Danny’s Ride

Miles: 54.25 Total
Biking Time: 4 Hours, 14 Minutes, 50 Seconds

Total Trip Miles to Date: 1,602.54
Flat Tires: 17
Drew: 13
Danny: 4

We started the day by Danny and I walking next door to a breakfast buffet.  We walk into a virtually empty crowd and chose a table close to the buffet and next to men.  As we start talking about our trip, we learn that one of the men has lost several relatives to cancer.  They were smokers and refused to give up the deadly habit.  As he talked, he had to stop and wipe his eyes.  It was clear just how much finding a cure for cancer was to him.

As the two men walked out, they paid for our bill and wished us the best of luck.  We were amazed at the kindness of complete strangers.  Danny and I finished breakfast, walked back to the hotel to pack and leave.  Ken drove us to where we had finished biking yesterday and dropped us off.  We would be biking 40 miles on Interstate 20 to the town of Wascom, Texas and find a hotel.  This would be the last we will be riding on interstates for the remainder of our trip.  All of the states we travel to on our way to Charleston, do not allow bicyclists to be on the interstate even if they are biking clear across country!

The weather was cool with heavy cloud cover and a 40% chance of rain.  We enjoyed the wide shoulders that Texas offered.  Even with vehicles traveling at access of 70 mph, the wide shoulder gave us plenty of room to safely bike.  Twenty miles into the ride, we pulled off at a Chevron gas station and called Ken.  Danny had forgotten to take some medicine in the morning and wanted to make sure he took it.  As we waited for Ken to arrive, we talked with a gasoline truck driver.  He had two family members fall victim to cancer.  He loved hearing Danny’s story and wished us the best of luck on the trip.

When Ken arrived, Danny took the medicine and we got back on the bikes.  Before making it out of the Chevron parking lot, we noticed the sky directly behind the gas station.  It was black with fast moving rain clouds.  We quickly turned around and headed directly for the motor home.  We put our bikes in and decided it would be a perfect time to grab lunch and wait out the storm.

So, we headed to an Applebees two miles down the street.  As we drove, the rain started coming down.  It rained softly at first but grew harder the closer we came to Applebees.  When we parked, we each ran into the restaurant.  When we made it inside, we were wet but not soaked.  We sat down and ate.  We kept a close on out the windows on the weather.  It appeared the storm was quick moving.  When we finished, Danny and I started to walk outside to check the weather as Ken went to the bathroom.  An employee of Applebees stopped to ask about the Leukemia and Lymphoma logo on our Danny’s Ride shirt.  I explained to her Danny’s story and the purpose of our trip.

At this point, Danny came back inside the restaurant.  We learned that her husband had been diagnosed at the age of 21 with lymphoma and at the point of his diagnosis, it was already too late.  He passed away when their son was only 14 months old.  Danny told her about all of the research the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society does to find a cure for cancer.  Ken gave her a card and she told us she would go on to make a donation.

When we went back outside, the rain had stopped.  We headed back to the Chevron and started biking.  Eighteen miles later, we were in Wascom, Texas.  It was a beautiful town and we were looking forward to grabbing dinner and a hotel room.  Only problem was that Wascom did not see much tourism.  In fact, it saw none.  It didn’t have any hotels.  So, we kept pedaling down Highway 80 East.  Two miles later, we came to the Louisiana state line!  What a huge accomplishment it was to bike across the entire state of Texas.  Ken brought the motor home to a stop just short of the state line and we took pictures. 

In order to get a picture of all three of us together with the sign, Danny asked a woman walking into the drive in liquor store across the street to take the picture.  She introduced herself as Diane and happily agreed.  To get us to smile before taking the picture, instead of saying, “Say Cheese!” she said, “Say Whiskey!”  It worked.  We smiled.

We biked a couple miles further and stopped at a gas station/restaurant.  From there, we found a hotel 4 miles down the road and made several calls to line up interviews with the Shreveport newspaper and television for the morning.  We took a look at the restaurant’s buffet and decided this would be a great place to have dinner.  We loaded up on the food.  During one of my return trips to the buffet, a man said, “You must be over half way by now.”

“We are,” I replied.  “We have come 14 or 15 hundred miles and have under a thousand to go.  It has been an unbelievable trip so far.”  I smiled and headed back to our table.

When it was time to pay the bill, our waitress informed us it had been already paid by an anonmous person.  We were again amazed at the pure generosity of a complete stranger.  Danny and I got back on our bike and road to Motel 6.  As Danny checked in, I checked my tires and found my back tire a little low.  I used the large pump from the motor home to put more air in it before putting it away.  We learned that they did not have internet, so I wasn’t able to post the blog until the next morning.