.

"Where are you from?"

"Massachusetts."

"Did you drive here?"

"Yeah, we rode."

"Wait, you rode your bikes? All the way from Massachusetts? How far is that?"

"Seventeen hundred miles."

"Are you serious? How long did that take you?"

"Four days. We camped."

"You camped? All the way here? That's crazy."

When we told them that Rogue had just learned to ride in July, the woman waved her hands and said in her sweet British accent, "Oh my god, you're our newbie. You be here at 4 o'clock tomorrow. Right here, 4 o'clock. Got it?"

Her name was Layne and she was the organizer of the rally and admin of the Facebook group Sisterhood of the Asphalt Ribbon.We agreed to be present for whatever was happening at the assigned time and place, then wandered into the sea of vendor tents.

Beaux Jangles

"You ever been to a Waffle House?" There was one across the street from the hotel, right beside a gas station.

"No, but I've always wanted to," Rogue answered. Before we even got our food, she was as disappointed with the place as I had been last year. "I was expecting IHOP for waffles," she said. She decided the hashbrowns were worth the trip, at least, even if the waffles were crappy. When we were done, I strapped the leftovers to the back of Bee, which for some reason amused Rogue greatly, and we headed for Texas.

Good thing we aren't boring.

After several days running between 340 and 530 miles, 128 felt like going next door. We made one stop, at an odd gas station scattered with knick knacks and trinkets that included a cross made of bullets. Rogue acquired a small plush alligator.

Somewhere in Virginia, it had occurred to me that we had no place to stay in Texas. I'm so accustomed to traveling by the seat of my pants and deciding on a campground two hours before I arrive in it that somehow I skipped the part where I should've reserved some lodging for our three nights in Beaumont. I had to assume that with thousands of bikers arriving from all over the country, all the campgrounds would be full, and we couldn't afford that many nights in a hotel even if there was space. I tried to call the campground listed on the rally's website but there was no answer, and a Google search turned up nothing, as though they didn't exist. Fortunately the address was posted.

"I'm hoping if we get there early enough, there might be a space left for us," I told Rogue. "And if it's full of bikers, we can just ask someone if they're willing to share their site with us." She agreed, and I set my GPS for Beaux Jangles campground.

Just before a stop light a mile off the highway, the device told me I had arrived. Confused, I pulled into the only parking lot in sight, which belonged to a bar. I backed into a space, helped Rogue back in next to me when Hades bogged down in the gravel, and took a look around. There were a couple of bikes in the lot and no campground visible, but the bar was called Beaux Jangles.

It was dark and cool inside, and the bartender greeted us with a smile. I told her I was looking for the campground, and she explained that the bar's owner was allowing his lawn to be used for camping in support of the rally. That explained a lot.

We had arrived plenty early; there was no one else on the lawn, which was long and wedge-shaped, bordered on one side by road and the other by train tracks. We threw the tent down in the middle to claim space, then went to lunch with a group of lady riders from the bar. They led us to Cheddar's, which was less than a mile away. The food was tasty and cheap, and the drink I ordered came in a glass that could've doubled as home for a goldfish.

Debbie, Kelly, and Melinda were all Harley riders, decked out in patched leather vests and pretty sparkly bandannas. Two of them were from Texas and the third had come from either Arkansas or Alabama. We chowed down on croissants, a Cheddar's specialty, and more food than any of us could finish, and talked about how and why we learned to ride.

Booted from Baton Rouge

Back at Farr Park, Rogue rolled out the tent while I cooked dinner. Without much intention we had divided the tasks that way every morning and night, and it seemed to work well as long as I wasn't setting things on fire that shouldn't be. A man emerged from the motorhome next to us and said hello, and we got to talking about road life.

As the sun sank into the horizon, dusty rays came through the trees and shone on the bikes and on the picnic table. Rogue paused her setup to take some pictures, raving about our excellent timing.

Just as the rice was about ready to eat and the sleeping bags were unfurled, an SUV drove up in front of us and a woman got out.

"You have to leave," she told us. "We can't have tents here. I'm sorry to be the messenger, but my boss just told me to make sure you guys get out of here."

I strolled over. "There aren't any other campgrounds in the area," I said. "That's why we're here. You know of anyplace else we can go?"

She pulled out her phone and ran a search, and seemed to find the same results I had. "You're right," she said. "There aren't any. Well, good luck."

"Where are we going to go?" Rogue asked, clearly annoyed.

"Maybe there's something in Port Allen," the woman said. I already knew there wasn't. "But we can't have tents," she repeated.

"Well," I said. "All right. I'll be a while before we can get packed up again." The woman got back in her car and drove off. Rogue and I looked at each other for a long moment.

"I just got all this shit unpacked," she groused.

"There's dinner," I said, with a big fake grin.

We ate and then started rolling things up again. Our neighbor came out and asked what was going on, and we filled him in.

"That's ridiculous," he said. "And they waited until you were all set up and everything."

I started searching for a hotel, but the first two rooms I tried to book were snagged out from under me while I was entering my credit card information.

"The hotels are full because of the floods," our neighbor explained. "Eighteen thousand people were evacuated from their homes."

"Holy crap," I said, glad our situation was only annoying and not disastrous.

"Try Lafayette," he said. "There should be some rooms open there."

"Are you okay with that?" I asked Rogue. "It's another sixty miles."

"As long as I don't have to set up camp again, I can drive all night," she said. I grabbed a room at the Ambassador Inn, bid our neighbor good night, and told the GPS to take us away. On the way to the exit, I deliberately drove over every piece of grass and open campsite I could possibly put in my path, Rogue following with enthusiasm.

At least the night was warm. In an hour we were dropping kickstands in Lafayette, and I was listening to the host at the Inn chatter animatedly about roads, floods, and bikes. Our room was well-appointed, clean and pretty, and they assured us there would be breakfast in the morning.

"We're living large," Rogue said with surprise. "I can't believe this was only fifty bucks." With fewer than 150 miles between us and our destination in Beaumont, we put our feet up and slept in.